For the last year, culture has fully embraced the penis. We’ve had a talking one in Pam and Tommy and Rory Culkin’s squished one in Swarm. Theo James dropped hog in The White Lotus (a prosthetic), as did Jack O’Connell in Lady Chatterley’s Lover (apparently not a prosthetic!). Hell, Frank Ocean baited us all with a cock ring instead of new music, while Tati Westbrook ripping into James Charles being horny — talking, very openly, about “sucking dick and cock” — has become a viral sound on TikTok, eternally burned into our brains. We can’t get dick off of our mind; neither, it seems, can fashion designers. According to the recent runway shows, dickprints, graphic male nudes and codpieces are all in – or should we say, ‘out’ – for 2023.
“It’s not about shock value,” Thom Browne told Vogue at a preview of his SS23 menswear collection that saw models (faces hidden by phallic-anchors, pulling focus towards their bodies) in pastel low-slung tweed skirts that exposed a sizable amount of jockstrap beneath, and a kinky cowboy wearing an erect codpiece jock fitted with a Prince Albert. “It’s about how much guys can look at and entertain.” At the start of the show a bevy of the brand’s glamorous female clients, adorned in 50s-esque tailoring, frantically ran across the runway in search of their front row seats. Holding their notepaper, their entrance emphasised the flipped gaze of the collection.
At JW Anderson AW23, after his NSFW Tom of Finland collaboration last year, Jonathan collaborated with Michael Clark – the legendary Scottish dancer who subverted the traditional world of ballet with drag, queer fashion and unashamed sexuality. Drawing on both his own and Michael’s archives, and the merchandise queer and punk subculture fans treasure, one t-shirt had a penis outlined in white spray paint against a luminescent green crinkled plastic fabric, as if it was fashioned from a poster. The image, too, adorned a towering billboard on the runway, as a front row of Heartstopper’s Kit Connor, Luca Guadagnino, Naomi Campbell and Edward Enninful posed in front of it — in the shadow of a giant dick.
Steven Stokey Daley’s nautical AW23 collection had shimmering navy silk tees, gowns and neckties with prints of muscular male nudes, like a gender swapped version of the 50s leggy pin-up girls. Additionally, the outline of a naked man was attached to the front of a peacoat worn by Sir Ian McKellen as he opened the show, conjuring a queer version of the lost-at-sea sailor motif – the picture of his nude lover he’d been holding close during a shipwreck plastering itself inseparably to his wet clothes.
Meanwhile at Botter, models had upcycled bicycle seats turned into crossbody and bum bags that, on their side and sitting on the waistband, looked cheekily phallic, the back resembling balls as engorged as those of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend.
Models walking for London College of Fashion MA student Zhongzhi Ding’s collection had the overt outline of a prosthetic boner pressed against their leg. Reminiscent of Lady Gaga stuffing a dildo down her pants on the cover of Q Magazine in response to rumours she was a hermaphrodite, the enlarged, circumcised, silicone dick sat under office suits, sweat-soaked sportswear, leather moto-jackets and other garments often fetishised by queer men. Here, desirability and objectification became an empowered choice that can be put on by all cis and transgender bodies.
While in far less frequency, the recent seasons are not the first time cock has appeared on the runway. For SS14 Walter Van Beirendonck had phallus-printed snakeskin brogues that referenced a horny-on-main aristocratic dandy from 19th Century Italy who wore similar shoes, while Meadham Kirchhoff SS15 had a male model in sheer trousers with no underwear. Tudor-style codpieces were featured in Alessandro Michelle’s Gucci SS19 collection in kinky leathers and were built into pastel garments at Thom Browne’s SS20. History’s most notable runway crotch moment, though, was famously at Rick Owens. For AW15, neck collars were moved to the groin on robes, providing a framed, glory hole peek at models’ swinging genitals. “I thought it was the most simple, primal gesture, and you know I love a simply tiny, little gesture that packs the wallop,” said the designer who was once photographed pissing into his own mouth in the pages of i-D.
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But, as Thom Browne suggested, the latest sartorial offering of dick isn’t about shock factor. In 2023, when fashion is already in its slutty era, penis is all over our favourite TV shows and Twitter’s flop era means nudes posted on private Circles are popping up on main, a dick out on the runway isn’t the “wallop” it once was. Rather, today’s designers are placing the male body openly under a lustful gaze, much like women’s bodies have been throughout history, and normalising the expression of queer desire.
Are these trends likely to filter down from the runway to the everyman’s wardrobe? Probably not. Unless it’s AI-generated, we’re not going to see a photo of the Pope wearing a JW Anderson cock tee anytime soon. But queerness has never been about acceptance or engagement from the mainstream, rather disrupting and being unapologetic in its openness. But who knows, maybe some brave male celebrity will don Thom Browne’s Chanel-tweeds-inspired pierced codpiece at this year’s Karl Lagerfeld themed Met Gala. It’s what he would have wanted.
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Images courtesy of Spotlight