It turns out that bigger isn’t always better. Oversized silhouettes have dominated menswear in recent years — Balenciaga’s XXXL hoodies, suits and trousers leading the way — but this season the pendulum seems to have finally swung in the opposite direction. For SS24, designers took cinched-in tailoring to the extreme with teeny, tiny wasp-waisted silhouettes for men. From Prada and Rick Owens to Givenchy and Saint Laurent, waists were nipped and tucked neatly beneath belts, high-waisted trousers and cummerbund-inspired tailoring.
Of course, fashion’s obsession with shrinking waists is nothing new. Waist-cinching corsets for men have been frequently cropping up on the runway and red carpet in recent years. Gender-fluid brands like Ludovic de Saint Sernin and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy are no strangers putting men in pieces that accentuate their midriffs while Bottega Veneta also helped usher in a triangular high-waisted trouser shape for men, a silhouette that has remained consistent under both Daniel Lee and Matthieu Blazy. On the red carpet, celebrities like Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, Troye Sivan and Steve Lacy have helped usher in a new, more experimental era of menswear that blurs traditional gender lines and steps beyond the conventional black or navy suit, offering a counterpoint to the notion that menswear is fixed or boring.
This season’s most dramatic cinched waistlines appeared at Prada, where Raf Simons and Mrs P reimagined traditional workwear through exaggerated shoulders that nipped in to create dramatic, triangular hourglass figures. These silhouettes gave the illusion of snatched waists in ode to the outsized tailoring of the 1940s when belted waists would bring definition to wide-fit shirts and double-breasted jackets. These pieces also referenced the fluidity of menswear and the interaction between tailored silhouettes and the body. “The body is not something you can see as still,” Raf explained, “which I think very often it is in a sartorial sense, it ends up being a very architectural construction and the body is restricted.”
But it wasn’t only at Prada where whittled-down waistlines tied collections together. Sitting just above the abdomen and cinched inwards, Rick Owens’ ultra-high-waisted trousers sucked in stomachs like traditional tuxedo cummerbunds with an added edge. Saint Laurent is no stranger to slim waistlines, and this season, cinched belts that pulled in models’ waists extremely tightly were often worn with oversized shirts and blazers to accentuate their smallness. At Givenchy, too, waists were clipped in with utilitarian harness-style clasps. Meanwhile, London-based emerging label Juntae Kim, crafted shirts and blazers that featured corsetted hems, drawing attention to the waist.
While, to the average guy, these looks might seem daunting, the SS24 menswear runway’s embrace of super snatched waists suggests we could be approaching a new pervasive silhouette that takes the daring features of red carpet dressing like accentuated waists and elongated legs and tones them down for the everyday man. With workwear at Prada, traditional suiting at Saint Laurent and gorpcore details at Givenchy, designers are showcasing how this playful shape can still incorporate aspects of more conventional menswear, perhaps making it more wearable in the process.
Why, you ask? Given the ubiquity of XXXL silhouettes over the past decade, it makes sense that menswear is at last heading in a new direction. You needn’t look further than TikTok to see just how pervasive loose fitting menswear silhouettes have become. Earlier this year, the platform was awash with men sharing how they instantly upgraded their style by simply ditching skinny jeans. But as the skinny suits of indie sleaze start to creep back into fashion, this season’s wasp-waisted silhouettes take this aesthetic vibe shift to the extreme.
Much like corsets in womenswear have been reclaimed as symbols of strength and empowerment rather than oppression, the whittled waist trend also comes from a place of subversion, blurring preconceptions about gendered bodies and proving that hourglass figures can exist beyond womenswear. Menswear silhouettes don’t change very often. Trends take longer to percolate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t date an image from the style of suit worn in it. Throughout history, menswear has yo-yoed between oversized and skinny so it’s only natural that it’s time for a change.
Indeed, as menswear continues to broaden its horizons beyond what has recently been the norm, the experimental, androgynous potential of the whittled waist silhouette is as vast as the waistlines are tiny. These exaggerated proportions feel playfully camp, but integrating them into your everyday wardrobe can be as easy as investing in a good belt. Whether this trend is a reaction to the longtime reign of larger-than-life silhouettes or the next step in blurring the lines between gendered tailoring, it’s time to suit up and suck in.
