Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Racy Upstart of Savile Row

Hear ye! Hear ye! Oh gentlemen of London, you need look no further for a place where you'll feel woefully, painfully, tragically inadequate! Just take a step right here down to the posh district of Mayfair to find the shopping street Savile Row, renowned for its traditional men's bespoke tailoring!

And this time it's not the perfectly cut suits that would have you feeling sadly deficient in some manner.

No, the unfortunate lack of flawless six-pack abdominals would be the source of unendurable shame instead.

It would be hard not to notice the store just around the corner. Despite the staid, reputable front of the historical building, it would be impossible to overlook the ginormous risque poster of a muscular Adonis with his sizeable package placed conspicuously at the foyer. The theme of male near-nudity - and the inherent homoeroticism therein - seems to be the general interior decorating look they're going for with shirtless teenage boys cavorting blithely on advertisements and murals.

Call!
Abercrombie is here!

And how could we possibly forget the half-naked store greeters! Hunky male model wannabes with the prerequisite six-pack, sublime tan and beatific smile in low-slung jeans.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really good looking.

Certainly not in the eugenics utopia of Abercrombie & Fitch where the unattractive, the overweight and the disabled need not apply. Even the photogenic sales assistants are uniformly gorgeous with blinding white smiles. Not that they could actually determine anyone's looks in the grim subterranean darkness of the store.

Adjusting to the dim interiors had me blindly tottering down the wooden steps utterly disoriented - a fact not helped by the deafening thumpa thumpa club music and the copious amounts of fragrance in the air. Shades of a gay nightclub so hip that it actually hurts. Fortunately the store had plenty of shockingly photogenic store models ready to help.

Somewhere in the dark I saw a brightly luminous smile belonging to an amazingly sublime construct of human male DNA. Now I finally knew what Bel Ami pornstars did as a daytime job.

Sales assistant : Hey what's going on!
Paul : *cough* Is there something in the air?
Sales assistant : Oh yes that's our cologne Fierce!
Paul : What? *cough* I can't hear you over the pounding music!
Sales assistant : Fierce! Would you like to try some?
Paul : *cough* Definitely no.
Sales assistant : How about one of our jeans?
Paul : I'd rather pay to get you out of yours!
Sales assistant : What?
Paul : Nothing. What about this hoodie?

What self-respecting gay man could possibly fail to pay pilgrimage to such a holy site.

Didn't purchase anything though since the prices were shockingly prohibitive. With the exorbitant amount I'd pay for a pair of jeans, I'd expect at least a quick grope in the changing rooms with one of the exceedingly stunning models.

3 comments:

Kenny Mah said...

Me loves the A&F flagship store in Ginza for all the shameless parading of flesh (rather than the actual attire they are selling) but man, if I have to hear one more "Hey what's going on!", I'm gonna have to kill me a male model... :P

Alex said...

I love the one in NYC!

savante said...

Well it certainly does get the point across! But I wish it was brighter with more lights and a lil less cologne!

P