Most men, however cocksure of their own style chops, will probably have someone in mind that they look up to, sartorially speaking, and thus try to emulate. That person, however, is probably not their grandmother. Still, something about senior-citizen style seems to have captured a wave of fashion designers, and now, men are dressing like grannies.

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Right… is this apropos of something in particular, or are you just pulling trends out of thin air now?

It’s true! Granny fashion does seem to be a bona fide trend, especially in – weirdly – streetwear circles. Mr Heron Preston, fashion’s current streetwear lodestar, sent male models down the runway at his SS20 show with silky babushka scarves tied about their heads, replete with sunglasses, trousers and shirts in technical fabrics, and bulky space-age backpacks. It was all rather discordant – a little bit like Princess Margaret in the 1950s if she’d been a raging hypebeast.

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That sounds terrifying.

Actually, it’s all rather cuddly. Mr Kris Wu, the Chinese-Canadian actor and singer, showed up to Louis Vuitton’s most recent show wearing a soft-pink cardigan from the brand that was genuinely nannatastic, and it actually looked rather good. Pairing it with some pastel-pink shades, a white bag and a chunky gold chain, it made for a cosy-looking outfit that was nonetheless pretty streetwise.

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Fair enough, that is a fine granny cardie. But is this guy the only person doing this whole “granny fashion” thing?

Also see A$AP Rocky, who’s been tying Gucci scarves around his head and wearing silken gowns since late last year. “I just wanted to show off my babushka today, honestly,” he told Dazed magazine at the time. “I thought it was so immaculate. And I feel like I look so handsome right now with the shades on. I'm just encouraging all guys to wear babushkas from here on out. Silk gang, silk city. You know how we do it.”

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OK, but why? Is this because masculinity has reached peak crisis to the point that we all want to start dressing like the elderly matriarchal influences in our lives?

Er, yeah, sure. It’s also because brands like Prada and the aforementioned Gucci are coming through with brilliantly tactile knitwear (see Prada’s fuzzy mohair-blend cardigan or Gucci’s granny shades), or the enduring penchant for streetwear nuts to wear sliders with socks (which also seems to crossover on the strange style Venn diagram of grandparents and rappers). Then there’s Sies Marjan, a brand that makes beautiful silk shirts that are also quite, well, blousy.

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Does it have a name? Are we calling it grannywave?

I’m not sure yet; after the warcore and scumbro trends, grannywave is a viable shout. But also, we can’t simply stick vaguely music-related suffixes on every trend. We don’t know how long this whole “grannywave” thing is going to last, anyway, right? Right?

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Silk gang, silk city!

The men featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown