To those who brought back the mullet, hung jeans under your arse and put Crocs on your feet: Die!

FASHIONASSASSINS

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TOXIC TRENDS

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Short Sleeves & Tie Unless you’re in a New Wave revival band and can belt out all verses to I Think I’m Turning Japanese, you may as well just start digging around in the crack of your arse and go into a sales pitch for Amway products. The professional image you project says a lot about your heroes and aspirations. Short sleeves and tie tell people your heroes are Dilbert, Al Bundy and that postal worker who shot dead 27 colleagues in Dull, Ohio, and that your life’s goal is to manage a fast-food outlet. It’s a look that’s not nearly as armless as it seems.

The MulletDavid Bowie invented the mullet as a joke, squeezed between his man-dresses stage and Major Tom’s voyage to Planet Cocaine. In the 1980s the mullet developed into a life philosophy: business

up front, party at the back. That’s fine if ‘business’ involves sealing windows

in speed labs and ‘partying’ means hot laps of the housing commission and sniffing your Ford Cortina’s leftover petrol. Just sporting a mullet makes you poorer and less

intelligent. Once the mark of the bogan, headbanger or fast bowler, the mullet has passed on like head lice to multicultural Australia, making ethnic

profiling easier for police. But don’t underestimate the peer pressure that mullets create—in South Dunedin, New Zealand, persons not wearing a

mullet are executed for treason.

Multiple Gold Chains (a.k.a. ‘Bling’)In the 1970s America, the principle cause of death among urban black and Italian-Americans was gold-chain overdose. Young men began by dabbling with a chain or two, until the addiction weighed heavily on them and they eventually collapsed, their lungs no longer able to function. A fact recorded for posterity in the documentary, I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka. As sure as crack cocaine always makes a comeback, gold chains have returned. They’re no longer as thick as Mr T’s arm, but this is more than compensated for by the crap men hang off them—wedding rings, crosses, dollar signs, Allan Border Medals, the odd ingot. You’ll see them, head down, trying to untangle their gold to relieve the pressure on their trachea.

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Men & Scarves There are three conditions where wearing a scarf is acceptable: You are outdoors and it is below zero; you are riding a motorbike, in sleet, faster than 100km/h; or you are a bear in a children’s book and you have a name like Rupert or Paddington. Still, young metrosexuals have taken to wearing scarves in any season, even indoors. It suggests a lack of manliness, and perhaps neck lesions caused by an auto-immune deficiency. The desired effect of the look is unknown, unless the aim is to look like an ageing French gigolo seeking to service a married man who will throw dirty money at him before bashing his face in with an ashtray. Je ne sais pas!

Prison Jeans Tradesman’s crack is one thing, but these jeans are so low that farts don’t touch cloth. The look took off in 1992 when US gang sympathisers wore them as a shout-out to their brothers doing time, where prison-issue jeans came without belts. Somehow the fashion filtered down to white boys who are more likely to go to San Francisco for the shopping than to do time at San Quentin. Like all the worst fashions, these jeans are totally impractical. At least one hand is kept busy pulling them up, making running impossible, which has Yank cops laughing their arses off. Every month there’s a report of some punk caught hanging upside-down on a fence or tripping on his low-riders in a getaway.

Crocs Crocs are like Dutch clogs for people who are too scared to wear wood in case the trees get vengeful, like in The Lord of the Rings. They were first sold just after 9/11, when buyers figured they were all going to be blown up anyway, so they might as well be comfortable. The world didn’t end, but neither did demand for Crocs. Wearers now flaunt them to express their arty and righteous side, but all the waterproof, non-slip sensible shoes really spell out is ‘incontinence problem’. Some say they’re made from a resin foam derived from Satan’s smegma. Want proof? Last year a Swedish hospital banned Crocs after the static electricity they carried caused malfunctions in a respirator for premature babies.

Half-Head SunniesIn the early ’70s when Elton

John wore sunnies as big and ostentatious as the Sydney

Opera House, even he knew they were daft. We all know what happened next: The glasses sucked

the masculinity from him and he became a snippy

little bitch who married a dude. Now a new

generation of male-biased

androgenies are taking notes from

Paris Hilton, who wears sunnies as big

and square as scuba gear. For guys, the

glasses seem to come with the Paris package—golden

tan, flat chest, bikini briefs and the dumb look of an

IQ score with matching shoe size. Watch next for men carrying unhappy Chihuahuas in a takeaway latte cup as they attempt to

drink coffee from a Tiffany’s bag while crying into blow-jobs

behind petrol stations.