Men's fashion week?

Androgyny is in. Call it the Agyness appeal. Marc Jacobs is wearing  skirts, David Beckham is promoting   cosmetics, and Katie Holmes can't seem to stop wearing her husband's  jeans. Aesthetically, we're breaking boundaries, crushing glass ceilings, and ditching our long standing cultural gender dichotomy. 

But gender-bending isn't always as appealing as   David Bowie, champion of both sexes, makes it seem. Take the   menswear line Jean Paul Gaultier showed last week in Paris as an example. Skirts, halters, sequins, and exposed backs pulled together the collection. The  men's collection. But what Gaultier missed is not every man is Marc. And the frat-boy male models with swimmer sized muscles Gaultier chose did nothing but turn the looks into a cruel exercise in irony. 

Perhaps androgyny is a permanent fashion staple and not a passing trend, but Gaultier's over-emphasis on almost cartoonishly feminine clothing seems as dated as the phrase  metrosexual. The lazy reliance on cross dressing is distracting, dull, and unlikely to sell. 

Call me a traditionalist, but I'll take a suit over a skirt every time. Three pieces, please, tweaked with brave subtlety,  Thom Browne style.