Nine shocking men's fashion trends we should farewell in 2017

The pace of fashion can be exhausting, but some misguided trends simply can't end soon enough.

While plenty of the year's style movements are set to stick around in the new year, these ones should definitely be left in 2016. 

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1. Normcore

Fashion loves to reference itself, preferring to co-opt entire decades at a time. The seventies are having a moment, the eighties were trending for while there and the sixties are always kind of cool. The idea, though, is to take key elements of the time and give them a modern take.

Where normcore stretches credulity is rehashing the worst of the nineties in its entirety; looking like a time-travelling Seinfeld extra isn't a look, it's period costume. Besides, I can't help but think that when everyone in Brunswick is dressed like my 65 year-old father, they're somehow mocking him. Go pick on someone else.

2. Overalls

Frankly, only people under the age of nine, or those hosting television shows for that demographic, have any business wearing overalls as casual wear.

Sure, they manage to look rugged on a worksite and kind of cool on the runway, but that just doesn't translate into real life. Universally unflattering and strangely emasculating, let's just say it's the look that puts the 'dung' in dungaree.

3. Peacocking

Not a trend per se, rather an insidious phenomenon that's emerged ever since someone invented street style blogs and selfies. The peacock is the man who layers everything that's trending on Instagram, adds a pair of OTT trainers (regardless of the occasion) then drapes an obnoxious fur coat over his shoulders to hang around outside fashion shows and art events in the hopes of being photographed. It's because of people like him that normcore happened.

4. Pyjamas outside

There's such a thing as dressing for the occasion and it's a really great philosophy that goes like this: when you pick an outfit, consider where you're going and choose clothes accordingly. Off to the beach? Try swimwear! Going to work? Avoid swimwear!

Now when you start messing with that formula, it just makes it harder for everyone to get dressed in the morning and you end up with a situation where people turn up in ridiculous, inappropriate garb (see: Peacocking). Pyjamas are for lounging or sleeping. Let's keep it that way.

5. Short shorts

You really can't win with men. No sooner had guys finally cottoned on that below-the-knee shorts didn't really work anywhere that wasn't a basketball court, things began creeping a too far in the opposite direction.

The summer runways were crawling with shorts that were skimpy enough to make a marathon runner blush but don't expect them to take off in a big way with regular people. Really, when even the models can't make something look appealing you know it's pretty much dead in the water.

6. Socks and sandals

At some point in 2016 some clown thought it would be amusing to emulate the fashion stylings of a German backpacker circa 1992. The universal pact that socks should never be worn with sandals has been irrevocably broken, another shocking rupture to the status quo this year along with Brexit and president-elect Trump.

Now the gates to hell have been pried opened, the next development threatens to be along the lines of that taking hold in women's footwear, where designers are tricking ladies into paying lots of money for jazzed up versions of ugly shoes like Crocs and Uggs … and convincing them to wear them in public. You've been warned.

7. Tortured denim

Detailing on denim is fine: a scrape here, a shred there. But jeans should not be so distressed as to suffer from PTSD. Having seen extreme distressing make more comebacks than Robert Downey Jr, hindsight informs us that this trend won't last. Better to invest your hard earned in more subtle effects.

8. Ultra long sleeves

To be fair, this one doesn't seem to have caught on in any significant way just yet. Purely on a practical level, sleeves that extend to a primate-aping (see what I did there?) knee length makes swiping your travel pass when you get on and off the bus an exercise in futility.

And how is everyone supposed to walk around buried in their smartphone when their arms end well before their sleeves do? Wait, there might something in this after all …

9. Undercuts

It's essentially the follicular equivalent of sitting on the fence, but in 2017 it's time to man up and quit being indecisive. Cut your hair short or grow it long, but you can't keep having it both ways anymore.

The problem here is that those ratty strands of hair dangling over a shorn skull are alarmingly reminiscent of another much-maligned men's hair 'style': the combover. Yep, the very same look perpetuated by men in denial that they are losing their hair. Pass the clippers.

Any we've missed? Let us know in the Comments section. 

Executive Style

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