Is This The New ‘Frat Boy’ Outfit?

Well, by now, you all have seen these men rompers that just came out and were created by 4 business students at the Kellogg School of Management. If you don’t know what a romper is, it is a one-piece garment of clothing, think of it as your shirt and pants attached…or an every day onesie? Does that make sense? Okay, good!

So, why is this suddenly a thing? According to an interview with GQ, “Daniel Webster Clark, one of the 4 co-founders, was a little tired of wearing the same button-down and pants so they started talking about why they couldn’t build a better product and make a romper available for men that’s cool and fun and different and could have the possibility of becoming a conversation starter, at the end of the day.”

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It Certainly Has Become A Conversation Starter…And Brings Along With It Some Controversy

There seems to be a growing concern over an aversion to “masculinization of style” and gendered approaches to fashion. National Review quoted Claire Fallon, writer at Huffington Post in examining the ‘male side’ to the gender-appropriation of clothing, “‘It’s infuriating that advertisers have come to rely on artificial layers of masculinization to convince men to buy products that should be gender neutral.’ Basically, Fallon’s idea is that women have no problem adapting clothing styles that have traditionally been male-oriented, but men need feminine clothing styles and products to be specifically declared masculine in order to feel empowered to wear them.” But, while this issue may exist, marketing efforts have proven the angle RompHim is using is working as a way to rebrand a ‘feminine’ outfit option.

OriginalRompHIM’s Kickstarter goal once started at $10,000, but it’s now gone up to over $360,000 on their Kickstarter site. So the success coming from these college students is making a big impact.

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