Whither the 'Metrosexual'? - NYTimes.com Catwalking Burberry Prorsum, by Christopher Bailey, autumn/winter 2013, in London. LONDON - He was definitely male, yet took an inordinate amount of time fussing over his semi-casual clothes. He was an urbanite, yet he might also be super-sporty. He was David Beckham incarnate: hard on the soccer pitch, yet the contents of his closet were marshmallow soft. Now, 20 years on, whatever happened to the "metrosexual"? It is two decades since an article by Mark Simpson, published in 1994 in the British newspaper The Independent, first named this male type. "Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that's where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade," he wrote. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levi's jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he's everywhere and he's going shopping. The male consumer may still be going strong worldwide - reportedly accounting for a big chunk of recent luxury purchases. But as the new men's wear fashion season opened in London this week no one is expecting that faintly girly look with a wisp (or a whisper) of bisexuality is going to dominate the runways. In fact, the opposite is true: A sporty, tough-guy style, with a square-cut sweater to emphasize a burly body, biceps and square shoulders, is much more in tune with today. Farewell, Brad Pitt! Hello, Kanye West! The fact that the big, bold tops are quite likely to have as decoration a belligerent bulldog or a majestic buck, antlers to the fore, just enhances the macho image. It was not so much the fusion of "metropolitan" and "heterosexual" that produced the original fashion change. It was the hint of bisexuality, or more, at a time when it suddenly became cool, or at least quite all right, for a man to wear a salmon pink shirt or lilac sweater on weekends in the city. By 2003, an article entitled "Metrosexuals Come Out" in The New York Times's Sunday Styles section made a clear link with homosexuality. And when the Bravo cable television channel later that year introduced "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," it was recognized that gay presenters could give a fashion edge to a heterosexual male. But all that is over. Men's wear is striding ahead just because it represents a bold swagger. The fact that the London men's collections could come out of nowhere, send up a few shoots via GQ magazine and then turn into a creditable set of shows, supported by the British Fashion Council, proves the power of the 21st-century male: strong, fearless and free of the limitations of convention. The 36 brands on display this week include Alexander McQueen, Burberry and Tom Ford - all companies that in the past presented their collections in other international fashion cities. London is now accepted as a fourth location in an international season in which Italy for so long held the cards, both in Florence, at the men's wear trade fair that runs this week, and in Milan, where the shows start Saturday. Men's style also has become a worldwide player, helped by the explosion of social networking and e-commerce. In 2011, Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter, added a Mr. Porter site for male online sales. So what was the purpose of the metrosexual male of two decades ago? Was the label just a passing fashion whim, or did it really create a forceful style that challenged long-held perceptions of what men could or should wear? Probably its greatest service for the average man was the breakdown of the previous generation's belief that men's wear had to follow a traditional code. Although the tuxedo and the bow tie are very much back in fashion now, there are no longer any explicit rules - like the idea that the blazer is the only acceptable way of dressing down. Today's male is able to embrace grooming such as nail care or hair coloring, which was unusual or even ridiculed by Mr. Average as late as the 1980s. And almost every aspect of day and evening wear has been challenged, allowing the casual freedom of no socks with formal leather shoes or presenting traditional pieces such as the Burberry trench in a vast array of colors, fabrics and textures. Men even are encouraged to put a new slant on tradition, like the buzz that was produced when the 1960s were revamped with pizazz in the television series "Mad Men." The constant factor in modern men's wear is the "maleness" of it all - the mushy metrosexual sharpened up with a cocky strut of masculinity. It certainly is not the return of the peacock male, but the retrenchment of the metrosexual.