dressing Archives - usatoday24

Gen Z men are embracing “old money” dressing

January 24, 2026 by usatoday24

Lately, the Instagram algorithm registration has changed. Where once infinite-soled sneakers and sweatshirts with logos that screamed from a mile away dominated, now there are movie videos, martinis served in cut-crystal glasses, and twenty-year-old boys who look like they’ve stepped out of a film set in the late 1950s. They’ve left behind the uniform of hypebeast to dress like Paul Newman on a yacht on the Riviera or like a young JFK Jr. on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s not just a wardrobe choice, it’s a symptom. As CNN explainswe are facing an “intentional, defined by moderation” change, where young men align their clothing with the way they want to be perceived today: as men with purpose and control. But behind this facade of neatness, lies a much more complex narrative about fear of the future and a worrying ideological drift that has been found in the Barbour jacket. his definitive banner. The change is palpable in the data. According to Lyst trends reportglobal demand for quarter-zip sweaters (quarter-zips) increased 31% by the end of 2025. Similarly, searches for the iconic loafers Le Loafer of Saint Laurent rose 66%. But if we look further, the data from the technology consultancy Heuritech They are revealing of this conservative turn: searches for boots with an equestrian aesthetic have increased by 39% and gingham prints, typical of the 1950s, have grown by 33%. The language of success is no longer streetwear disruptive; now it is “quiet luxury”. This trend has jumped from the catwalks to lifestyle. According to Business InsiderGeneration Z is “storming” golf courses, a sport that has historically been the playground of the mature elite. Interest has risen 30% since 2016, and in 2023 more than 3.4 million young people played for the first time. It is no longer just about clothes, but about inhabiting the spaces of exclusivity to, As some experts point outnot to be left out of the “business conversations” that occur in the greens. A piece that marks the change On this aesthetic chessboard, the king piece is the Barbour jacket. It was born in 1894 to protect fishermen and sailors, but now it is part of a different identity sign. Margaret Barbour understood in the 80s that the future of the brand involved capitalizing on its connection with the old money, achieving that Queen Elizabeth II and the then Prince Charles made it the symbol of the British rural aristocracy. In Spain, this return has taken a specific form: it has become the aesthetic fever of the right-wing kids. What was once a functional garment for the countryside is today a status symbol in the city that visually separates those who long for a traditional order from those who transitory fashions follow. The Barbour, with its paraffin smell and tartan lining, functions as armor that projects stability and class membership, even if the wearer does not own an acre of land. This turn does not occur in a vacuum. It coincides with what academics like Vivek Chibber define as the sunset of “wokism”. After years in which brands focused on social activism (from Black Lives Matter to Bud Light’s trans campaigns), the pendulum has swung strongly Towards the conservative side. The corporations they are dismantling their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs to avoid boycotts and align with an electorate that rejects “political correctness.” As Nesrine Malik analyzes in your column for Guardianthe fall of woke up is largely due to their “capture by elites.” For Malik, the patrician class hijacked identity politics, turning social justice into an exercise in symbolic gestures and elitist language (such as the use of Latinx or pronouns in bios) that ended up alienating the working class. This “diluted and flaccid version” of social justice, created in the image and likeness of the privileged, has provoked massive rejection. In this scenario, youth are no longer looking for “allies”, but rather authority figures and brands that, like Barbour, represent a tangible and unambiguous moral heritage. Barbour’s collaboration with Chloé is the death certificate of the progressive avant-garde: the aesthetics of privilege are now the only refuge value. A hierarchy of exclusion What we previously knew simply as style preppyfor Generation Z it is now, as defined by GQ“a character you can play.” Inspired by figures like Dickie Greenleaf in The talent of Mr. Ripleyyoung people look for clothes that “reveal that you have, at least, a yacht parked in the port.” However, this interpretation has an ideological “B side”. In his academic research The Fascist Potential of the ‘Old Money’ Trendresearcher Veronica Bezold warns that aesthetics It’s not just innocent nostalgia.. Bezold points out that the content old money On social media, he often portrays “new money”—technological or minority-linked fortunes—as something “vulgar.” By glorifying the “purity” of lineage and inherited wealth, Bezold argues that the trend aestheticizes neoliberalism and connects with radical right narratives of exclusion. A social hierarchy is thus validated where the value of a person depends on their origin and not their effort, feeding a historical amnesia about a past that was only “golden” for a few. The question underlying all of this is: why does a generation that lives in economic inequality dress like the class that ruined its future? The answer is sociological. A report in Curation Edit describe this phenomenon as “survival cosplay”. in a market inaccessible real estate and a bowling economy (gig economy), dressing like an heir is a way of claiming a stability they do not possess. “If you can’t buy a house, at least you can buy cream-colored pants that say you could,” they point out. But there is a deeper power component. As Martina Porta explains in his academic thesis The habitus of politicsthe wardrobe is an institutional communication tool that builds an image of authority. By adopting this style, the young Gen Z seeks to integrate into the habitus of the ruling classes to appear “competent” and “employable” in an increasingly rigid system. It’s a mimicry strategy: if you can’t beat … Read more

An Italian man did not want to be left without his elderly deceased mother’s pension. So he started dressing up as her.

November 26, 2025 by usatoday24

To the civil registry official the alerts they jumped him quickly. The person in front of me claimed to be an 85-year-old woman, but if you looked closely you detected certain details that didn’t fit. His voice, for example. It was too serious and from time to time it seemed to go down several tones. Lugo had the skin on her neck and hands, thick, smooth, very different from what one would expect to see on an almost nonagenarian woman. More than an old woman, he looked like a man in disguise. The civil registry official was quickly alerted. So much so that he ended up notifying the police. And in doing so he uncovered a delusional scam that has cost Italy tens of thousands of euros and now has the country fascinated. A lot of money, few scruples. That the imagination is sharpened when there are bills involved is nothing new. Just as it is not true that there are unscrupulous people willing to do all kinds of nonsense to pocket money that does not belong to them. Last year we told you the story of a Brazilian woman who appeared at a bank in Rio de Janeiro accompanied by the corpse of a man (supposedly “Uncle Paco”) to withdraw 3,000 euros in her name. That case went around the world, but it is not much more bizarre than another that just aired in Italy. As happened in Brazil, there is a corpse and an attempted scam involved, although in this case the staging has been somewhat different. The reason? The alleged criminal did not take the dead man with him, but instead disguised himself as him to impersonate him before the city council. The problem is that the alleged scammer was a 56-year-old man and the person his mother wanted to impersonate was a woman in her 90s. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Who are you? The case has told it in detail the diary Corriere della Sera. A few days ago, an employee of the civil registry in the town of Borgo Virgilia, in Mantua (Italy) found that a neighbor wanted to renew her expired ID. So far nothing out of the ordinary. The woman showed up by appointment and her papers were in order, but upon seeing her the official became suspicious. The woman walked at a slow pace, wearing a skirt, jewelry, painted nails, and an exquisite layer of makeup that apparently tried to hide her wrinkles. In theory he was 85 years old. Or at least that’s what his license said. Her neck, however, was robust, her wrinkles were strange, and her hands had little to do with those of a frail, almost nonagenarian old woman. Not only that. Although she spoke like an older woman, from time to time her tone seemed to drift into deeper registers, registers more typical of an adult man, between 50 and 60 years old. “Isolated from the rest of the world”. The mayor of Borgo Virgilia, Francesco Aporti, explains that this accumulation of details made the employee suspicious, who ended up alerting her bosses and the police. The first alert was raised when reviewing the security cameras and verifying that the supposed octogenarian had arrived at the wheel of a car, something strange considering that it did not appear that she had a driving license. A more exhaustive search also revealed that the elderly woman had not been to the doctor or visited specialists for some time. Neither her nor her son. “It was as if they were isolated from the rest of the world,” says Aporti. There were signed documents and deeds of sale, but either they had been handled directly by his son as attorney-in-fact or they showed a signature that did not seem completely authentic. And the cake was revealed. With all these indications, the authorities decided to set a trap for him. They called the old woman’s house to inform her that she had to return to the registry to complete her paperwork. They were not able to speak with her, but they did speak with her son, a 58-year-old man who assured them that he would notify his mother. Shortly after, the woman went to the town hall, wearing makeup, a skirt and jewelry. On that occasion, however, she did not meet the official who issues ID cards, but rather a police officer who accompanied her to the police station. There the cake was revealed: during the interrogation, the supposed old woman recognized that he was actually her son, an almost 60-year-old nurse who was impersonating her. A corpse in the closet. The next question is obvious: Why? To find out, the agents inspected the house where the old woman supposedly lived, where they found her mummified body in a closet. The woman in question was called Graziella Dall’Oglio and everything indicates that died in 2022 at 82 years old. Instead of notifying the death, the only child decided to keep it a secret, keep his mother’s body at home and continue collecting the pension religiously. According to precise CorriereThanks to that income and the properties his family had, he managed to pocket around 53,000 euros a year. “There were no known relatives. The woman’s husband, a doctor, had died, and the 58-year-old man was her only son. He worked as a nurse, but was unemployed. The last time the old woman was seen at City Hall was ten years ago, when she came to renew her old identity document,” explains the mayor of the town, who confirms that the police are investigating to clarify two points. First, confirm that the body they found in the closet is indeed Graziella’s. Second, that he died of natural causes. A strange case? Strange yes. Uncommon, not so much. Although in this case the protagonist’s lack of scruples and daring stands out. it’s not the first time that the Italian press talks about people who hide the death of a … Read more

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