Backstage of a Male Underwear Show!

 

What It's Like to Be Backstage at a Male Underwear Fashion Show

"Isn't it always about the bulge?"

 by Lisa Amberson, assistant to Uvenio

I am thrilled and honor to be on the blog/writing staff for Uvenio's growing writing staffs.

 

I showed up to the fashion show for male underwear line 2XIST wearing a Flight of the Conchords baseball tee, black skinny jeans, and shoes that have constellations on them. Everyone else was nearly naked.

 

Downstairs from the trendily lit studio in the Meatpacking District (Get it? Underwear models? Meatpacking? Mhm.), I entered a curtained-off area where dozens of hot dudes surrounded me in a fairly terrifying way. 

 

A PR person quickly pushed me from nobody-puts-Laney-in-the-corner to an interview with the designer of these very tiny man panties, Jason Scarlatti, and I asked him about the latest trends in men's underwear (because what else do you ask a male underwear designer about?)

 

 "Isn't it always about the bulge?" Scarlatti said. "I think men are very stuck in their ways. They get a boxer brief when they're in high school and they stick with it for the rest of their life. If anybody tries our underwear, they can automatically feel a difference. There's a contoured pouch and their butt feels good."
Intrigued by this revolutionary butt technology, I demanded more details. It's about the lifestyle needs of the man, he explained. For example, they have black tie underwear. I asked what the hell that means.

 

"It's called 'The Affair' and it's for if you're going to a black tie affair or a wedding or if you're having an affair; I don't know what you're doing!" he said, which is good to keep in mind because that's a lot of uses.

  

Scarlatti has been with 2XIST for 11 years and says it's a challenging job because there are so few things you can do with man panties. (That's where he's wrong!) Feeling restless, I decided to try to talk to some of the models.

 

 So naturally, I asked them if they had girlfriends. The guy on the left, Ronald Epps, said he did and the guy on the right, Deric Mikens, said no. I asked if they wanted girlfriends. Deric said yes and obviously Ronald was going to say no, but just to be sure, I asked him if he wanted another one anyway. He laughed and still said no, which, good for his romantic partner! Wanting to test their jealousy levels (and since they looked like molded clay), I asked if they thought any of the other underwear models were hotter than them. They took it really seriously, really thought about it. 

 

What seemed like full minutes later, Ronald replied, "There's this one guy here his name is Ronald Epps. He's pretty hot." Get it? It's a male underwear model joke. Deric, however, was a true diplomat, saying, "I think everyone's got their own qualities. Everyone's got their own look. Everyone's got nice bodies, that's why we're here." Aww.

 

With such high, sculpted-clay competition, I wondered if they ever got nervous parading about in their underwear. "I think it's fun, you know, you go out there and you got swagger ..." Mikens began, before Epps jumped in: "It's a little cold right now out there, so there's some things to think about." He's talking about shrinking penises. Let's all consider for a moment. OK, you guys good? Moving on.

 

 When I asked Nikolai if he tells people he's an underwear model, or if he just says he's a model and leaves out the part about his bulge being on display, Nikolai said, "I tell people I work in advertising so it doesn't matter." When I pointed out that was a lie, he said, "But I do advertise," and gestured toward his crotch. This guy is good.

 

 After my mind was throughly blown by that rosy-cheeked liar, I moved on to Miguel (pictured above) and fortunately was able to capture a photo of how throughly confused he was by my not-very-much-about-underwear line of questioning. He was joined by another friend who was definitely hot enough to be a model but was suspiciously clothed and hardly spoke English, so I'm guessing he's a friend from Italian high school. 

 

 At my first question, Miguel stared into space in a hot way, so I decided it was time to get down to the real question: "Why are you hot?" They remained pensive, then laughed, and Miguel responded, "Because our parents, they made very good sex together," which was my cue to walk away.

 

Among the weens, I took a moment to reflect on the remarkable confidence I was feeling. My initial strategy had been going up to the guys who seemed most approachable, but when I looked back at Miguel and his boy-child friend, they looked like Abercrombie models from my youth and I was retroactively terrified to speak to them. I made my way to my seat for the runway show so I could look at them from a distance in better lighting.

 

The lights dimmed, the music thumped, and suddenly the chiseled Ken-dolls-with-penises I had just talked to weren't just hot, naked robots anymore; they were runway models with visible junk bulge! I'd spent so much time backstage averting my eyes from their dong slings that I didn't even realize how much bulge there truly was. It's a lot. A lot of bulge.

 

When I went to catch the train to go home (I was so excited to go home and eat food and watch TV, while I'm pretty sure most everyone else in attendance was psyched to go home and do more cocaine and talk about wangs), I noticed that everyone seemed less hot. Real scum of the earth. So the moral of this story is that I only date guys who "work in advertising" now.