By Jane Barrett
Milan - For years, most men have been maligned for thinking fashion is just for women but designers and retailers say more men are joining the luxury crowd and that the upmarket menswear business is booming.
Style has come into fashion as the likes of footballer David Beckham pushed the boundaries of what men wear and US television shows like Queer Eye For The Straight Guy persuaded men it was OK to care about looking good.
Now harried husbands or bored boyfriends waiting outside women's changing rooms are turning into happy shoppers tripping down the racks of designerwear.
Not only that but, with the economy picking up again, men are also learning to punish the plastic on big-ticket buys.
"In tough times men stop buying whereas women go out and buy a pair of shoes. But now mens is doing extremely well, up more than 15 percent this year," Howard Socol, CEO of luxury US retailer Barneys, told Reuters.
Gucci brand CEO Giacomo Santucci said menswear made up half its clothing sales and was rising so strongly it now had better growth opportunities than the more high-profile womenswear.
"Men are shrugging off the tyranny of being told what to wear by women. They like shopping. Really," Italian fashion guru Giorgio Armani said recently.
Designers and executives said young men in their 20s and 30s were fuelling the luxury boom and were buying suits again after the dress-down dotcom days of baggy trousers and youth fashion.
"Young men are waking up to the fact they have to look grown up to be taken seriously, while older men want to look younger so are going for new suits made with more innovative materials," said Gildo Zegna, CEO of Italian suit label Ermenegildo Zegna.
Leading Italian designer Miuccia Prada said men were moving towards "formal but fun" fashion.
That has certainly been the mood at Milan's summer 2005 fashion shows where designers have shown suits worn over patterned silk shirts, bold polo tops or brightly coloured gym vests.
The suits themselves have hardly been boring work wear.
Saville Row-trained Ozwald Boateng mixed classic grey suits with bright orange pinstripes in his first Milan show while Dolce & Gabbana modernised the chinos-and-blazer combination into tight, bright white trousers and wet-look navy jackets.
"Men are getting a little more dressy again but jeans will not die," smiled Bloomingdales' fashion director Kal Ruttenstein after watching a D&G show of every cut of denim possible.
Spending trends also showed men going for "impulse buys" and accessories like shoes, belts and ties were seeing huge growth.
What remains to be seen is whether outre pieces like Alexander McQueen's luxurious Indian wedding suits dotted with mirrors will take off.
"Sure, people will always wear jeans and a T-shirt but there is a market for expensive stuff, for one-off pieces, embroidered clothes that will go down for years - heirlooms," he said.