Male Models Can’t Walk

Monday, 14 February 2011 | by Pat's Picks

The Washington Post decided to switch things up and send a dance critic to New York to cover Fashion Week this year. And the first thing she noticed was not the clothes, it was “one of Fashion Week’s awkward truths”: male models can’t walk. Unlike their female counterparts, men tend to freeze up when walking the cat walk.

Critic Sarah Kaufman describes the gamut of what she saw like this: “tight steps, wooden torsos. Oddly pitched-forward gaits. Stiffly held shoulders or too much shoulder, torquing the body with an exaggerated sway. And ‘the brood,’ that grim, ticked-off look in the eyes that is industry standard.” Insiders say that instead of trying to emulate Naomi Campbell, male models should just concentrate on being natural: “A lot of hips and the scissor walk? No! Men always need to be men.”

Of course, there are exceptions. nNo one could work a runway better than Zoolander: