Byline: MIMI SPENCER
When it comes to matters of modishness and maintenance, we want our men to scrub up well but not outshine us - what every woman needs, says Mimi Spencer, is a Neutral Prop
At a dinner party recently, it slipped out that I have a slight interest in matters of fashion.
Usually, this is the cue for the women around the table to wax on about their new Burberry Handags Replica handbags or fat ankles. But no. First in with an 'Oooh, really?
Well, check out these shoes!' was the gentleman sitting to my left.
Richard, an opera singer by trade, was illuminated with interest. We spent the next 40 minutes (40 minutes!
I ask you!) discussing the precise cut of his new Evisu jeans and whether brown shoes should ever be worn in close association with a black belt. As this went on, his wife - a pretty woman in a Chloe dress and Kurt Geiger stack heels - looked on witheringly, while I came perilously close to socking him in the eye with the tall pepper mill that sat to my right and might well have made a more entertaining dinner-party conversationalist.
The wife also appeared to be eyeing it with intent.
Poor cow, I thought. You're married to that most modern of men: the preening metrosexual, a man who knows the textural difference between various brands of hair product, a man on first-name terms with Hedi Slimane and Raf Simons, a man who recognises the enduring benefits of an Eve Lom facial. I dated a similarly vain man many moons ago, and spent untold evenings waiting patiently as he patted individual strands of his beautiful hair into position and debated with himself the relative merits of the aquamarine Gucci shirt over the cobalt blue. Don't get me wrong. He was all man in the bedroom department; it's just that, once we got there, the walk-in wardrobe always flirted for his attention. Quite often, it won.
GQ Man - with his au courant trainers and iPod earphones - is all very well if you want a partner who looks fetching as he orders you a mojito at the bar.
You can admire the cut of his jib, the sheen of his Dior Homme chelsea boots, the just-so logo on his satchel. But, Lord, try living with him.
Always filching your CrEme de la Mer. Forever fiddling with your tweezers.
Endlessly worrying about his pectoral definition and wondering out loud whether this season's tan leather valise can be worn with mustard patent sandals. And if that last sentence seems a bit OTT, it is merely a quote from a male stylist taken from one of the national newspapers lying on my desk (the answer, apparently, is that you can wear both at the same time - which doesn't begin to explain why anyone would want to).
After long years weighing up what makes the perfect partner, I have concluded that what we really want is a man who doesn't know his Elbaz Tone Bracelet from his elbow.
Not that we'd fancy a Neanderthal with ketchup down his front; we'd just like a decent man who smells nice enough and isn't going to compete for mirror time in the bathroom or enter into a tug o' war over the last Prada pochette at Selfridges. We don't want men in crochet beanies, or men with Louis Vuitton man-bags slung across their chests as if they're delivering pizza flyers.
Most women, I'm convinced, would prefer a partner who is a bit more nonchalant, an Omelette Man thrown together from good ingredients, as if they are gorgeous through no
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