Amsterdam Museum director Paul Spies (b. 1960) has radical ideas about men’s clothes: he is convinced that men’s fashion has reached an all-time low. Spies argues that in the past men dressed in the most splendid clothes. And they had the guts to do it! Think back to those millstone ruffs of the sixteenth century, the exotic fabrics of those eighteenth-century gowns and even the hippie clothes of the 1970s. Since then, Spies says that the men he sees in the streets all dress in uninteresting suits. He finds the ubiquitous leisure-wear of jeans, blouse and sweater equally unimaginative. He’d rather see men with the gumption to choose something other than the tried and trusted. He makes the point by wearing harem trousers from H&M’s 2009 autumn collection. Amid all this, he sees a silver lining. A new generation of designers is forging an alternative path: they are showing what the city would look like if men’s fashion had more courage.