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On a recent weekday at noon, a horde of guys who work on Marvin Henry’s floor at a Midtown bank were excitedly hovering over their computers. Meetings were pushed back, lunches were delayed, calls were left unanswered. The Gilt Man sale had begun. And Henry was ready to get his shop on.
“When I first got into it . . . the first couple of weeks, I was just hooked,” says Henry, 35, who joined Gilt Man, a members-only, short-term sale site for men, when it launched in 2009. He would scope out upcoming designers, scan the goods on his iPhone app while in the lunch line at Chop’t, and even admits to scheduling meetings around the sale mania.
“I’d be, like, ‘Hey, I can’t talk to you right now. The Gilt sale is going to start in 10 minutes,’ ” says Henry.
He estimates he’s bought at least 10 items off the site — including a Ralph Lauren Purple Label belt ornamented with a bear buckle, A. Testoni chocolate cap-toe oxfords and khaki pants, spending up to $2,000 in total.
The financier, who lives with his girlfriend in Queens, has caught a style bug — and he’s not alone. New York City alpha males are delving into the world of fashion with a frenzy previously reserved for their spreadsheets and fantasy leagues. They’re signing up for online sales, checking style blogs daily and unabashedly buying $100-plus workout shorts from femme-friendly yoga shop Lululemon.
Don’t call them metrosexuals; that outdated term has long been relegated to the land of Ed Hardy. It’s the new age of style-savvy gentlemen who are neither dandy nor Axe-spraying, but appreciate a well-made $250 Villebrequin bathing suit or a Loro Piana sample sale — and are proud of it.
“There was something cartoony about the notion that you’d want to look good a few years ago, and it just feels natural now. It’s not about over-grooming or spending $500 a week on moisturizer. It’s about dressing like a man,” says Tyler Thoreson, 38, head of men’s editorial and creative at Gilt, which started out hosting flash sales for women. Today, 26 percent of Gilt’s members are men, and its male subscribers have more than doubled in the past year.
“Females were a big driver,” explains Thoreson of Gilt’s sudden popularity among men. “Guys were saying, ‘Well, honey . . . if you’re going to keep buying stuff from Gilt, I might as well get in on the action.’ ”
From there, the dudes were hooked. “There’s a generation of guys who have grown up dressing well because they want to, not necessarily because they have to . . . more and more men are taking control of their wardrobes,” he adds. “Men have realized that caring about how you look is actually quite masculine.”
Josh Leight is in the driver’s seat when it comes to his attire. Although the 24-year-old’s job in asset management calls for pretty rigid office attire, the Hell’s Kitchen resident manages to “dress in a way that accentuates my personality,” he says.
“I’m trying to counteract the plain gray pants, blue shirt that everyone seems to wear by adding some color, some patterns to my shirt. You don’t want to attract too much attention. That’s not the point. The point is to look well-put-together.”
Leight just bought a made-to-measure suit on Gilt at a 50 percent discount. He tracked down brass buttons on eBay to spruce up an old peacoat. And he regularly visits style blogs such as UrbanDaddy’s Kempt, How To Talk to Girls at Parties and Put This On (with the tagline “A Web Series About Dressing Like a Grownup”).
Despite the fact that Leight says he’s “not embarrassed” by his fashion sense, he doesn’t brag about his shopping habit to his colleagues, either.
“Some people in an older generation might think it is less masculine to be interested in clothes,” Leight explains.
But Jared Sevinor, who works for a Manhattan-based hedge fund and admits to getting nearly all his shirts tailored, disagrees. “Clothing is just so much more accessible now,” Sevinor says. “Guys can find out what’s cool without getting a personal stylist.”
Of course, who needs a stylist when you have a girlfriend? Sevinor, 27, was turned on to Lululemon sportswear after his squeeze got him a shirt there.
“I only buy Lululemon stuff [now]. The pockets are just in the perfect spot, but it’s also cool. I enjoy wearing it. It’s not some raggedy pair of gym shorts from Nike,” says Sevinor, who lives in the West Village. While the brand is still most commonly associated with yoga and women, it is rapidly gaining traction among NYC men.
“I think more straight men are doing stranger workouts. A lot more people are going to yoga and pilates . . . and it’s more social, and people are dressing up a little bit more,” says Kristian Laliberte, the New York editor for fashion news site Refinery 29.
“They don’t want to go to the gym in their ratty college T-shirt.”
But that’s not to say some male Lululemon fans didn’t need a nudge.
“Guys feel initially uncomfortable about any brand that features a fruit or a vegetable in the name,” points out UrbanDaddy CEO Lance Broumand, 30. He got over it, though, and now occasionally dons Lululemon to the office.
Maybe the new fashionistos owe some credit to celebs such as David Beckham, Jimmy Fallon and “Mad Men” protagonist Don Draper, all natty dressers who clearly don’t think their style threatens their sexuality.
“It’s about individualizing your brand,” says Broumand of the new breed of chic city men. And the Internet has made finding one’s own “brand” all the easier.
“Everything is right there,” says Russell Brandom, 25, a contributing editor at Kempt.
“A lot of the stuff we run, there will be a link, and you’re not more than three clicks away from buying it.” Which is great . . . until companies start blocking their employees from using those sites.
“I think we’re waiting for the day that they do block Gilt,” admits Henry. “And that would be a sad day.”
dschuster@nypost.com