New Zealand’s most irreverent online magazine Stuff.co.nz has published “You want me to wear what?,” a round-up of the most bizarre and, er, high-exposure men’s fashion on the runways across the globe:

At Berlin Fashion Week German designer Tom Rebl went for bondage, sending out a model in a leather shoulder harness and nothing else. The model used his gloved hands to hide his package.

The fetish theme continued at London Fashion Week where Jaiden rVa James presented a collection that was frighteningly fierce and S&M; and New Power Studio put lipstick and silly hats on its models, including a drum. …

At Air New Zealand Fashion Week in September last year Kate Sylvester sent male models down the runway wearing women’s lingerie slips, and boxer shorts trimmed with lace for the presentation of her men’s and women’s 2010 winter collection Diamond Dogs. The collection was inspired by infamous Auckland socialite of the 1980s Judith Baragwanath who had a penchant for wearing menswear and black lipstick.

“We were pillaging our menswear and putting it on the girls and thought what about the poor old boys, and decided to do a complete swap,” Sylvester says. “We had very boysy boys – it was important that they still looked very masculine in their slips. The models were incredibly gracious about it and wore them in very good spirit.”

Call us callous but of course the models were gracious about it — why shouldn’t they be? For decades, women models have appeared on the catwalk decked out in everything from menswear to mere scraps of fabric. And anyone who’s seen the movie Prêt-à-Porter recalls the infamous Warhol-esque finale, with a bevy of models walking the runway completely naked.

Female models have endured such fashions with nary a complaint since the dawn of Fashion Week. I don’t know that we need to applaud their male counterparts for suffering such tame indignities.

Pictured above: A male model walks during Kate Sylvester’s Fall/Winter 2010 show at Auckland New Zealand Fashion Week.

As promised yesterday, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at the New York Fashion Week coverage and came to an obvious conclusion: Fur is big again for Fall/Winter 2010.

Michael Kors in particular used a ton of fur in his new collection (pictured here), for both men and women.

And a protégé from Kors’s own Project Runway, Season 6 winner Irina Shabayeva’s debut collection made fox fur the centerpiece of several designs. “From her opening look, a camel cashmere pheasant-print coat with crystal fox collar, the tone was set,” reports the Fur Industry Council of America in Women’s Wear Daily.

With so much fur conspicuously used by the most buzzworthy designers, it begs the question: Has PETA’s influence dimmed over the years due to its increasingly outrageous stunts? Is the era of fur-shunning over for good?

Hey guys — looking to keep warm this winter? You might have to dig deep to avoid looking as fashionable as “a microwavable kebab.” Hilarious men’s fashion writer Alexis Petridis bemoans the state of faux fur for men in the U.K. Guardian:

Once, they were the height of louche sophistication, the kind of thing the Rolling Stones wore while looking elegantly wasted. Perhaps the rock star’s penchant for fur coats hastened their fall from grace: by the late 70s, they had become associated with a rock aristocracy so irritating that people felt impelled to form Sham 69 and spit at each other in protest. The moral argument has an impact, too. You want fake fur to look like the real thing, but too much and you risk Chrissie Hynde chaining herself to you whenever you step outside.

So, there aren’t many about: I ended up with a too-small women’s one, which made me look as louche and sophisticated as a microwavable kebab.

Mr. Petridis can take heart that plenty of vintage fur exists on eBay from the very era he’s trying to channel. No word yet whether Mick Jagger is ready to part with his old coats, though.

Prince Charles is reportedly planning new initiatives to bring wool back into fashion by promoting it as a green alternative to other textiles.

According to Luxist.com:

The Prince hopes his efforts will help make wool more popular once again for both clothing and carpet and rugs. Wool has a bad reputation as being bulky and itchy but the new push for wool plans to highlight the green benefits and beauty of wool compared to synthetic materials. Modern wool fabrics are also sleeker and softer and are being used in more innovative ways by top designers showing up in traditional Savile Row suits but also in wool bags from Marni and trendier pieces from Burberry and Paul Smith.

The Prince has his own organic flock of sheep and is aware of how lowering wool prices have affected farmers. British wool competes with wool from Australia, New Zealand and China among other countries.

In addition to the new label, Prince Charles is planning to help plan Wool Week, which will precede London Fashion Week this fall. Wool Week will be sponsored by British chain Marks & Spencer.

We were going to do a green gift guide for our holiday issue (coming out this Thursday!) but so many other blogs have already done them, and well. So instead we’ve decided to take you on a tour of the best. You’ll be sure to find something for everyone on your list:

• Got a hard-to-please man on your list? Upgrade the fraying tatters that currently pass for his wallet with one of these upcycled, vegetable tanned, or otherwise earth-friendly choices from Commerce With A Conscience.
• Your bauble-collecting bestie will surely appreciate Carmina Campus’s unique repurposed jewelry line, like the recycled earrings pictured here, courtesy of the Yoox.com Style Gift Guide.
• TreeHugger probably has the most comprehensive gift guide of the bunch, with 12 categories and more than 180 gifts to choose from. We particularly like the section that caters to DIYers.
• Lucky magazine’s Everything Under $100 gift guide drew our attention to these Santa Maria Novella closet sachets made with organic essential oils and pure beeswax — the perfect hostess or housewarming gift.
• Anything from Yahoo’s Green Gadgets guide will wow your tech-loving assistant, like the solar-powered case that will keep her iPhone at full battery.

Apologies if we got your hopes up, but last week’s news of a Leona Lewis leather-free fashion collaboration with Stella McCartney turned out to be a hoax.

Not a hoax, however: Stella has confirmed that she and singer Morrissey will be turning out a line of vegan footwear in the coming year.

Morrissey has historically worn leather shoes, despite his vegetarian ideals:

Despite being a staunch supporter of animal rights, the singer was often spotted wearing leather and suede footwear, and once said of his favourite shoes, (a pair of suede moccasins that were a gift from Pete Burns) ‘I find shoes difficult to be ethical about – one just can’t seem to avoid leather. One is trapped, ultimately.’

Admittedly, our favorite shoes are leather too — we have yet to find a synthetic that breaks in so nicely, lasts as long, or feels as comfortable as leather. But best of luck to Morrissey in his endeavor to make that holy grail of vegan footwear.

Accessorizing like a pro is 80 percent inspiration and 20 percent having the right baubles, belts, hats, and heels to dress up your clothes. While not all of the picks in this slideshow are 100 percent ethically sourced, that’s not the point. We urge you to take these gurus’ lead and make what you can out of what’s already in your closet. After all, reuse is the second-most important of the three R’s.

Click on any image below to launch the slideshow.

Jason at MindBodyGreen emailed us this morning about a Q&A they did with organic designer John Patrick.

Particularly if you’re part of the under-served market of men who are interested in eco-fashion, you’ll find he has a lot of good insight about the green fashion movement. Observe:

MBG: What is your favorite place to shop for clothing?

JP: I prefer to have my things tailored though I have a deep respect for Hermes — I enjoy looking there. I am obsessed with beautiful exquisite cloth that’s organic…If I absolutely have to shop for mens clothing I will buy at Hollander & Lexer in Brooklyn. Hicham Benmira, who owns Hollander & Lexer, is a genius.

He also reports shopping for men’s skincare at Aveda as well as organic sweets at Mast Brothers Chocolate (definitely unisex).

Check out his designs on his website, JohnPatrickOrganic.com.

Last week, Jessica from Pants to Poverty (awesome tagline: “Ridding the World of Bad Pants”) wrote us about the brand’s autumn/winter collection of, yes, underpants made from fair-trade and organic cotton.

She says:

We use transitional cotton, and are Fair Trade certified in Europe. We intend to become fair trade certified in the US as soon as Transfair USA launches their textile certification program. We are also have begun to individually package our pants in recycled, fair trade paper, which makes for a great holiday or Valentine’s day gift. …

Not only are we ethically sourced and eco-friendly produced but we also donate £1 for each pair sold to the garment worker and farmer communities.

We are happy to spread the word! And really, any excuse to use the word “underpants” in a blog post is great.

In celebration of Fall Fashion Week, Turner Classic Movies asked legendary designers Todd Oldham and Manolo Blahnik to name the 15 films that have had the greatest impact on modern fashion designers. 

Rebel Without a Cause naturally made the list because it’s the movie where James Dean set the coolness bar for men’s fashion. “Even I had his red biker jacket,” Blahnik wistfully remembers.

The list includes films starring the pantheon of sartorial muses from the golden age of Hollywood cinema, including Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Clark Cable, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, and Steve McQueen.

Without further ado, the top 15 in chronological order:

1. Pandora’s Box (1929)
2. Letty Lynton (1932)
3. It Happened One Night (1934)
4. Pat and Mike (1952)
5. Rear Window (1954)
6. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
7. And God Created Woman. . . (1956)
8. Auntie Mame (1958)
9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
10. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
11. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
12. Shaft (1971) 
13. Annie Hall (1977)
14. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
15. Flashdance (1983)