When we read Guy Trebay’s article in the New York Times about Brooklyn’s new potbelly trend, we looked around at the svelte men in our office, and were slightly incredulous.
Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut, developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch, the Ralph Kramden is everywhere to be seen lately, or at least it is in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene, the McCarren Park Greenmarket and pretty much any place one is apt to encounter fans of Grizzly Bear.
But when Details editor Dan Peres pointed the finger at Obama (“If we had a slob in the White House, all the hipsters would turn into some walking Chippendales calendar”) later in the article, we knew we had to do something to debunk this myth. So we sent our intrepid photo journalist friend Thomas Meggs to Wiliamsburg (specifically, Bedford Avenue around N. 8th), where he approached fashionable males, told them we working on a rebuttal piece, and asked them to share some thoughts.