Jim Nelson, editor of GQ magazine, has seen a similar complexity among his readers. "This is a trend that we've been covering for a long time," he said. "GQ is for the man who cares about hair products and the way he looks and dresses, but who also wants to read about sports and great profiles."
The magazine still pursues in-depth articles on topics like the war in Iraq, but it has also beefed up its fashion coverage, Nelson said, with lengthy fashion features like one in February on the designer Hedi Slimane. Nelson said that some of the most appreciative feedback he had received was in response to simple fashion tips like how to match ties and shirts.
Men also have their own television network, Spike TV, which started last summer after a round of research. Albie Hecht, president of Spike TV, a division of Viacom, said men's roles had changed drastically. Men are looking for more information about how to be the best fathers they can be, he said, and are finding that women are requiring more emotional honesty from them. And the growing presence of women in the workplace makes men want to be better dressed and groomed. In all of these areas, he said, men are looking for answers, but not without some entertainment.
Spike now offers such fare as a cartoon called Stripperella and reruns of Blind Date, Hecht said, but it plans to expand to documentaries and other programs that address some of the current male issues.
Nelson, Hecht and others have tapped into a growing male desire for advice. After decades of getting lost on their own, men are now willing to ask for directions in a rapidly changing world, said Colin Mitchell, head of the New York planning department for Ogilvy & Mather, part of the WPP Group.
Fashions go from the runway to stores in six months rather than three years, Mitchell said, and men are struggling to keep up.
Even on a personal level, men can be increasingly curious. Galioto said that when he told his male friends about his trip to the Red Mountain Spa, he got a lot of puzzled looks. But, he said, once he explained about the hiking and rock climbing, many of those friends were much more interested. It wasn't the spa treatments, or even the activities, that really hooked them, Galioto said; it was the fact that the spa served beer.
"There are a lot of guys who are ready to embrace this stuff," Galioto said. "But we're not all the way there yet."
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