It was a Hipster Runoff-style satire of menswear blogging written in a stream-of-consciousness poetic shorthand. It was scathing, smart, and mostly funny. It was also written anonymously, leading some sites to even offer bounties for the identity behind the blog, the writer of which even emerged at one point to speak with GQ’s website (in character, of course).

Last August, it was announced that Fuck Yeah Menswear had nabbed itself a blog-to-book deal.

Around November, Fuck Yeah Menswear filed its most recent post, and then went off the grid.

Maybe that's because they didn't want to give away their best stuff for free. After all, the book, according to Amazon.com, is due out in November. Or maybe it's simply because they didn't want to be outed.

Either way, the latter is now a moot point, as word of the blog's identity is beginning to leak out. The Observer has learned (as has The Trad) that the editors of the blog are none other than Lawrence Schlossman and Kevin Burrows.

"Yep, it's true," Mr. Schlossman confessed, speaking to The Observer by phone. "I wrote Fuck Yeah Menswear, but I don't do it by myself. My buddy Kevin Burrows, who lives in Los Angeles and works at Dreamworks Pictures does it with me."

"His name as well as mine will be on the book when it comes out this November. He deserves to have his name and work highlighted and acknowledged as much as I do, he's essential to this thing."

Mr. Schlossman is a whirlwind of talents and channels to funnel them through: He has a day job as an associate editor at Complex. He Tweets under the handle "Sartorially I.N.C." to hysterical effect (his running live Met Ball commentary was fantastic; his final note likened Florence Welch to an "endangered avian species").

He also handles the Tumblr known as How To Talk To Girls At Parties, and the blog Sartorially Inclined, and has done social media work for the Park and Bond Tumblr.

Mr. Schlossman was originally singled out as a suspect behind the blog by The Fader, along with Grantland's Chris Ryan (who, while he was once indeed a beloved anonyblogger did not make the cast of this one).

Mr. Schlossman was interviewed for the definitive (such as it is) Oral History of Menswear Blogging for GQ. He was quoted by the author Dave Greenwald on the subject of the then-anonymous Fuck Yeah Menswear:

I’ve always been of the belief that it’s definitely being run by a peer, there’s no doubt. You have dudes, and I know guys like this, I’ve become friendly with guys who know everything about the blogosphere but don’t blog, but there’s a threshold, like, oh my god, there’s no way, why would someone spend so much time learning every nuance of the community if he wasn’t participating? So whether Fuck Yeah Menswear was his way of saying, “Fuck it, I’m going to participate,” or some dude who has one foot in that world, I don’t know, but it’s someone who gets the subcultural—who knows the personalities and who knows the nuance of those personalities.

F.Y.M. then emailed Mr. Greenwald: "I’m not a blogger. Somebody lied."

"That's a riff on a Rick Ross rap lyric," Mr. Schlossman laughed. "We love to re-purpose rap lyrics, and make them work in the framework in which that personality exists. Anybody who'd read the blog would get that."

As for whether or not his employers knew of his side-project, they most definitely did: "Anyone who I've ever worked for is totally aware and supportive of the things I do on the side," he explained, "one of which is getting to write this book."

There is but one word with which to characterize the whirlwind success and inevitable outing that comes with an anonyblog like the one maintained by Mr. Schlossman and Mr. Burrows:

Crisp.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Via FuckYeah Menswear.

The point at which the traditionally-unfashionable-overcompensating-men-obsessed-with-menswear trend seemingly reached fever pitch was in December, when GQ's website published an "Oral History of Menswear Blogging." The genre, seemingly a construct of a parody blog, is the furthest thing from it.

The article's participants and their self-serious tones inspired their own parodies. How could they not? Fuck Yeah Menswear to A Continuous Lean to Selectism and Valet and back, what was once a niche sub-genre of editorial output usually relegated to the front-of-book features of lad mags is now its own full-on genre of reading and writing glorified shopping catalogs for men. And not just men, but Men Who Traditionally Have Not Openly Embraced Fashion.

And now, the numbers exist to prove it. Menswear is back. Straight menswear, that is.

Stephanie Clifford at the New York Times reports today that men's clothing sales for the first three months of 2012 will hit a 20-year high.

In order to make this happen, euphemisms have been employed...

To get traditional women’s accessories to appeal to men, some designers are giving them manly names and styles. That’s not really a bracelet; it’s wristwear. And that’s not a purse, nor the dreaded murse, but a holdall.

And oh, there will be "wristwear." Yes, there will:

“Bracelets are on fire right now,” said Tim Bess, who analyzes men’s fashions for the Doneger Group, a trend forecaster. “I’d say it’s the No. 1 look for the young man.” Tateossian, a London-based jewelry designer, says sales of its men’s bracelets rose 30 percent in 2011.

And yet, still, despite all of this, there seems to be something unspoken about the re-emergence of men's fashion, which might be worth speaking:

The word "straight."

As in, the quote-unquote "menswear" fashion trend is primarily a euphemism in and of itself for "straight men and the clothing they buy."

After all, it would be obtuse to suggest that an entire men's fashion sub-sect has remained under the radar and out of clothing stores for the recession that men supposedly weren't shopping, let alone the last 20 years.

For example:

“It doesn’t look like you borrowed it from your girlfriend,” Nicolas Travis, 24, a business school student who runs the blog Style Flavors, said of the manned-up styles he prefers. “A little bit more bling, and you run the risk of it looking a bit more feminine.”

Who has problems appearing feminine and concerns about appearing as if they borrowed something from a girlfriend? Straight men. "Dudes." "Guys." Whatever you want to call them. But it's time to face the fabric:

The entire "menswear" blogging trend is a very politically correct misnomer suggesting that all men are finally discovering fashion for the first time since the loin cloth, which simply isn't true. An entire male population—that is, gay men—have been openly embracing fashion without any insecurity as to how feminine it makes them appear, who they borrowed it from, or what kind of heritage sourcing went into its construction.

It's been well-documented that gay consumers and their spending habits are "recession-proof."

A perfect corollary to this and the straight-menswear trend would be the "coming out" of the recession closet for straight men who want to buy clothing. Which exists:

The rebound in shopping may also reflect an improved jobs picture for men, who were hit disproportionately over the recession. The gap between men’s and women’s employment rates was about as high as it had ever been as the recovery started in June 2009. Only last month did the men’s and women’s unemployment rates reach the same level.

Time to call The "Menswear" Trend what it is: The Straight-Menswear Trend. To remove euphemisms from an entire art form and consumer market is a long overdue etymological evolution that, until corrected, makes the straight men who buy clothing, the people who make them, and the people who read about them appear as insecure and overcompensating in their masculinity as, well, before they apparently started buying clothing.

Men Step Out of the Recession, Bag on Hip, Bracelet on Wrist [NYT]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek