It stared back at me, accusatory, triangular. It was telling me what my body should look like: big chest, narrow waist. It was everything I wasn’t. It was, of course, Spanx for men. It was bullshit. A few weeks back James Corden went on air to reveal that he wears Spanx under his suits when on the air, which came as a surprise to the men of the office in that nobody knew that Spanx made compression gear for dudes. Jezebel kindly asked several of us to try on the lowest-budget Spanx For Bros and see how it made us feel, and if it did what it claimed it was going to do. (According to the Cotton Compression V-Neck packaging that is “firms chest and narrows waistline,” though you are also told it “flattens stomach,” “improves posture,” “supports lower back,” and “eliminates bulk under clothes” What we discovered was a shirt that was equally expensive ($58! though on sale at the moment), uncomfortable (“My lungs are at 60 percent capacity,” my colleague Will noted), and ineffective, as none of us actually looked or felt any better. The best part was that it had instructions on how to put it on and take it off, which we all laughed at until we actually tried to free ourselves from its overly firm embrace and collectively broke every bone in our backs, wrists, necks, and ribs. You go to hell, Man Spanx.
