It’s that time once more: the Ibiza closing parties are done and this country’s lads lads lads are busy dry-cleaning their Asos two-pieces, vacuum-packing their white vests and giving the short shorts one last run round to the Co-op, before they hunker down in their vintage football tops and maybe one of those bobbly coats like The Bear’s Carmy for the autumn. But this year, we want to snuggle in with them.
It’s been an enlightening summer for ladkind. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie laid the patriarchy — with its manhoodextending horses and trucks, and silly wars over slighted feelings — out for us all to pick over like the unsightly spoils of a Toby Carvery roast. But somehow Ken shed his blond fragility, finally realising he was ‘Kenough’ while the Barbies re-took the lead. Similarly allowing his vulnerability to tumble forth, Lewis Capaldi, Bard of Lads, allowed the crowd to carry him home after his Glastonbury set overwhelmed him at a point of crisis and we fell in love with him even more.
Even the T-shirt tan (or should we accurately rename it, vest burn) had a rebrand thanks to Jeremy Allen White, showing us that even ‘real men’ should wear sunscreen, but that they can still incite lust by revealing raw flesh that requires a bit of aloe vera from a gentle hand.
The ladorables have been steadily legitimising our claim to a bit of rough for some time now. And a hard man whose heart is as soft as his grey marl tracksuit bottoms is not so hard to find now. Yes, he’ll make you go on a date to see Meg 2: The Trench (because Jason Statham), but he’ll also have an emotional discussion on the plight of our oceans once you’re done. Idris Elba is giving some serious emotional depth to the last action hero type in Apple TV+’s Hijack as the guy you’d really want to help kneecap a criminal gang on your beleaguered Ryanair flight, but who really loves his ex-wife. The eyes say all you need to know.
This new breed is as characterised by emotional intelligence as it is by the Neck Oil they’re necking
Paul Mescal cornered the market the moment he stepped out in his Gaelic football shorts and retro Adidas zip-up three years ago, then crowned himself King with an Oscar nomination for his introspective Scottish Nineties dad in Aftersun. It’s Jack Grealish laughing like a puppy in his crop top and hairband at his likeness to Keira Knightley in Bend It Like Beckham. Or the Essex boy from The White Lotus, before you clocked that unusual uncle-nephew dynamic.
Blur’s comeback gig was full of them: bum-bagging, bucket-hatted Gen Zs who were but a twinkle when their parents were following the herd down to Greece for some love in the Nineties. With his indie intellect, Damon Albarn became forefather and standard bearer for original ladorables like Jude Law (who coupled statue-like beauty, acting chops and mockney delivery). But Albarn hasn’t changed in the intervening decades, showcasing the mood nowhere better than flashing a nipple from his custom-made Nineties Fila zip-up, to then crying his eyes out at ‘Under the Westway’. Get you a man who can do everything. He’s the one on every series of Love Island with a suitcase full of bowling shirts to hide his (*whisper it* normal) body, manners bred into him by a cherished nan, who returns like a Homeric hero solo from the clutches of Casa Amor. It’s Tyrique crying over his day one ladylove Ella returning with another man.
This was the year when blokecore took hold: TikTok is awash with how-to guides on styling a classic Celtic shirt with some jorts (yep, jean shorts, preferably long and baggy) that rack up hundreds of thousands of views. It’s a delicate balance — pick the wrong cut of denim and you just look like your dad. But do it right, and you’re a lad in possession of a wardrobe full of rare original Maradona Napoli strips and silky long-sleeve Wales Bonner x Adidas. If you’re in east London, you will know them by the football scarf wrapped around their head, because blokes get cold too, yeah?
It’s not just us who find themselves suddenly in want of this man. Bumble has launched an ad campaign fronted by the other guy from The White Lotus — Adam DiMarco, the puppy dog Albie to Leo Woodall’s confident Jack — who in real life is every inch the ladorable. Taglined ‘Kindness. Now that’s sexy’, it has him walking city streets in a white singlet (check) and being genuinely thoughtful to all he meets (check), while at no point feeling emasculated by these random acts of kindness (check). This new breed is as characterised by emotional intelligence as it is by the Neck Oil they’re necking.
The Venn diagram of ladorables crosses paths with the internet’s other new favourite term, ‘Babygirl’ — where TikTok has co-opted the once pejorative term used by men for younger women, to slap on hard men with heart like Pedro Pascal. With the untimely loss of too many men to mental health issues and addiction — as with Euphoria’s Angus Cloud, who played the archetypical ladorable Fez, the only drug dealer to get his friend clean — it feels like the time to embrace them is now. In a similar way, James Gandolfini was a soulful, sensitive, once-in-a-generation talent whose time came too early, and it’s no surprise that The Sopranos style is suddenly a hit with Gen Z again.
With a landscape of gendered language being binned, giving new meaning to the old tropes and allowing lads to indulge their adorable side is a cuddly way to diffuse the patriarchy — and express emotions, while having fun — once and for all.
