By Peter Lawrence Kane

The metrosexual is dead. In his place, straight from a grove of western white pines in Willamette National Forest, comes the slightly more rugged, beardier “Lumbersexual.”

That’s what outdoorsy site Gear Junkie has to say about it, anyway. In a slightly tongue-in-cheek trend piece about the visual strangeness of educated professionals going for woodsman chic, it’s both an affectionate dig at their readers and an astute observation. Guys are putting in time and money to look effortlessly masculine, in $550 Paraboots.

San Francisco has had the bug for a while now. The “MetroJack,” Gear Junkie’s term for a “cleaner, still slightly urban looks,” is a subspecies endemic to Valencia Street’s hospitable microclimate, and one that has found a new ecological niche in the Western Addition and in some San Francisco offices as well. This is about more than just flannel, which has been around awhile. The Lumbersexual “might be wearing a Patagonia heritage jacket, or some technical Cordura nylon pants that look great in the low light of the bar, but also provide protection from a chain-saw blade.”

It goes without saying that virtually no man ever called himself a metrosexual, which really just referred to men who shopped for their own pants, went to the gym, and used moisturizer. (That was a big leap. It really was.) So don’t expect the term Lumbersexual to blow up, no matter how ubiquitous Lumbersexuals become.

Around the time that men who previously just thought of themselves as “men” began thinking of themselves as “straight men,” some other things happened. It became more acceptable to care about your appearance and read some magazines to that effect than before. And straight guys hug each other a lot more than they used to, which is great. This move back to a more overtly masculine style — which like metrosexuality, is still consumption-based — builds on that, rather than canceling it out. Who wouldn’t want a beer and a warm embrace after felling some timber?

Got a tip for The Bold Italic? Email tips@thebolditalic.com.

[Via Gear Junkie, image from Thinkstock]