Lifestyle & Culture

A Guy in Gal’s Clothes “Shatters the Glass Floor”

By Hezekiah Ortiz
Spectrum staff

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasamYmHy3A[/youtube]That recent summer afternoon, Nick Fazzino, 21, was decked out in leopard print loafers, toting a Louis Vuitton pocketbook and, on his left hand, sporting a Tiffany ring shaped like a unicorn. His nails were glossy with a French-manicure. His face was done up in Chanel Foundation No. 40.

If this guy, who happens to be gay, chooses to wear many things made for women, that’s because doing so expresses his personality. It also is a marketing strategy.

“Instead of shattering the glass ceiling,” said Fazzino, using a term often connected to women pioneers in the workplace, “I’m shattering the glass floor.”

By that, he means that he is breaking barriers. Fazzino is the first male intern at the famed Kleinfeld Bridal shop—its “Say Yes to the Dress” reality show runs on TLC—and a sales clerk at the Kate Spade boutique on Madison Avenue. He has styled women for the Kentucky Derby. As he sees it, his mainly female customers would feel more comfortable coming to him for help since he wears a lot of things that they wear and, as a fashion merchandising major at the University of Kentucky, studies the topic.

“I have a passion for it,” he said of his love for female fashion.

He continued: “It is difficult when you are a man and you are trying to style the women but you don’t look like them. You don’t know what she is going to wear, but I do. I know what silhouettes will look best on her figure, so I need her to trust me because I know what I am talking about.”

Born in Connecticut and raised in North Carolina, Fazzino landed his first retail job six years ago as a retail specialist for Apple. He started off focusing on visual merchandising.

“Working for Apple gave me the ability to uncover customer needs rather quickly because you have a certain amount of time you have to spend with each customer before they lose focus or become antsy,” Fazzino said.

As for his own fashion tastes, he likes cross – bags, the Banana Republic’s Avalon line for women and what’s on the women’s rack at Burberry and Armani. The European brands fit his better 5-foot, eight-inch, 140-pound physique much better.

Fazzino admits that he spends quite a bit of cash on clothes, watches, rings, pocketbooks and so forth. “Accessories are more cross-gender than anything,” he said.

As for life after he graduates college in spring 2017, he aims to put in some more time at Kleinfeld. “My ideal plans would be … to move back to New York where I will start a full fashion career … And, then, moving up through those companies, ideally, I would be the fashion director of an international label.”