Advocates: Saving Face

With warmer weather approaching, fashionistas are coming clean

Moustaches and beards have gone from a trend to a widely adopted look sported by hipsters, frat boys, and nerds alike. Hair is great, but summer is coming, giving us a chance to make a dramatic follicular change. Shaving is the best way for men to exfoliate the skin. For a more enjoyable shaving experience, start with an excellent razor like Gillette's Fusion Power, and upgrade to a fine lather such as Kiehl's Ultimate Brushless Shaving Cream ($18.50). And then, instead of aftershave, use a moisturizer appropriate for your skin type (dry, oily, etc.). If you have large pores, you may find a new obsession in refinishers -- like Estée Lauder's Idealist Skin Refinisher ($68) -- that smooth the skin out and create an ideal condition for moisturizers. Olay's Regenerist ($18) is an excellent drugstore-brand moisturizer. (Remember, one of the joys of being gay is not having any shame when it comes to using products marketed to the opposite sex -- especially if they're superior to those pitched to your own gender.) Clinique and Prescriptives have a variety of products made especially for problem skin, and no matter what your skin tone, it's a good idea to always use sunscreen, often included in moisturizers. If you are over 35, have a few lines, and need to plump up your skin, I highly recommend you splurge on the nutrient-rich Crème de la Mer ($125 for 1 ounce), a laboriously distilled blend of sea kelp, vitamins, and minerals. You've earned it!

Tennis Whites
I love tennis. Maybe it was Jimmy Connors's fitted short shorts or the impression Martina Navratilova made on me when she came out of the closet or what the sport does for the body -- it gives players great legs and arms, and the outfits to show them off. Wimbledon kicks off this month, and summer is the perfect time of year to sport classic tennis whites. Ralph Lauren, the event's official outfitter, makes a neat white pleated tennis skirt for the ladies. He also makes a fine pair of men's shorts (if not quite as snug as the ones in my memory), as do Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford. Another option: Have an old pair of white tailored pants altered and made into shorts. Don't forget the sweatbands.

Dirty Dishes
The first thing I noticed when I walked past Hinrich Kröger's shop in Berlin's gallery district was the gorgeous pottery. Many of his beautiful pieces, a mix of classical and contemporary shapes, are covered in homoerotic imagery -- some quite explicit -- in many layers of glaze and gilding. Kröger, a sort of X-rated Jonathan Adler, was right there in the store painting and making new pieces in full view. His works, which have found their way into the collections of Deutsche Bank, the German parliament, and tony boudoirs in Europe and America, are available at Gallery Gen and the Leslie/Lohman Gallery in New York City (prices start at about $70). Galerie-hinrich-kroeger.de