Anderson agrees: “The blue just felt a little surgical - a little doctor’s office, a little gross.” Lopez’s boyfriend, photographer Adam Ward, answered similarly: “The blue ones just look very surgical - the black ones are honestly just more subtle.”Īnd, importantly, the black masks offered an insouciant approach to mask-wearing in the first place. “It feels less medical while still delivering the benefits of being medical,” says Laura Naparstek, a product marketing manager at Braze, who wears the black surgical mask daily (and happens to be a close friend).

If the black surgical mask is indeed the health goth mask, part of its appeal, according to the fans we spoke to, is a slight remove from its actual health context. “It’s a little scenester … it might be the health goth mask.” “All of these set people are wearing all black with the black masks,” he says. Lopez, who works in fashion, says that he’s noticed more and more black surgical masks appearing on set at shoots. “I don’t wear black, really, but my boyfriend does, so I told him he should order some.” (He did). “She had posted about how now with the black mask, wearing it is not going to ruin an all-black outfit,” says Lopez. When asked how he would describe the look of the mask, his answer is simple: “Hot.” Anderson was tipped off to the black surgical masks by his friend Christian Lopez, who noticed them in an Instagram Story of Berlin-based DJ Honey Dijon. Will Anderson, formerly a senior product designer at Artsy, says he has been wearing the black surgical mask since early September. So, noting it had spread among stylish people from Calabasas to the line outside Sincerely Tommy in Bed-Stuy, we decided to investigate its appeal. We’ve noticed the mask around the city, too, on people picnicking in Fort Greene park, and down around the chins of those drinking martinis outdoors at the Odeon. The sleeker cousin of the blue surgical mask, the black surgical mask has been spotted on everyone from Hailey and Justin Bieber to Kaia Gerber to K-pop group BTS and Kanye. But for a certain set, the most appealing mask wasn’t embellished at all - it was simple and pretty cheap: a black surgical mask. Over the summer, protective masks–as-fashion reached something of a fever pitch: patterned, fringed, lace-adorned, and silken masks proliferated.

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