Skip to content
1981
1-2: Locating Menswear
  • ISSN: 2050-070X
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0718

Abstract

When the Italian sportswear brand C.P. Company chose to hold their 50th anniversary exhibition in a small market town in northern England, it raised complex questions about identity, place and subcultural capital, particularly in relation to young men who are underrepresented in critical menswear studies. This analysis of photographic portraits reveals how meanings attributed to male dress shift in relation to place and audience. We analyse three interconnected portrait sessions staged as part of the anniversary exhibition: for a commemorative book, at the private view and a workshop with local young men. Each shoot shared the same photographer and technical set up but had very different subjects and audiences. To address these complexities, we developed a visual methodology for the analysis of self-styled portraits, enabling comparison across diverse positionalities and social and spatial contexts. The portraits articulate performances of masculinity, degrees of connoisseurship and relationships to place and visibility, revealing stark contrasts between elite insider representations and marginalized youth experiences. The portrait sessions provided the young men with the agency to perform their identity as they wished but also surfaced how menswear cultures reflect and reinforce inequalities related to age, class, gender and place. The methodology, and positioning of self-styled portraits as a social lens, provides a model for participatory, place-based studies of fashion and identity that foreground underrepresented menswear narratives.

© 2025 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00099_1
2025-12-31
2026-04-16

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alvesson, Mats and Sköldberg, Kaj (2018), Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research, 3rd ed., London: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Barry, Ben and Martin, Dylan (2015), ‘Dapper dudes: Young men’s fashion consumption and expressions of masculinity’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, 2:1, pp. 5–21, https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf.2.1.5_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Barry, Ben and Martin, Dylan (2016), ‘Fashionably fit: Young men’s dress decisions and appearance anxieties’, TEXTILE, 14:3, pp. 326–47, https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2016.1142790.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Berger, John (1972), Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Blackburn and Darwen Youth Zone (2021), ‘Welcome to Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone’, https://www.blackburnyz.org/about-us/. Accessed 27 June 2025.
  6. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (2024), Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Overview 2024: Setting the Scene, https://www.blackburn.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-04/Setting%20scene%202024.pdf. Accessed 27 June 2025.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bourdieu, Pierre (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Braun, Virginia and Clarke, Victoria (2022), Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide, London: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Collier, John and Collier, Malcolm (1986), Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Connell, Robert W. (1995), Masculinities, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Demetriou, Demetrakis Z. (2001), ‘Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: A critique’, Theory and Society, 30:3, pp. 337–61.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Edwards, Tim (1997), Men in the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity and Consumer Society, London: Cassell.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Galilee, John (2002), ‘Class consumption: Understanding middle-class young men and their fashion choices’, Men and Masculinities, 5:1, pp. 32–52, https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184x02005001002.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Goffman, Erving (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London: Allen Lane.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Goffman, Erving (1961), Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York: Doubleday.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Goffman, Erving (1983), ‘The interaction order: American Sociological Association, 1982 presidential address’, American Sociological Review, 48:1, pp. 1–11, https://doi.org/10.2307/2095141.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Groves, Andrew (2022), ‘A casual obsession: Inside the British Sock Fetish Council’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, 9:2, pp. 187–206, https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf_00059_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Groves, Andrew and Jenkinson, Jo (2025), ‘Locating Menswear’ (Guest Editorial), Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Special Issue: ‘Locating Menswear: Context, Culture and Identity’, 12:1, pp. 3–7, https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf_00104_2.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle (2024), Inside the Westminster Archive, London: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hebdige, Dick (1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive (2019), P3, University of Westminster, London, 24 October–24 November.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Jenkinson, Jo (2020), ‘“Wear your identity”: Styling identities of youth through dress – a conceptual model’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 7:1, pp. 73–99, https://doi.org/10.1386/fspc_00006_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Miles, Steven, Cliff, Dallas and Burr, Vivien (1998), ‘“Fitting in and sticking out”: Consumption, consumer meanings and the construction of young people’s identities’, Journal of Youth Studies, 1:1 pp. 81–96, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.1998.10592996.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Miller-Spillman, Kimberley A., Lee, Min-Young, Huffman, Nicole, Yoo, Jeong-Ju and Kim, Yang-Jin (2017), ‘Dress and the public, private and secret self model during emerging adulthood’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 4:3, pp. 383–401, https://doi.org/10.1386/fspc.4.3.383_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Mitchell, Claudia (2011), Doing Visual Research, Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Moreno, Lodovico Pignatti (2021), C.P. Company 971–021: An Informal History of Italian Sportswear, Lugano: Tristate International SA.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Pichler, Pia (2019), ‘“He’s got Jheri curls and Tims on”: Humour and indexicality as resources for authentication in young men’s talk about hair and fashion style’, Journal of Pragmatics, 152, pp. 172–85, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.11.012.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Rivers, Tony and Burnett, James (2024), Magnetic: C.P. Company | Boneville | Stone Island: An Anthology, 986 to 993, Cardiff: Rivers and Burnett.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Roach-Higgins, Mary Ellen and Eicher, Joanne B. (1992), ‘Dress and identity’, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 10:4, pp. 265–79, https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302x9201000401.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Rose, Gillian (2023), Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials, 5th ed., London: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Sklar, Monica, Strübel, Jessica, Freiberg, Katharine and Elhabbassi, Sara (2022), ‘Beyond subculture the meaning of style: Chronicling directions of scholarship on dress since Hebdige and Muggleton’, Fashion Theory, 26:6, pp. 715–35, https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704x.2021.1954834.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Tebbutt, Melanie (2016), Making Youth: A History of Youth in Modern Britain, London: Palgrave.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. The Shuttle (2021), ‘Iconic images and resident portraits on display across Blackburn and Darwen as part of British Textile Biennial’, The Shuttle: Blackburn with Darwen Council News, 29 September, https://theshuttle.org.uk/iconic-images-and-resident-portraits-on-display-across-blackburn-and-darwen-as-part-of-british-textile-biennial/. Accessed 27 June 2025.
  34. Thomson, Pat (2008), Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Thornton, Sarah (1995), Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Tulloch, Carol (2010), ‘Style-fashion-dress: From black to post-black’, Fashion Theory, 14:3, pp. 273–303, https://doi.org/10.2752/175174110x12712411520179.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Woodward, Sophie (2008), ‘Standing out as one of the crowd’, in L. Salazar (ed.), Fashion V Sport, London: V&A, pp. 67–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Woodward, Sophie (2020), Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things, London: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00099_1
Loading
Locating identity in self-styled portraits: Youth, masculinity and subcultural capital through a C.P. Company lens
Critical Studies in Men's Fashion 12, 9 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf_00099_1
/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00099_1
/content/journals/10.1386/csmf_00099_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): belonging; connoisseurship; menswear; photography; place; subcultures; visual methods

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test