Critical Studies in Men's Fashion - 1-2: Locating Menswear, Dec 2025

This Special Issue of Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion presents research from the Locating Menswear network, an interdisciplinary initiative established in 2022 funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, aimed at addressing the historical neglect of menswear in fashion scholarship. Over the course of eighteen months, the network brought together academics, curators, brands, retailers and community stakeholders to challenge existing narratives of British fashion and highlight the cultural, geographical and industrial forces shaping menswear. The network’s research coincided with key UK exhibitions, including Fashioning Masculinities in London, Dandy Style in Manchester and Art of the Terraces in Liverpool, while also exploring international perspectives with visits to Bologna and Carrè in Italy. A two-day forum held in 2024 in Manchester and Liverpool culminated in a diverse range of outputs, including the academic articles, photo essays, snapshots and spoken word texts in this publication, valuing both scholarly inquiry and lived experience. Future directions for the network include continued interdisciplinary collaboration and the opening of previously inaccessible private industry archives, as well as larger scale studies that promise to shape the future of menswear scholarship, expanding the conversation beyond traditional fashion capitals and offering a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of the field.

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.

As part of the inaugural Locating Menswear Forum on 5 July 2024 in Liverpool, Andrew Ibi, Neil Macdonald, Danielle Sprecher, Tory Turk and Ben Whyman took part in a panel that explored fashion curation and men’s clothing. We covered notions of identity, collaboration, personal practice-based research, interdisciplinary research and locating objects in narratives where there may be states of flux. The conversation was not recorded. What follows is not an exact transcription of our conversation but a reimagining that allows the memories and thinking around the practices of fashion curation that we spoke about to have developed and changed through reflection and ongoing practice.

The aim, with our conversation in Liverpool and this article, is to foster further conversations around locating masculine identities in exhibitions, contextualizing narratives in increasingly unstable times, the power of collaboration, intersecting cultures and cultural exchange, and inclusive practices. We had a lot to say between us when we talked in July, responding to ideas around menswear and identity and menswear as cultural exchange. This article offers an inclusive, practice-based and interdisciplinary approach to describing the practice and theory of fashion curation – why we do what we do.

From 1977 onwards, a new youth movement was emerging in the north-west of England. Initially unnamed and recognized only by those who were a part of it, this new subculture centred around three key elements: actively following a football team; wearing branded clothing at the match as a marker of group identity; and, at least for some within the scene, engaging in violence against rival football fans.

This article draws on two consecutive qualitative research projects. In the first study, the aim was to develop an in-depth understanding of older British men’s experiences of ageing through the lens of fashion and clothing. The follow-up study built on the previous findings, by exploring various points of continuity and change in the social performance of older men through their evolving fashion and clothing practices. Between 2013 and 2014, a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with five mature, fashion-conscious men (based in the Midlands, UK), which alongside wardrobe methods revealed the various ways in which they used their embodied relationship with clothing as a mechanism for articulating and negotiating their ageing bodies, individual and collective identities. A decade later in 2024, a series of follow-up interviews and personal inventories with three of the original study participants shines new light on the richness and complexity of the men’s lived experiences, and the interconnectedness of their social and bodily performance as they continue to age. Drawing upon Karen Barad’s seminal work on agential realism, and particularly the concept of entanglement, which proposes the emergence of individual traits through interactions and intra-relationships, we analyse the participants’ past and present accounts, garments and photographs of their selected favourite fashion objects as inseparable, intertwined and iterative. This approach to analysis revealed various entanglements in the older men’s unfolding clothing narratives in relation to their fashion identities, social performance and agency.

Purchasing a custom Burberry coat previously owned by a White, former British army officer confronted me, viscerally, with the social contentions of dress for a Black man. Until then, I had been a student and critical observer of it, only occasionally reflecting on how my personal dress experience intersected with what I have been studying. But my desire to get rid of the coat right after I had bought it, forcefully brought on by a slew of questions and discomforts around my identity and that of its former owner, better realized these tensions in my own consumption. I have since combined styling methods and Black historical knowledge to resolve them. This snapshot illustrates how the dress experience differs for Black men and the role that race, power and gender play in my story. I reveal how arming oneself with knowledge of the past – in this case, how West African soldiers once wore their oppressors’ garments after defeating them to upturn the power dynamic – can help remedy such vexations. The article makes clear the personal stories clothes tell, the ones we ascribe and those we remake. It contributes to current scholarship on the role of dress for Black men, applicable to numerous disciplines within the arts, humanities and social sciences.

An extract from the spoken-word performance Tidalectic Encounters, this performance considers the parallels, contradictions and differences between the re-presentation of African diaspora male bodies in England and across the continents, from Jamaica to Johannesburg, Harlem to Hackney. The title of the performance references Kamau Brathwaite’s ‘tidalectics’ concept (1974), where the wave is used as a metaphor to describe the continual forward, back and forward again cyclical motion of people and their mutating creolized cultures. This extract presents Tex’s Story – a section of an oral history reflection. Tex and I first met at the Sharpe End community centre in Hackney, London, almost twenty years ago.¹ It was an extremely blustery, January afternoon, according to my notes. He was not happy about being seen in his tracksuit; he had planned to go home and change before our appointment, but the wind and rain in London that day were such that this had not been possible. Tex came to England from the Caribbean in 1944 at the age of 15, without his mother’s knowledge, having ‘borrowed’ his father’s ‘name’ in order to travel alone, though underage.

Hull trawlermen from the mid-twentieth century created a distinctive dress code when at leisure belonging only to their workforce. It travelled with their occupation. The ‘shore suit’, a distinct (sub)cultural regional style, set them apart from other men in their community and beyond. Bold in appearance with specific features characterized by pastel shades, wide waistbands, half-moon pockets and pleated backs, the shore suit contributed to this collective uniformity for at least 25 years. The trawlermen went to sea in their made-to-measure suits, prepared in case opportunities arose to land abroad. The trawlers were rarely scheduled to enter any other port than Hull; however, these significant landings became an integral part of their narratives, experiences and (mis)-adventures. The men made the most of these trips, including potentially inspiring others of the same professional background to wear outlandish dress. This article discusses the geographical spaces of the Hull trawlermen and the potential cultural drivers influencing their choice of attire. Ports in the United Kingdom and those in Norway, Faroe Islands and Iceland were major points of disembarkation; for this article, Hull and Iceland will be used as a case study. The island emerged as a centre of innovative fashion, influenced by diverse international trends that impacted the population and the trawlermen visiting for short periods of time. Oral history was the core method for data collection from those who wore, witnessed or were a part of creating the shore suits. Findings offer new insight into labour mobility and locations of menswear related to a particular workforce and its ability to shape dress of this geographically disparate group of men.

Review of: Magnetic: C.P. Company | Boneville | Stone Island: An Anthology, 986 to 993, Tony Rivers and James Burnett (2024)

Cardiff: Rivers and Burnett, 298 pp.,

p/bk, GBP 35

The history of British fashion remains incomplete without the acknowledgement of the significant contributions of Black fashion cultures as well as Black British designers – figures such as Ozwald Boateng, Bruce Oldfield, Wale Adeyemi, Ninivah Khomo – whose works have often been overlooked in mainstream narratives. Another such name is Joe Casely-Hayford (JCH) (1956–2019) whose career, spanning from the late 1980s until his passing in 2019, was defined by a distinctive signature that incorporated Savile Row-quality tailoring with innovative streetwear aesthetics. Recognition of his contribution as a Black British designer has been recently acknowledged through a fashion exhibition, eponymous MA fashion scholarship and special recognition award. Despite these recognitions, his work has largely remained underrepresented in academic literature. This gap underscores the need for scholarly exploration of Joe Casely-Hayford’s influence, particularly as the fashion industry has recently begun to acknowledge the contributions of Black British designers. Researching his work and legacy offers an opportunity to understand and appreciate the often-overlooked role of Black British creatives in shaping both national and global fashion narratives. Leveraging the object analysis method, three garments designed by JCH in the 1990s, sourced from the Westminster Menswear Archive, were analysed to examine his use of colour, texture, structure and silhouette in interpreting the expression of his design philosophy, ‘English sartorialism and British anarchy’. Findings from this research emphasize the significance of heritage, place and identity in his design process, highlighting the consistent negotiation of honouring tradition and provoking dialogue beyond the runway.

This snapshot reflects on the cultural and social implications of cricket kit, focusing on class and identity within Greater Manchester. Influenced by a Gieves V-neck hand-knitted cricket jumper held in the Westminster Menswear Archive, it examines the symbolism of cricket apparel and its impact on perceptions of the sport, through object elicitation and personal narratives. The text draws on academic workshops, personal experiences and contextual analysis to highlight ongoing elitism in cricket.

The Berghaus and a beer project is a cultural investigation that aims to document the hidden, everyday narratives of Manchester’s Berghaus enthusiasts. The project stemmed from the researchers noticing the co-opting of the brand in certain subcultures and geographies, communities and networks familiar to the authors, which enabled participant recruitment through purposeful sampling. The adoption of the Berghaus brand across time and place remains unresearched, and this study aims to undertake an in-depth study, contributing to understandings of menswear in relation to place and culture. This was achieved through a mixed-methods approach of portraiture and object-based interviews. The focus of each interview is a Berghaus garment selected by the interviewee, based on their lived experience. These garments serve as a catalyst to the interview and a medium through which to explore and communicate the relationship between garment, place and cultural belonging. In this photo essay, the authors share some of the portraits and their initial findings from the pilot study.

This article is concerned with the relationship between iconic UK brands and subcultures, which it approaches via a specific focus on Fred Perry. It explores how the brand manages its links to particular, post-war, British subcultures alongside its ‘Englishness’ and/or ‘Britishness’, in what is referred to as a process of association, dissociation, location and dislocation. It suggests that, through this process, the brand’s subcultural connections and Englishness, in particular, are both played up and played down, as a way of establishing ‘authenticity’ in the form of subcultural and locational capital, on the one hand, and managing negative connotations and the brand’s global appeal on the other. It argues that one way to address the processes under consideration is to approach things from an Actor Network Theory perspective, conceptualizing brands as actor networks – or as ongoing, contingent and relational processes involving a diverse range of constituents, human and otherwise – and the branding process as an attempt to manage and stabilize the networks involved. This may be difficult to achieve, however, because of such networks’ ongoing and relational qualities, and because, in the case of subcultures, the things which render them valuable in branding terms may also make them unruly and difficult to contain.

This research explores how the Nike Air Max 95 (AM95) operates as a culturally charged object within men’s fashion, subcultural identity and localized style practices. The central enquiry asks how the AM95 functions as a symbol of masculine identity, status and community belonging within Liverpool, addressing a gap in critical fashion studies regarding footwear’s role as a material and symbolic marker in regional masculinities and subcultural formations. This photo essay employs a combined ethnographic and visual methodology, developed in collaboration with Sole-Zine, The Block P and members of Liverpool’s trainer community. Through photographic documentation, participant observation and informal interviews, it presents visual and discursive narratives that illuminate the AM95’s role in expressing gender, taste and forms of consumer loyalty. Findings indicate the AM95 is not merely a fashion commodity but a deeply embedded cultural artefact that signifies male belonging, working-class pride and generational style inheritance. The shoe functions as a symbol of subcultural capital, mediated through localized networks and collective practices of display. This work contributes to critical men’s fashion discourse by illustrating how a single style of trainer can highlight the broader themes of identity, obsession, style and place.

In this performance PJ talks about a trip to Marseille to visit the self-proclaimed ‘world’s biggest Lacoste collector’. He shares why the crocodile was so significant to him as a kid growing up in the shadow of Goodison Park, and how he has recently rekindled his interest in the brand named after a French tennis player from the 1920s. He touches upon Merseyside’s love affair with Lacoste Sport tracksuits from the late 1990s and the early 2000s. It’s a story about belonging really. As that’s all we all want. However, we get it. Or maybe he just needed an excuse for a holiday?