Critical Studies in Men's Fashion - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2016

This theoretical article examines how dress and the Public, Private and Secret Self (PPSS) model is linked to the coming-out models of LGBTI individuals, specifically gay men. The PPSS model is a taxonomy for categorizing dress based on social situation (reality, fun/leisure, fantasy) and the level of self-expression (public, private, secret). Coming-out models are developmental stages of expressing one’s sexual orientation, otherwise known as ‘coming out of the closet’. By examining existing academic literature on gay men and comparing coming-out models with the PPSS model, we posit two directions that link the two models.

Fashion advertisements pioneered the mainstream objectification of the male body in popular culture. While scholars have theorized about the influence of these images on men, few empirical studies have examined men’s engagement with them. This study investigates how men experience objectified men’s fashion advertisements through interviews with 30 gay and straight male fashion consumers. Analysis revealed that both gay and straight men gaze upon images through the lenses of appreciation and fantasy, destabilizing normative binaries of gender and sexuality. Despite the delight that men experienced, objectified fashion images roused despair and distress because the models represented limited body ideals and expressions of gender and sexuality. Findings provide empirical evidence to support and advance a new theorization of the male gaze in men’s fashion images. Fashion professionals are advised to expand their representations of male imagery to enable men to continue to traverse gender and sexuality boundaries.

The transition of a simple T-shirt from a constituent piece of military uniform to cultural icon is well documented, but the impacts of this shift of male fashion and the societal role of men are not as well researched. This article explores the role of gender as it relates to fashion and broadly examines a cultural snapshot of the changing landscape of men’s fashion at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. Along with this exploration is a guide map of the shifting landscape, what these shifts portend, and the social and cultural changes that are being mirrored by the way men engage or do not engage in clothing and fashion.

Fashion on the Ration: 1940s’ Street Style, Imperial War Museum, London, 5 March–31 August 2015

Harajuku: Tokyo Street Fashion, Honolulu Museum of Art, 19 November 2015–3 April 2016

Jeremy Scott: The People’s Designer, Vlad Yudin (2015) USA: The Vladar Company