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- Volume 7, Issue 1, 2020
Critical Studies in Men's Fashion - Volume 7, Issue 1-2, 2020
Volume 7, Issue 1-2, 2020
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Man-made man: The role of the fashion photograph in the development of masculinity
More LessAs a former male model and fashion photographer, I am fascinated by the visual representation of masculinity. Currently, this representation is in the midst of a shift away from traditional, singular notions of masculinity towards a more diverse and inclusive representation. This article looks to analyse the role of fashion photography in the changing landscape of masculinity in male fashion photographs. I will be examining the historic creation of singular hegemonic masculine ideals and comparing them to current representations in male fashion photography, which have become more complex and inclusive of gestures and elements that were once ascribed to non-normative ideals. My research has uncovered the role of authors who create male fashion photographs and the process they follow in the creation of new narratives that are more diverse in the current climate of accelerated digitized media.
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Queer fashion practice and the camp tactics of Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY
Authors: Fenella Hitchcock and Jay McCauley BowsteadThis article focuses on the collections of London-based, Glaswegian designer Charles Jeffrey who has won plaudits for his spectacular, subversive, theatrical and highly camp catwalk shows. His label LOVERBOY – having grown out of an East London club night of the same name – brings together eclectic historical references with the stylistic bricolage of the queer scene from which it emerged. Using a combination of image analysis and a semi-structured interview with Jeffrey, this article investigates how he has blurred the boundaries between the nightclub and the runway, the collective and the named designer to formulate a distinctly queer mode of fashion practice. At LOVERBOY the transformative possibilities of the nightclub; the heightened emotion of the dance floor; and the embodied, affective, temporal qualities of ‘queer sociality’ are transposed onto the catwalk, revealing the role of fashion and clothing in practices of queer world-making. Camp aesthetics and queer nightlife have played a crucial role in the history of fashion – perhaps most notably during the 1980s when designers like Bodymap, Jean Paul Gaultier and Stephen Linard drew extensively on queer signifiers in their work. However, the success of LOVERBOY marks a shift in contemporary cultures of gender as discourses of queerness and performativity reach a new point of amplification. After the seriousness, refinement and minimalism of millennial fashion, the liminality, polysemy and exuberance of camp has again reasserted its transgressive potential.
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Practices of resistance: The Antwerp fashion scene and Walter Van Beirendonck’s subversion of masculinity
Authors: Nicola Brajato and Alexander DhoestThe existing literature on the evolution of the Antwerp fashion scene is mainly concerned with the development of the Fashion Academy pedagogy from tradition to avant-garde, the role of the famous ‘Antwerp Six’ in putting the city under the international fashion spotlight, and the making of a specific cultural heritage which up to today continues to inspire young fashion designers. However, less has been said about its contribution to the redefinition of gender, and more specifically of masculinity. Consequently, the aim of the article is to contextualize Antwerp as a site for ‘creative resistance’ against the middle-class ideas of fashion, body and identity through the figure of Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck, articulating his contribution in deconstructing the normative understanding of the relationship between fashion and masculinity, providing a new metaphor to think about the process of body fashioning in everyday life. Therefore, Van Beirendonck’s creative practices as a sartorial form of resistance against the bourgeois understanding of masculinity and sexuality will be investigated through a qualitative analysis of visual and audio-visual archive materials generously provided by MoMu, the Antwerp fashion museum, showing how his creations are successful in stretching bodily borders and forming non-conventional masculinities. Far from offering an exhaustive overview of the field, the article constitutes a starting point for the understanding of a particular way of seeing the relationship between fashion, body and gender identity in the Antwerp fashion scene. Furthermore, it aims to stress the urgency to analyse the relevance of fashion in tackling issues of masculinity and the clothed body.
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On metamodernism: Virgil Abloh’s borderless fashion practice
More LessThe contemporary global fashion system is at a unique point of convergence between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and across creative disciplines and representational spaces. Fashion designers are no longer confined to the catwalk, nor to the physical object of clothing, but are multi-hyphenate creators bringing together design principles from other fields such as architecture, graphic design and fine art. Within this shifting design landscape, ‘meta’ has entered the millennial colloquial vernacular to describe anything that is self-referential, and has become a trait common to a generation whose cultural production and direct way of communicating is based upon digital social networks such as Instagram and Facebook. The ‘metamodern’ is a nomenclature paradigm proposition for contemporary culture beyond that of postmodernism and proposes an oscillation between principles characteristic of both the modern and postmodern. This new metamodern paradigm will be aligned within this article and mapped against developments in the contemporary popular ‘fashionscape’. This will include the close analysis of multi-hyphenate interdisciplinary design practitioner Virgil Abloh and examples of the global practice he has established including: his streetwear brand Off White™, his collaboration with Nike and the curation of his 2019 exhibition in Chicago, Figures of Speech.
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Fashioning Prince: Bikini briefs, trench coats and zoot suits, 1978–91
More LessMinneapolis-born Prince Rogers Nelson is often revered as one of the most influential figures in twenty-first-century popular culture. A true provocateur, Prince consistently challenged perceptions of gender and sexuality throughout his career, which spanned over four decades. Since his untimely passing on 21 April 2016, not only have fans around the world celebrated the musician’s life, but his oeuvre, representation and style have garnered increasing critical academic attention. This article will contribute to this burgeoning body of academic work on Prince and his lasting legacy, through a focus upon tracing the development of Prince’s iconic sartorial style, from his debut release For You (1978) to the worldwide success of his thirteenth studio album, Diamonds and Pearls (1991). Throughout this period, Prince aroused, entertained and shocked audiences simultaneously. Whilst critical attention has been paid to his music, background and identity, there remains comparatively little academic work focusing specifically and in detail upon his garments and style. This article will chart the emerging custom designed and created style of Prince through sequential album eras, focusing on important garments worn throughout music videos, concerts and album art.
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From emo kid to stylish GQ Gent and back again: Matty Healy and hybrid masculinity
More LessThis article examines the evolution of the appearance of British musician, Matty Healy, lead singer of contemporary band The 1975, in his performance as a hybrid man in style and fashion magazines. Hybrid masculinity is often used by young white men as a form of assimilating aspects from marginalized groups into performing their identities. This is to distance themselves from the narrow confines of hegemonic masculinity through transgression. Healy’s performances of gay and feminized hybrid masculinities have emerged through his clothing, from early national success as a typical ‘emo’ kid ‘dressed in black from head to toe’ to a fully groomed, suited and booted Englishman, cover star of GQ and in demand as a model. Prior to global fame, Healy’s style referenced rock stars of the past and he was admired for his simple black clothing, boyish emo good looks and curly hair; style blog IdleMan.com refers to him as a ‘gothic hipster’. Yet in concert with his stylist, Patricia Villirillo, Healy has begun to play on the more feminized aspects of emo fashion such as performing in women’s skirts and dresses, and arguably has produced a twenty-first-century emo aesthetic. Moreover, he also adopts the appearance of a powerful man in a suit or for performances as well as photoshoots. Healy might now be dressed in a suit or tie for performing, as easily as he might wear a skirt, as many men in music have before him. Wearing skirts as an act of transgression highlights the lack of diversity in men’s clothing in its mundanity, and despite advances in acceptance of dynamic masculine identities through performing gay identities, performing hybrid masculinities through femininity, is still highly problematic.
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21st-century Buffalo Boys: Intersectional approaches to the complexities of modern masculinity
More LessScottish-born stylist, Ray Petri, founder of the maverick Buffalo Collective, defined the look and feel of radical 1980s fashion magazines such as i-D, The Face and Arena. The Buffalo Boy look pioneered a more sexually ambiguous form of fashion iconography, undermining the putative immutability of normative codes of gender and sexuality and communicating a new image of masculinity. Previous conviction that the Buffalo spirit died with its founder has been upended by a new generation tapping into the Buffalo legacy, notably British-Ghanaian photographer, model-casting agent and publisher, Campbell Addy, and West African stylist, Ibrahim Kamara – both former interns of original Buffalo Collective members. This article explores how Addy and Kamara’s imagery interrogates the fragile relationship between menswear and masculinity, underpinned by intersectional issues of sex, race, faith and identity. Breaking down the construct of hegemonic masculinity, this article compares contemporary works by Addy and Kamara with the output of Buffalo to argue that the Buffalo spirit is evolving in how Addy and Kamara address notions of authenticity, exploit cross-cultural influences and transcend binary oppositions – redefining modern masculinity.
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Performing nostalgia: Men’s consumption of 1950s fashion
More LessClothing is an important device by which people establish their identity in society. Men who choose to wear 1950s style clothing are signalling their identity through the established stereotypes of the 1950s despite their temporal distance from the era. This article examines the motivations of three men who choose to use 1950s style clothing in their everyday wardrobe. In doing so, it traces the complex connections between nostalgia, social identity and dress. The development of men’s fashion has followed a different trajectory from women’s, its changes being more conservative and slow-evolving. Flügel argued that men had renounced the tenets of fashion, preferring styles that reflect their rational minds, a position that has been challenged in recent years. This article demonstrates that men can and do use clothing to establish their social identities. This article finds that the clothing not only embodies their taste but also embodies their values.
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Power, privilege and paradox: Understanding Ranveer Singh’s sartorial fame and the (un)making of the new millennial masculinity in contemporary Indian society
More LessBollywood film star Ranveer Singh’s fashion choices are often defined as eccentric, outlandish and even androgynous, in particular, his much-talked-about public appearances in bright floral pantsuits, or kohl-lined eyes and man-skirts are discussed in popular media as subverting gender norms and challenging gender binaries. Commenting on the shift in representation of contemporary Bollywood’s male protagonist, film scholars have argued that Singh embodies ‘metrosexual masculinity’ in neoliberal India and that his on- and off-screen persona involves deliberate scripting of a ‘feminist’ and ‘less patriarchally structured masculinity’. Testing the extent of the assertions mentioned above, I examine Singh’s media persona as a site of cultural production and a form of social reproduction. I use a feminist theoretical framework, and gender studies debates to critique Singh’s negotiations with gender and sexuality in his media images across – film, advertisement and social media. I argue that the millennial star as a fashion icon is not only far from offering a progressive model of millennial masculinity, but is also working towards normalizing Hindu gender ideologies that have long sanctioned power to men and subjugated women in Indian society. Focusing on the role played by the corporatized androcentric media industry, I argue that ‘feminist’ posturing of the star appropriates and suppresses other forms of marginal identities. Singh’s media persona thus works to maintain the status quo as far as gender, class and caste identities are concerned, and becomes a vehicle of the nationalist ideology under the present right-wing leader, Narendra Modi.
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‘She will wear the britsch’: Masculinity and the iconography of Prince Albert
More LessThis article examines the early representations of Prince Albert that either satirize or attempt to reconcile the hierarchical ambiguities and issue of threatened masculinity that resulted from unconventional male consortship and female rule. It concludes that the latter was achieved through the development of a suitable and legible iconography for a nineteenth-century male consort in adherence with British iconographic tradition and values. Drawing from methods in nineteenth-century art history as well as gender and performance studies and anthropology, it argues that images of the male body play a fundamental role in the construction and perpetuation of masculine ideology and subjectivity through the creation of the semblance of an innate and axiomatic masculine archetype. In doing so, this article problematizes and historicizes masculinity by illuminating the plurality of expressions of masculinity and rejecting the essentialist narrative of masculinity as something measurable or quantifiable, as well as ahistorical, atemporal, apolitical and heteronormative.
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The unknowing ... X: Queering representations of masculinity in an undetectable world
More LessOver the years, I have amassed a huge dressing up box, accumulated from different parts of my life – AIDS patient to university professor, gender bender to porn star, go-go dancer to boxer, drag queen to leather queen, son to daddy! HIV+ since 1994, on medication and Undetectable, I approach my sixth decade reflecting on past lives and the unknown future.
This series is about dipping into the dressing up box to create new and potential different roles by performing for the camera and playing with gender, identity, sexuality, masculinity and everything in between. It is about Unthinking in a space of creative Unknowing. An exciting place where anything can happen and nothing is predetermined, where there is everything to look forward to.
The X of Unknowing ... can be a kiss from me to you, a reference to non-binary, non-gendered specific pronouns, or it can refer to an undetermined space, literally and metaphorically.
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