A Brief History of Fashion and Masculinity: How the contemporary fashion industry could be said to be queering masculinity

This essay will provide a brief history of trends, theory, and some valuable definitions in relation to fashion and masculinity. Moreover, this essay will critically evaluate some of the existing texts that surround this debate. It is important to begin with a definition of fashion, Tim Edwards contends that ‘Fashion is a multi-faceted concept’, suggesting that it refers ‘simultaneously to dress, to design, and to style’[1]. Valerie Steele goes further, defining fashion as ‘the cultural construction of embodied identity’[2]. The concept fashion is kinetic, and it is inextricably related to the body and identity. Therefore, it is worthwhile considering fashions over time in relation to masculinity. However, it is less easy to define what is meant by the term masculinity and it has been notoriously difficult for scholars and academics to delineate solely masculine traits. Contemporary western readers might understand masculinity in opposition to femininity; something rugged, strong, virile, and biologically influenced. However, in truth masculinity, like fashion, has different meanings in different cultures, at different times. Further, even within one cultural context, there is no fixed idea of what masculinity is. Of particular interest here, is the relationship that these fluid notions of masculinity have with fashion. Importantly, this relationship has been subject of escalating academic interest in recent years, a point advanced by Moss who writes that ‘Beginning with J. C. Flugel’s The Psychology of Clothes […] many commentators have recognized a supreme correlation between sartorial appearance and identity’[3].

While Ben Barry writes that, ‘Modern Western society has framed fashion in opposition to hegemonic masculinity’, it serves to consider the history of men’s relationship with fashion over time[4]. Tim Edwards points out that there is ‘no one history of fashion, that there is no “essential” series of “facts” […] rather, ‘there are histories of fashion’[5]. Edwards asserts that while fashion is often considered to be a ‘modern phenomenon’ the fact is that it does have a long history[6]. Historically, the wearing of clothing is an exclusively human quality, and clothes have always reflected such things as: materials and technologies; climate and geography; gender and identity; and status and power. Consequently, men have drawn upon clothing as ‘a cultural resource’ and in doing so, Barry argues, ‘their gender performances often reproduce social structures’[7]. Here, the case is being made that men, specifically, have determined what is acceptable dress according to their society. Returning to Flugel and his theory of clothing, he attempts to answer two questions: ‘why do human beings wear clothes?’ and ‘why do the ways in which human beings dress vary so greatly?[8]. Flugel, cited in Carter, argues that the ‘exhibitionistic instinct originally relates to the naked body’ only to eventually become ‘displaced […] onto clothes’, and in this way clothes simultaneously hide and accentuate the body[9]. The second question of variety is most prominent when observing the dissimilitude between men and women’s clothing. Barry highlights how Flugel pointed to how the ‘French Revolution’s democratic ideals suggested that men should not display their authority through clothes because it resided inherently in them’, at which point there was a shift in how men dressed, from aristocratic decadence towards proletariat continence, a shift that Flugel termed ‘The Great Masculine Renunciation’[10]. Relating this shift to gender and masculinity, scholars reasoned that it ‘rearticulated hegemonic masculinity in opposition to flamboyance and fashion’[11], and what has resulted is a more reserved and uniform men’s fashion. Interestingly, Shannon writes that ‘the Renunciation’s ideal of male sartorial reserve is no longer considered historical truth’, which calls into question the legitimacy of such a position[12]. To compound this, Edwards writes of ‘the ghost of Flugel’ which has continued to haunt the ‘study and understanding of men’s fashion’[13]. Moreover, Shannon believes that popular Victorian literature that details the Renunciation serve to hinder ‘a more nuanced, rigorous examination of nineteenth-century middle-class male engagement with clothing and shopping’[14].  This brief overview clearly indicates how society has influence over how men dress, and how’ fashion is related to constructions of masculinity. Moreover, societal influence over men’s fashion could be said to be repressive. With this being so, men often find themselves struggling to conform to these pressures. However, as stated at the outset, there is no fixed point of masculinity within a set context and so, through fashion and sartorial choices, men and women are able to shift between delineated spaces, employing fashion as a tool to create ambiguity.  

Indeed, Ted Polhemus, cited in Moss, implies that this repression of men’s extravagant fashions, pre-The Great Masculine Renunciation, although successful in tempering men’s fashions for approximately two centuries, has been challenged by sub-cultures of the twentieth century thereby recalibrating masculine identity, ‘”distinct social groups and cultural institutions” have served to retain “a positive view of the male body” which in turn has “thrived within the context of twentieth-century popular culture”’[15]. Another important factor is the changing commercial culture throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, divergences in male consumption have impacted upon the social construction of masculinity as it appears today. This essay contends that despite the changing constructions of masculinity throughout the twentieth century, it remains widely accepted that ‘Fashion and consumption are still largely gendered as the exclusive domains of women’[16]. This point is enhanced by Edwards assertion that it is ‘commonly assumed’ that fashion is ‘a feminine phenomenon’[17]. Therefore, questions are raised about how men think about their masculinity in relation to fashion, and what makes masculine style. Susan B. Kaiser finds that since the nineties, men have become a ‘”new” market for the fashion industry’[18]. Indeed, Kaiser highlights the Dockers[R] ‘Say NO to Metro’ campaign, which it is claimed ‘reaffirmed their idea of masculinity’ and ‘epitomized “traditional” American masculine style’[19]. This example of the fashion industry seeking to serve a conservative, male market, in opposition to another construct of masculinity, in this instance that of the metrosexual, serves to highlight the importance of fashion in concepts of masculinity. In truth, studies of men’s fashion, much like the consumption of fashion, according to Kaiser, is under-developed. Edwards writes that ‘fashion for men is rarely taken as seriously as fashion for women, and menswear is seen primarily in terms of utility’[20]. This essay recognises that this is not just an issue in fashion studies, it occurs across the disciplines, for example Gaines, cited in Church Gibson and Jeffers McDonald, asserts that ‘What little scholarship there is on film costume deals primarily […] with the feminine’, and this is problematic and needs to be dealt with[21]. Perhaps the main reason that fashion is considered a feminine concern is because it has the capacity to overturn ‘common sense understandings of gender’, as Bowstead cited in Roberts puts it[22]. Certainly, if fashion has the capability of constructing hegemonic masculinity, it too has the power to create alternative masculinities. The contemporary fashion industry could be said to be queering masculinity, that is blurring the boundaries between plural masculinities, or ‘disrupting the binary notions of gender and sexuality’[23]. Indeed, Miller cited in Roberts, writes that ‘[C]lothes [are] not superficial, they actually [are] what ma[k]e us what we think we are’[24].

The arguments presented in this essay serve to highlight the breadth of the debate that exists on fashion as a concern for masculine studies. There is a long history that is highlighted by Carter, which is important for understanding fashion studies. Shannon offers further historical perspective, thereby deepening understanding. Edwards advances the debate, identifying gaps in academia lie and his two texts considered here are seminal works in the study of fashion and masculinity. Roberts and Kaiser offer a relatively recent perspective, with research undertaken in two different cultural settings, contemporary America and Russia. In each text, the material is clearly structured, most often beginning with a brief history and the authors begin by outlining their positions. Each of the texts is designed to inform. They are effective in explaining positions, methodologies, and results for a primarily academic audience. However, the scope of the work considered here is potentially greater than a purely academic audience. Undoubtedly, there remains much work to be done, to redress the balance between our understandings, and appreciation of fashion as a masculine and feminine concern.

Bibliography

Ben Barry, ‘(Re)fashioning Masculinity: Social Identity and Context in Men’s Hybrid Masculinities through Dress’, Gender & Society, Vol. 32: No.5, (2018), (pp. 638-662).

Michael Carter, ‘J.C. Flugel’, Fashion History and Eras (2021), https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/j-c-fluegel [Accessed 31 January 2021].

Pamela Church Gibson and Tamar Jeffers McDonald, ‘Costume and Adaptation’, in A Companion to Literature, Film, and Adaptation ed. by Cartnell (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2012), (pp. 295-311).

Tim Edwards, Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics, (London: Routledge, 2010).

Tim Edwards. Men in the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity, and Consumer Society. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

Susan B. Kaiser, ‘Men, masculinity and style in 2008: A study of men’s clothing considerations in the latter aughts’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Vol. 3: No. 2, (2016), (pp. 125-139).

Mark Moss, The Media and the Models of Masculinity (Washington: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012)

Graham H. Roberts, ‘Queering the stitch: Fashion, masculinity and the post-structuralist subject.’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Vol. 6: No. 1-2, (2019).

Brett Shannon, ‘Refashioning men: fashion, masculinity, and the cultivation of the male consumer in Britain, 1860-1914’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 46: No. 4, (2004).

Valerie Steele, ‘Letter from the Editor’, Fashion Theory, Vol. 1: No. 1, (1997), (pp. 1-2).

[1] Tim Edwards. Men in the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity, and Consumer Society. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

[2] Valerie Steele, ‘Letter from the Editor’, Fashion Theory, Vol. 1: No. 1, (1997), (pp. 1-2).

[3] Mark Moss, The Media and the Models of Masculinity (Washington: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), (p. 3).

[4] Ben Barry, ‘(Re)fashioning Masculinity: Social Identity and Context in Men’s Hybrid Masculinities through Dress’, Gender & Society, Vol. 32: No.5, (2018), (p. 638).

[5] Edwards, (2016), (p.10).

[6] Ibid. (p.9).

[7] Ben Barry, ‘(Re)fashioning Masculinity: Social Identity and Context in Men’s Hybrid Masculinities through Dress’, Gender & Society, Vol. 32: No.5, (2018)

[8] Michael Carter, ‘J.C. Flugel’, Fashion History and Eras (2021), https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/j-c-fluegel [Accessed 31 January 2021].

[9] Ibid.

[10] Barry. (2018), (p. 641).

[11] Ibid.

[12] Brett Shannon, ‘Refashioning men: fashion, masculinity, and the cultivation of the male consumer in Britain, 1860-1914’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 46: No. 4, (2004).

[13] Tim Edwards, Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics, (London: Routledge, 2010), (p. 41) .

[14] Shannon, (2004), (p. 1).

[15] Moss, (2012), (p. 4).

[16] Shannon, (2004), (p. 1).

[17] Edwards, (2011), (p. 41).

[18] Susan B. Kaiser, ‘Men, masculinity and style in 2008: A study of men’s clothing considerations in the latter aughts’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Vol. 3: No. 2, (2016), (p. 1).

[19] Ibid. (p. 5).

[20] Edwards, (2011), (p. 42).

[21] Pamela Church Gibson and Tamar Jeffers McDonald, ‘Costume and Adaptation’, in A Companion to Literature, Film, and Adaptation ed. by Cartnell (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2012).

[22] Graham H. Roberts, ‘Queering the stitch: Fashion, masculinity and the post-structuralist subject.’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Vol. 6: No. 1-2, (2019), (p. 3).

[23] Ibid. (p. 8).

[24] Ibid. (p. 11).