‘Redressed’ looks at that most typical of masculine garments: the suit. Portrait of Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Bellamont (1738-1800), in Robes of the Order of the Bath, (1773–1774), Joshua Reynolds. Given the exhibition’s largely Western focus, there are also some welcome garments here from designers such as Priya Ahluwalia, who specialises in splicing together more European modes of dress with Indian and Nigerian tailoring and textiles. Grace Wales Bonner’s fuzzy, quartz-coloured two-piece and Thom Browne’s candy-striped skirt suit with built in codpiece are highlights. A pleasing line-up of pink garments features too, stretching from Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of the ‘inveterate womaniser’ Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Bellamont, depicted in swathes of blushing satin, to pieces by contemporary designers. Clothes rub shoulders with paintings, sculptures and marvellous curios including an intricately carved 18th-century wooden cravat belonging to Gothic novelist and man about town, Horace Walpole. The ‘Overdressed’ section is pure peacockery, with displays of power and wealth, as well as the pleasures of colour and pattern. A similar process of lamination is revealed here, our understanding of menswear and male beauty having been intimately shaped, in part, by men who desired men. Brown examines the legacy of the many gay designers, photographers, stylists and art directors who have shaped fashion, describing it as a process of hiding in plain sight: their queer aesthetic ‘laminated’ on to mainstream trends and imagery.
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In Work! A Queer History of Modeling (2019), Elspeth H. Here we see both its embodiment and its subversion, the photos, videos and clothes assembled walking a deliberately wobbly line between straightness and camp.
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Homoerotic undertones are made explicit in Tom of Finland illustrations and photography by George Platt Lynes and Robert Mapplethorpe.Ĭonceptions of masculinity are shaped as much by physicality as fabric. Sly shock comes in the form of Vivienne Westwood’s suggestive fig-leaf pants and Jean Paul Gaultier’s trompe l’oeil blazer featuring both pecs and penis. Huge plaster statues of the Farnese Hermes and Apollo Belvedere overlook pale displays of loose muslin shirts, tight Y-fronts, translucent two-pieces and chest binders. Beginning with the figure of the Greek nude, all rippling muscles and wholly unfunctional drapery, ‘Undressed’ charts a brief history of undergarments and physical ideals. The exhibition is divided into three sections: ‘Undressed’, ‘Overdressed’, ‘Redressed’.
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It makes a compelling argument for menswear being just as flamboyant, vain and varied as womenswear, while also aiming to do away with any kind of entrenched divide between the two. ‘Fashioning Masculinities’ is a welcome riposte to such narratives. Women’s appearances are repeatedly altered by rapid changes in silhouette, hemline and fabric. Where on earth would it begin, let alone end? Over the last 300 years or so, ‘fashion’ in the sense of a continually shifting set of trends has been understood as a largely female arena. It is impossible to imagine the V&A putting on an exhibition titled ‘Fashioning Femininities: The Art of Womenswear’. Do clothes make the man? And, if they do, how much power do those clothes have to shape our understanding of masculinity? After a raft of blockbuster exhibitions devoted to designers and labels including Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga and Dior, the fashion department has now set its sights on something that is not so much a topic as an open-ended question. For an exhibition as ambitious in scope as ‘Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the word is perhaps a relief. An event or identity takes shape meaning changes, settles and changes again. To be fashioned means to exist in a state of formation. ‘Fashioning’ is a useful word for a curator.