[Expo] Masculinities - "The costume that man adopts is the symbol of social success through work"

The suit, a symbol of social success through work

Men's fashion underwent a dramatic evolution at the end of the 18th century and still in some way determines men's fashion today. Before the end of the 18th century, men's wardrobes were as ornate as women's: fitted waists, embroidery, silks, sequins, rhinestones, lace... At the end of the 18th century, a great revolution upset men's wardrobes, which we will call 'the Great Masculine Renunciation'. The man renounces sumptuous finery, to adopt a much more sober wardrobe.

Why ? Rich clothes were the symbol of aristocracy, idleness. The change is due to the social upheaval that followed the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The bourgeoisie takes over and the dominant values ​​become those of work; the costume that the man adopts is the symbol of social success through work.

The man instructs his wife, by her dress and her ornaments, to manifest her wealth. This is how women are also stereotyped, they are excluded from the values ​​of work – reason, work, efficiency – and they are delegated to other roles in society.

The tie suit testifies to the value of work, embodies the codes of male respectability, with the notions of power and social success. A claimed sobriety, which leaves very little room for coquetry. The few accessories embody this relationship to power and success: the cane, the top hat then the bowler hat, the cufflinks, the pocket watch...

Challenge and questioning

The creators of the 90s and 2000s will exploit these aspects, in terms of research but also of contestation. They will exploit the myth of the hero, the free man, the intrepid adventurer, the rebel, the sailor, the bad boy, clichés which remain sources of fantasy through which man frees himself from all social obligation and embodies other values.

Masculinities presents, for example, a silhouette from the mythical collection of the British Vivien Westwood who contributed, with Malcolm McLaren, to launching the punk movement in fashion, at the end of the 70s, the beginning of the 80s, bringing neo-romanticism and another nuance of masculinities.

At the same time, women took over the costume, first adopting the trouser suit, then other pieces from the male wardrobe. They claim a higher place in society, a place of decision, of power.

The prohibition of the skirt

A type of clothing that traditionally remains outside of masculinity in our Western societies is the skirt and the dress, these 'non-bifid' garments, which do not separate below the waist.

Men and skirts, however, is an association with a very long history. In most periods of history and regions of the world, man has worn and continues to wear skirts and dresses: from the Roman toga to the medieval greatcoat, including the North African djellaba and the sarong. Asian.

But in our Western societies, apart from a few very codified uses, such as the lawyer's robe or the priest's cassock, the dress or the skirt is prohibited, taboo. A man in a skirt or a dress in the street is shocking. And it is not fault, on the part of the creators, to have tried to introduce the skirt and the dress. The exhibition shows that they were inspired by examples accepted somewhere in the world or in history, to try to provoke support.

The place of the body

Some of these traditional dresses, like those of the Arabian Peninsula, are justified by the concern to hide the body. The priest's cassock has the same function.

The male naked body is a taboo in traditional masculinity, since, in the cultural division of gender, man is subject: subject of the gaze, of desire, while woman is object. For the man, to show his naked body is to run the risk of becoming an object: object of the desire of the other, and worst of all, object of homo-erotic desire. So, for a long time, the naked male body remained a taboo in men's fashion.

"Some designers have played with this ban by reintroducing the naked body, either to assume the male body as an object of desire, or to show the vulnerability of a naked body. For example, a jacket is a trompe-l'oeil of a naked, extremely muscular, powerful body. It is the male body of the 80s and the first half of the 90s. We consider that the rise of this body is a consequence of AIDS", explains Laurent Denis.

In the early 1980s, the arrival of AIDS strongly affected the homosexual community, creating a great wave of homophobia and rejection of any effeminate image associated with homosexuality. These images will therefore disappear in favor of a powerful body, in full health, the opposite of a body that could be affected by illness.

At the end of the 90s, this powerful bodybuilder was replaced by a new body image of masculinity, based more on adolescents, by Raf Simons or Heidi Slimane in particular. This body is much more vulnerable, more charged with affect, more emotional, in connection with the evolution of society. We speak of 'metrosexual', of 'inclusive masculinity'.

The place of color

Color is a very important gender issue. With 'the Great Masculine Renunciation', the man does not completely renounce color and ornament but hides them: in the lining, or in suspenders, bow ties...

In the 1960s, with May 68 and the sexual revolution, a movement called the Peacock Revolution was born, particularly active in London, and which claimed for men the right to seduce by appearance, to show off in attractive clothes, to the peacock. John Stephen thus created the red velvet costume, the equivalent of Mary Quant's mini-skirt.

Today, customs are still very codified, with many prohibitions in men's wardrobes. Their clothes remain drab, apart from the catwalks of men's fashion shows.

Laurent Denis, curator of the Masculinities exhibition, also talks to us about dandies, listen to it below!