彼得潘與阿德尼斯: 2000年至2010年間歐洲男裝中男性圖像

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學國際與僑教學院歐洲文化與觀光研究所碩士論文 Graduate Institute of European Cultures and Tourism College of International Studies and Education for Oversea Chinese. National Taiwan Normal University master thesis. 彼得潘與阿德尼斯: 2000 年至 2010 年間歐洲男裝中男性圖像 Between Peter Pan and Adonis: The Male Images in European Menswear, 2000s-2010s. 吳為緯 Wu, Wei-wei. 指導教授﹕陳春燕副教授 Advisor: Dr. Chen, Chun-yen 中華民國 102 年 1 月 January 2013.

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(3) A Thesis. Submitted to the Graduate Institute of European Culture and Tourism. National Taiwan Normal University. In Partial Fulfillment. Of the Requirement for the Degree. Of Master of Arts.

(4) Acknowledgement I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother. She has always been playing a supportive and caring role in my life. Were it not for her financial and emotional support, I couldn’t finish this project at all. I’d also like to share this project with all the warm male models I met during Paris Spring – Summer Fashion Week 2010 and 2011: Gerhard Freidl, Sebastian Sauve, Paolo Roldan, Adrian Wlodarski, Theo Hall, Jeremy Dufour, Nils Butler, Vladmir Ivanov, Leebo Freeman, and Francisco Lachowski. They provide all the inspirations I need for my project. In addition, I owe much to my advisor, Professor Chun-yen Chen. Under her instruction, I am allowed to keep all the freedom I need for this project. She also helps me build up ideas logically, and her corrections make this thesis more cogent and well-organized. I also appreciate the generous assistance of my thesis examiners: Professor Yu-chuan Shao has always been encouraging, and willing to give me useful suggestions, and Professor Wan-hsuan Lin offers her instant aid in time. I am also grateful to Professor Maria Chiu, Professor Hsueh-i Chen, and Professor Shou-cheng Lai, as well as the staff at GIECT office. They have helped me accumulate my background knowledge on European culture for this academic journey..

(5) 摘要本篇論文將探討當代歐洲男裝從 2000 年至 2010 年間呈現出的男性圖像的發展。筆者認為歐洲時尚呈現的男性圖像能夠啟發當代對於男性身分的看法。首先在緒論中筆者將透過分析西方男性時尚相關具代表性的文獻勾勒本研究背後動機，並闡述如何經由文獻中相異的立場與脈絡進行研究。在《創世紀》一章中，筆者以 90 年代美國義大利的情色時尚風格為起，探討男裝中男性胴體的再現如何呼應時代中對於男性身分的認知的變動。同時藉由閱讀近期內歐洲男裝情色風格圖像中呈現的男性展演，筆者認為再現的男體並非單純陽具中心而隱含社會對當代男性身分的看法。在《突變》一章中則由迪奧男裝帶來對於男性再現的巨大轉變中，觀察巴黎當代男裝如何超越主流的展示猛男手法，跳脫美國式大眾消費主義的範疇而轉與現代主義結合，增生出以纖瘦與年輕化為主的多種不同男性形象。筆者認為這些圖像猶如藝術史中的鏡像，透過現代性的恐懼與賤斥的手法呈現男性病徵，例如猛男情節與彼得潘症候群，諷刺地投射出社會對於男性身分如何建構在對於陽剛性與父權的迷戀上。在《男性氣質的病徵式展演》一章中，筆者更進一步觀察當代年輕化的米蘭與巴黎男裝，並藉由時尚評論中 man-boy 一詞呈現的男人與男孩間的身分空隙，探討現代西方主流男性身分與性別認同的建構過程。 Man-boy 的形象藉由透過回顧式現代主義創作手法與使用和青少年文化相關的男模作為靈感來源，呈現出不穩定性質：儘管圖像表面呈現浪漫與歡樂，有時卻投射出男性社會身分建構過程中的焦慮、遺漏與創傷。在現代性的恐懼與焦慮中，這些圖像呈現出猶如烏托邦的啟示，提醒當代社會對於男性身分進行反思，特別是隱含在社會常規中的父權與本質主義的男性認同。而這些圖像儘管是資本主義的一環，但對於男性身分上的期望仍是可見的：男性身分不應該侷限在社會主流中，社會也不能夠再執著於對性別本質主義中「真理」的追求，反而應該追求更開明與融合的混雜身分。關鍵字：歐洲男裝、男性氣質、男性形象、男模、消費主義.

(6) Abstract The present study examines the development of male images in European fashion industry during the period 2000s – 2010s. I argue that the male images in European fashion can illuminate what a contemporary male identity is. In the introductory chapter, I outline the motivation behind this project, analyze representative studies of men’s fashion in the West, and explain where I converge with and where I depart from them. The chapter “Genesis” begins with discussions on images of male nudity created under the Italian-American influence of porno-chic, and focus on how such fashion imagery responds to the social context in the late 1990s with changes of representations of men. In a close-up study of gender performance through the male models in recent porno-chic imageries, I contend that such representations of male nudity are not so much phallic but inspire the social conception of male identity. The chapter “Mutation” examines the Parisian paradigm shift brought out by Dior Homme in representations of male identity: the way of representing masculinity is no longer univocally through displaying Americanized popular bulky musculature, and images are proliferating into various forms centered on youth and slim physique. I also examine how these images can be viewed as modernist parody and abjection in the contemporary social conception of masculinity. They serve as mirrors, symptomatically reflecting society’s obsessive pursuit of Man in patriarchy and essentialist understanding of sex/gender models. This study further explores male images in rejuvenated contemporary Milanese and Parisian menswear in the chapter “The Symptomatic Performances of Masculinity.” By the term man-boy, I refer to images that envisage a gap, allowing one to see the construction of modern Western male identity onto the male models. Such images of man-boy are created with Retro-modernist manners that infuse disdained European subcultural styles in.

(7) various historical periods as well as the incorporation of youth culture. And these images are unstable: they can be ostensibly celebratory and romantic, yet at times projecting the anxiety, dereliction, and trauma regarding our social conceptions of masculinity and male identity. This study concludes that these images hold a Utopian prospect to the future and reminds contemporary society of patriarchal man masqueraded by our social norms. One can gain insight from these capitalist images, and see that liberal and hybrid male identity should be allowed in society.. Keywords: European menswear, masculinity, male image, male models, consumerism.

(8) CONTENTS I.. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 A.. Motivation................................................................................................... 1. B.. Literature review ......................................................................................... 2 1.. Defining men’s fashion in Western consumer society ................................. 2. 2.. Consumerism and society: more than domination from capitalism ............ 7. 3.. What’s man gotta to do with it?: “masculinity” and the “gaze” ................ 11. 4.. “Never enough”: fallacy of social determinism.......................................... 14. 5.. New Man against the unfashionable man in 1980s – 1990s ...................... 17. 6.. Shapeshifters in European men’s fashion .................................................. 23. 7.. Alterity against monochromatic West: on the edge of the consumption .. 25. C.. Methodology: ............................................................................................ 31 1.. “The look” as commodity: consumerism upgraded in contemporary fashion 31. 2.. Reading the model’s “look” as text: the male model’s body and gender. “performance” in fashion ........................................................................................... 33 II.. GENESIS:.................................................................................................................. 38 A.. Italian “sexual revolution” in America: masculinity in male nudity ........... 38. B.. The birth of Adonis in “porno-chic” ........................................................... 43. C.. The Italian queer performance: men at play ............................................. 48. D.. From Paris with reference ......................................................................... 54. III.. MUTATION: ............................................................................................................. 58. A.. Emergence of “new” masculinities through the male models ................... 58. B.. Hedi-Slimanization: the modernist paradigm shift of Dior Homme ........... 61. C.. Dangerous muse: deathliness and decadence of omnipotent masculinity 71. D.. Reaction: the social symptoms of Peter Pans ............................................ 78.

(9) 1.. The abject body: Parisian Peter Pan’s reduced silhouette ......................... 78. 2.. Andrej’s favorite game: staged performance and calculated androgyny ... 82. IV.. THE SYMPTOMATIC PERFORMANCES OF MASCULINITY: ........................................ 87. A.. “Man-boy” in contemporary European fashion ......................................... 87. B.. The masquerade of Italian man-boy .......................................................... 89. C.. Rewinding to the “Age of Innocence”: play in Retro-modernist manners 100. V.. 1.. “We don’t need no education”: nostalgic youthful rebellious “drag”...... 100. 2.. Italian neo-Romanticist performances: glam rock and luxury.................. 109 CONCLUSION: ........................................................................................................ 118. A.. “Where do we go from here?” : prospect of masculinity to the future.... 118. B.. “The best is yet to come”: hybrid man-boys in globalization and. consumerism ................................................................................................................ 123 References ........................................................................................................................ 128 Appendix .......................................................................................................................... 131.

(10) I.. A.. INTRODUCTION. Motivation. Men’s fashion has emerged since the 1980s as a niche market in the fashion industry (Mort, 1996). In the twenty-first century, numerous fashion labels are available to men, specifically in Europe, from designer labels which have held up reputations for their women’s wear or haute couture, to those accessory-based fashion houses which have expanded their markets for men. Some of these labels belong to major corporations while others are relatively independent. With the flourishing of the market, male images in the European fashion world are becoming more and more diverse. In academia, most studies of men’s fashion, in the fields of sociology and cultural critique (Edwards, 1997; Mort, 1996), deal with issues of consumerism, and take the imagery of men in men’s fashion as a specialized marketing strategy. In particular, some interpretations adopt heterosexual conventions and claim that male consumption is primarily a gay—as well as bourgeois—activity. Bordo (1999) has specifically discussed man’s body presented in men’s fashion, as well as its relation to masculinity. Men’s images here, however, are mainly viewed from women’s perspective and are mostly read as a representation of “muscularity” and “sexuality.” Even in more recent studies, these images are still interpreted as “sexualized male images” for the purpose of appealing to gay consumers (Rohlinger, 2002). All these studies dwell on a monolithic reading of masculinity in the imagery of fashion, focusing on the “sexed” male bodies, while rarely taking into consideration factors of 1.

(11) clothing, design, or the cultural aspects fashion. Fashion, fundamentally a stylization of the body, should be considered in light of both the body and the clothing before being examined in the terms of sociology and cultural critique. In addition, such a reading is only partial: it represents merely the univocal perspective of the Euro-American world without considering the fact that the fashion world hinges heavily on globalization for its possibility. Further, this reading also bypasses the complexity of the Western culture manifested in fashion. In this study, I argue that, as creativity flourishes in European fashion, an abundance of forms of masculinity have emerged. What I would like to study is how masculinity is represented in contemporary European men’s fashion, and how these representations help the society understand contemporary male identity better.. B.. Literature review. 1. Defining men’s fashion in Western consumer society. One major change after the year 2000 is the emergent new market of male fashion consumption and its influence on modern masculinity (Rohlinger, 2002). Despite the fact that men’s fashion has been flooding magazines, publications, and advertisements, defining it through academic work is rather difficult. In Edward’s work, Men in the Mirror (1997), he made clear that “fashion is a multi-faceted concept. It refers simultaneously to dress, to design, and to style”, and “consequently, it is a uniquely diverse and ephemeral term that is profoundly difficult to define or pin down” (p. 2). He therefore defined fashion as:. 2.

(12) Fashion is defined . . . in its widest sense to include all aspects of style and dress: the high street as well as the catwalk, accessories as well as clothes, advertising and men’s magazines as well as Savile row or Armani, and Next in conjunction with haute couture.1 (Edwards, 1997, p. 2). Such a definition strives to draw an all-inclusive definition of fashion for the concern of a wide social perspective, as he believes that “fashion focuses upon socially approved or desired styles of dress” (1997, p. 2). Edwards believes that men’s fashion should hinge on social conception, and a macrocosmic scope is adopted in his work. Consequently, he calls for understanding men’s fashion “sociologically as part of wider processes in masculinity and consumer society, and not as an elitist and design-driven cultural practice” (1997, p. 134). While Edwards dismisses the purely economic perspective in studying men’s fashion, as it may easily fall into the fallacy of sexist interpretations, consumerism in his understanding is the major stimulus of men’s fashion:. [T]he current expansion of interest in the concept and practice of men’s fashion . . . , is only partly explained as the outcome of developments in sexual politics (in particular, the impact of second wave feminism). It is explained more fully as the result of wider processes in consumer society – most importantly, the increasing social significance of patterns of consumption, self-representation and lifestyle as constitutive of identity.. 1. There seems to be confusion in terminology, for the contemporary haute couture demonstrated during the Paris haute couture week contains literally little men’s dress, if any. Men’s clothes displayed at the runways and presentations during the fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, London and New York belongs to the category of Ready to Wear, and is officially dubbed as Menswear. The difference between these glossaries also marks the marginalization of men’s fashion. 3.

(13) (Edwards, 1997, p. 134). As a consequence, Edwards assumes that consumption in men’s fashion is rather a purpose of encouraging self-representation. Consumption, as he views it, is the sole purpose of fashion styling. He further concludes that “[a]s a result of these elements, masculinity became a lifestyle commodity to be bought, sold, admired through retailers’ windows and aspired to in style magazines, just like anything else” (p. 75). When he assumes that consumers are “seduced” by advertisers, he also suggests that the process of consumption is rather the result of consumers being exploited in the sense that consumers seem to be in oblivion. However, this argument overlooks the conflicts between different groups in society and presumes that all commodities are products of the ruse of capitalism. With the categorical assertion that fashion is always purely a function of the logic of capitalism one is confined to a rather narrow perspective. As art historian Craik (1994) reminds us acutely in her study of Western fashion:. The specific character of Western consumer fashion was the size and the reach of fashion products, and the accelerated rate of stylistic change, rather than consumerism per se. (Craik, 1994, p. 206). Craik’s (1994) study has shown that fashion has always been an important dynamic in European culture and that the influence of fashion is not exclusively derived from capitalism. Techniques of everyday fashion constitute a dominant system, and “the development of work and leisure fashion” (1994, p. 205) is one major sub-system. Moreover, the relation between fashion and consumer society has 4.

(14) its own historical trajectory. Our contemporary fashion orbit such as the popularity of models and rapid seasonal change can be dated back to the fourteenth century. As Foley (1973) notes:. Before the end of the fourteenth century change in tastes had become frequent and extensive. The frequent denunciations of contemporary writers, who saw all class distinctions waning in the imitative scramble after new modes of dress, point to permanence and stability as rather ideals of the few than the habit and tendency of the many, and reveal also the influence of changing taste on the conditions of production. (Foley, 1973, p.161, as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 205). Therefore, our contemporary fashion is not a new phenomenon derived from capitalism, but an outcome of a long history. It can be dated back to the court society during the Renaissance period, when the sumptuary laws were set as regulations of fashion, as certain garments, decorations, and fabrics are assigned to each class in society according to their respective social status and occupation (Craik, 1994). Sartorial techniques in wardrobes, valuable jewelry as accessories were used to enhance the distinctiveness of social status. It was a time when the care of appearance was a symbol of superiority; however, the regulation never restricts the development of fashion, as Lemire (1990) points out that the desire for fashion “inflected all levels of society from the aristocracy down to the very laborers” (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 255). In England, consumption of fashion goods had even existed before emergence of capitalist industrial production:. 5.

(15) Long before industrial production filled shops throughout the nation, the English were charged with an appetite for the current modes which transcend rank. Such general aspirations appalled moralists. Yet, high relative income was not as universal as the desire to have the semblance of style. (Lemire, 1990, p. 256, as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 205). In other words, if the rise of interest in fashion is to be regarded as consumerism, it is so not exclusively in contemporary capitalist society but has been an inflection of Western modernity. Edwards’s point of view is overly pessimistic toward contemporary consumer society as well as toward the possibility of identity politics. His point of view about consumers being manipulated by capitalism and their styles, gestures, experience, and possible pleasure being false simply disables consumers and denies them any prospect of creative consumption. In consumption, both consumers and producers are the participants and the consumers are capable of innovative participation. As Lemire (1990) suggests, a fashionable look “was central to the public presentation of the individual. Clothing was the apparent making of the man or woman” (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 206). Therefore, the contention that fashion is the privilege of a certain group (i.e., the bourgeois) is wrong. In addition, fashion never functions as closed confinement but is rather an open influence. Fashion should be considered as a social dynamic of transgression. As Craik notes, not only was the sumptuary law often violated by the upper class and wealthy merchants, those who lacked money could obtain fashionable styles by their own means: “the fashion-conscious rented outfits, wore fakes, bought second-hand clothes, or stole garments” (1994, p. 205). 6.

(16) As observed in Elias’s study (1983, as cited in Craik, 1994), the development of fashion is not purely in a top-down process. With the emergence of commerce and consumption, the merchant class had also developed “town fashions” among ordinary people against the imposition of sumptuary laws. Craik (1994) also points out that in the late nineteenth century the circulation of fashion magazines and mass production brought about the competition between elite fashion and non-elite fashion, as they helped stylish replicas spread out in society. Consequently, critiques of fashion should also consider the internal instability and the law of transgression rather than merely adopting a narrow view of confinement and domination regarding consumerism, for “consumerism became a technique of self-formation requisite to new conducts of life” (Craik, 1994, p. 207). By the same token, simply considering masculinity in menswear with its relation to late capitalism consumer society and ignoring the possible identity politics in men’s fashion will only lead to superficial observations about men’s fashion.. 2. Consumerism and society: more than domination from capitalism. Fundamentally, the industry of men’s fashion is based on purchasing. Therefore, in traditional Marxist critique, the inequality in the relation of production and consumption is understood in terms of domination, especially when the fashion industry views profit-making as the main concern. Edwards, for instance, argues that the foremost function of style magazines is to stimulate consumption. Other than Edwards’s Marxist perspective, Goffman (1959) views men’s fashion as a phenomenon stemming from the growing commodification and aestheticism of everyday life, accompanied by developments in marketing and advertising in the mass 7.

(17) media, as he writes in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Recognizing the fact, Edwards nonetheless draws attention to hierarchal relations of masculinity in the politics of men’s fashion:. This also constructs a complex hierarchy if masculinities according to economics, demography and appearances. . . . [I]n asserting the interlocked significance of gender issues and consumption in understanding men’s fashion, a series of interconnected social divisions is enacted around each of these axioms where wealthy, good-looking and well-located young men are increasingly socially valorized over older, uglier or poorer men. (Edwards, 1997, p.134). Viewing the relation of masculinity to consumption in a macrocosmic “social valorization” as domination of a certain group is nonetheless a matter of common sense, as there are various factors and powers of domination. In Edwards’s view, the negative influences of capitalism take priority to other topics of politics in men’s fashion. However, his overt concern with consumption in light of the logic of domination is mostly aligned with the law of binary oppositions such as ugly/good-looking, old/young, simplifying and relegating the discursive politics to the one-dimensional concept of domination. His interpretation of masculinity in men’s fashion as part of binarism echoes with Storey’s understanding of reduction ad extremis: by “juxtaposing two authors writing about related topics, the more complex and moderate position can be equated to the more extreme and simplistic position” (2001, p. 615). What we get are two extreme representational positions: both tropes of masculinity exist in social and cultural realm, but they are not to be reduced as the 8.

(18) wider sociological perspective. What is missing in Edwards’s argument is that if one group celebrates one particular type of consumption or commodity while another group feels underprivileged for the inaccessibility of that commodity, it is yet too soon to jump to the conclusion that such a type of artist or designer-driven commodity lacks cultural significance in the politics of masculinity since it has not brought about an instant sea change in the entire population. Just as studies of masculinity cannot include every individual male or all variations of masculinity in the entire society, neither can studies of men’s fashion. In consequence, there will never be a full explanation of masculinity in men’s fashion covering all the perspectives. While Edwards (1997) believes that the significance of contemporary men’s fashion lies in men’s behavior of self-representation in self-styling and that the identity as “men” is now constructed through “the right look,” his sociological focus on men’s fashion is critical of capitalism yet fails to consider any positive dynamics of men’s fashion. In fact, the invention of men’s fashion as a new type of consumption which involves the relation of the wearer and the onlooker has a lot to do with gender politics, not simply the antagonism described by a typical Marxist understanding of social classes. In her critique of women’s body images in consumerism, Bordo (1993) is also aware of how an ideal body is engaged in the contemporary global “visually-oriented” and “narcissistic” social context (1993, p. 166). According to her, images circulated in media, such as television, movies, and fashion have become sources of regulation for women in the sense that “the rules for femininity have come to be culturally transmitted more and more through standardized visual images” (p. 186). In response to such a social context, women’s bodies have become the focal point wherein to 9.

(19) envisage an ideal “femininity.” While she does not endorse a simplistic view of consumerism complicit with patriarchal gender norms, she does not view these gender images as a source of anxiety or locus of hegemony. In fact, other than consumerism there is a more deeply-rooted hegemony that grabs Bordo’s attention, namely, patriarchy. Consequently, she calls for a reconsideration of patriarchal hegemony in the Foucaultian sense: power works not through domination from any privileged group or institution; furthermore, patriarchal power dominates women not through the mechanism of repression but through identity construction which shapes and proliferates as norms (p. 181). When images of consumerism proliferate along with discourses of feminism, representations of femininity becomes the site of struggle between patriarchy and feminism. The same representation of feminine body can signify liberation and retreat. Bordo has made a careful analysis of the cultural bodies:. One cannot simply add the historically feminine virtues to the historically masculine ones to yield a New Woman, a New Man, a new ethics, or a new culture. Even on the screen or on television, embodied in created characters like the Aliens heroine, the result is a parody. Unfortunately, in this image-bedazzled culture, we find it increasingly difficult to discriminate between parodies and possibilities for the self. (Bordo, 1993, p. 174). In consequence, the analysis of masculinities in consumer images is more than merely the issue of consumerism itself; an examination of the working of patriarchy in society is also required. 10.

(20) 3. What’s man gotta to do with it?: “masculinity” and the “gaze”. As noted in Easthope’s What’s a Man Gotta Do? (1986), “masculinity has to be unmasked, separated from the role it wants to play pretending to be the human, the normal, the social” (p. 2). Yet, for Edwards (1997), several aspects of masculinity are critical when we consider men’s fashion in the Western society. In the very first place, he believes that the sex/gender differentiation of dress and fashion remains rigid as social norm. Although Edwards has recognized that men’s fashion is socially constructed, the bias based on sexual difference still remains “decidedly difficult to overcome” (1997, p.4). Specifically, in his recognition that in fashion “the problematic idea that the female body rather than the male body remains the primary” (p. 36), Edwards has drawn on Mulvey’s (1975) analysis of the men’s gaze in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Visual pleasure, in Mulvey’s understanding, involves a relation of looking and being looked at, and both can generate pleasures. Mulvey borrows Freud’s notion of scopophilia and understands it as an essentially active instinct: “in particular the constitution of the ego, it continues to exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as object” (p. 201). This view echoes art historian Berger’s study in Ways of Seeing (1972) of sexually differentiating duality: “men act and women appear” (pp. 45-47). In her analysis of visual pleasure in cinema, Mulvey puts emphasis on the predetermination of male gaze:. In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze 11.

(21) projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. (Mulvey, 1975, p. 203). In the male gaze, scopophilia constitutes an imbalanced gender relation: men occupy a legitimate active position on which to look at women’s fashionable dress and their body for erotic visual pleasure. Operating in the active male position, scopophilia takes control of the object of the gaze as object of desire, as in the “spectacle” moments in cinema it require female characters to dress up and take off their clothes for an imagined voyeuristic spectator. The visual presence of woman has little to do with the development of the story as the woman figure is displayed mostly as an erotic object for the characters within the story, and for the spectator within the movie house. In addition to the pleasure of scopophilia which objectifies female, Mulvey argues that as scopophilia develops into narcissism male subjectivity is produced through misrecognition as the function of gender identification (p. 201). In the sexually imbalanced cinema which is separated into moments of spectacle and narrative, the male audiences project themselves on the male actors as surrogates, identifying with the active male subject, whereas the female characters remain the compensatory roles for the male subjectivity (pp. 203-4). Similarly in relation to the passive female position, the function of scopophilia in the male gaze can’t be ignored in the realm of fashion, as Craik has specified the gendered attitude toward fashion: 12.

(22) [C]ontemporary codes of women’s fashion have revolved around achieving ‘a look’ as an image to be admire (spectacle), men’s appearance has been circulated to enhance their active roles (especially occupation and social status). (Craik, 1994, p. 176). Such a social rhetoric implies the legitimate power relation between the male as the active looker and the female as the passive wearer. And Mulvey’s insight powerfully challenges the cliché that men’s dress is for functional purposes (as opposed to women’s dress whose purpose is being fashionable), rendering a reconsideration of gender politics in women’s fashion where men are conventionally considered to be nothing but the spectator. As Fowles (1996) contends that females are to be gazed at in the advertisements for males gaze (p. 204, as cited in Chandler, 2000), in advance, Chandler (2000) has also shown gendered bias has continued to exist in contemporary advertisement. Moreover, in existing studies of women’s fashion, the visual pleasure women may get from being looked at is usually still interpreted in terms of women’s anticipation of the male gaze. Messaris (1997) specifies that in fashion advertisement female models still “treat the lens as a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker” (p. 41, as cited in Chandler, 2000). Even if the presupposed spectators of these advertisements are women, the presumption of the male gaze is still at work to the effect that “when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man might see them,” so the female identification is still subjected to patriarchy. It is therefore important to scrutinize the constitutive identity involved in menswear in relation to the positioning of active/male and passive/female in the male 13.

(23) gaze. According to Edwards, the evolution of men’s dress is relatively slow and has seen little variation, and he further suggests that the modern suit has remained the main dress code for men in the modern society. However, if one takes into consideration the bias of the male gaze and the power relation between different sexes or gender positions in society, the slow evolution of menswear and the establishment of the suit as the main dress code for men are not a-historical, a-cultural developments. Men’s suit, in its association with men’s occupational role, in effect intersects with the dominant male gaze and stands for the inequality of economic conditions between the active male and passive female. In contrast to the passive and objectified dress code of women’s fashion, men’s suit, and its social symbolism of “success, virility and maturity,” as Edwards suggests (1997, p. 22), need to be reconsidered from a perspective other than the “dominant male gaze” thesis, so as to prevent ossifying this rhetoric into deadlocked gender norms.. 4. “Never enough”: fallacy of social determinism. Edwards’s empirical study has touched upon a wide range of issues regarding social and gender divisions; however, his explanation of masculinities in men’s fashion falls short of offering a more critical view of society itself. He presents two “mainstream” looks in men’s fashion: corporate power look, namely the conventional suit with shirt, and the outdoor casual such as sportswear and jeans:. I wish to assert . . . two central images of masculinity came to dominate men’s fashion as the most valorized and advertised. These two representations were, and are, entirely constructed according to the clothing 14.

(24) and accessorizing of the same male form and are therefore two sides of the same coin. I call the heads side of the coin the corporate power look, where formal work clothes, and particularly the suit, were used to cover yet accentuate the same masculine, mesomorphic physical shape. . . I call the tails side of the coin the outdoor casual, as the muscular hunk concerned was usually seen outside stripping off his white T-shirt, easing himself into or out of his jeans, sweating in leather, or doing things with machines. He was also sometimes seen as the working-class or football casual with sufficient affluence for designer clothes. (Edwards, 1997, p. 41). From a stance of macrocosmic conception of masculinity, Edwards interprets the images that hinge on mainstream values without presenting a more critical view of social divisions. He faults the image of masculinity in men’s fashion for its purpose of encouraging consumption. At the same time, he shows sympathy for “conventional” and “social” masculinity in a wider sociological context — for instance, the family man who is dedicated to his career and family and has little extra time and expenditure, and for whom men’s fashion is generally inaccessible. When he questions interpretations of other images in men’s fashion as being concentrated on the images themselves and dissociated from society, a humanist view of society is obvious:. Most attention to men’s fashion and images of masculinity tends to concentrate . . . on interpretations of representations and excludes consideration of causes or effects, implications or impacts upon men themselves or within the society as a whole. (Edwards, 1997, p. 48) 15.

(25) However, although Edwards’s intention is a liberal conception of “fashion for everyone” and although he acknowledges that there are various versions of masculinity in conflict, his interpretation of some masculinities as “silliness” exposes the fallacy of social-determinism:. [W]hilst other images of masculinity do necessarily exist these are not used to advertise men’s fashion and accessories or to sell anything other than their silliness: doddery old men, screaming queens and ghetto-blasting black guys. In a basic sense, what we are talking about here [in the representations of men’s fashion] are the social divisions between men’s bodies. (Edwards, 1997, p. 41). This view of masculinities is problematic, for he fails to explain what constitutes this “datum” as social divisions of male bodies and how these masculinities can be seen as “silly.” In a more radical and queer view of masculinity, it is highly susceptible if is there a “neutral” criterion for masculinities and male bodies in the society. Wittig (1981) warns how early feminists like Simon de Beauvoir failed to struggle against and deconstruct patriarchy:. However, now, race, exactly like sex, is taken as an “immediate given,” a “sensible given,” “physical features,” belonging to a natural order. But what we believe to be a physical and direct perception is only a sophisticated and mythic construction, an “imaginary formation,” which reinterprets physical features through the network of relationships in which they are perceived. 16.

(26) (Wittig, 1981, p. 104). Consequently, “the feminism in the last century could never resolve its contradictions on the subject of nature/culture, woman/society” (Wittig, 1981, p. 105). In the contemporary context of late capitalism, images overflow through the omnipresent media; at the same time, a univocal view of men and women, along with rhetoric on specious “natural” masculinity/ femininity, still persists. As in Wittig’s view, interpretations of scientific and socio-psychological studies are still fascinated with the dualistic myth of “Men”/ “Women,” whereas the political potential of French feminists is largely downplayed.2 Thus, the social determinism and macrocosm in Edwards’s viewpoint ought to be questioned. After all, a socially-determined identity contingent on “the opinion of majority” is not free of the sexist norms of “essential” sex/gender and possibly acquiesces in patriarchal and sexist regulation of “normal” femininity/masculinity. It is exactly this essential myth of “what a man is supposed to be” renders the relations of men hierarchical, restoring the contradictions between major/minor yet dominating/subordinating masculinities.. 5. New Man against the unfashionable man in 1980s – 1990s. Mort (1996) and Edwards (1997), both British, have asserted that since the 1980s, changes in demography and economy in the United Kingdom and in cultural assumptions toward fashion have enabled more men to purchase fashion products with greater freedom as their disposable income has increased (p. 15; p. 39). This 2. Wittig’s argument echoes the term genitalism, which refers to the difference between men and women based on obvious biological distinctions as neutral and thus standardizing. 17.

(27) thesis sides with them on this and further argues that the character of New Man is a celebration of men’s consumption. Specifically, Edwards assumes that the New Man figure in men’s fashion is more of a marketing strategy, encouraging more consumption in the light of self-representation (1997, p. 39). Yet, this study calls into question his view of consumption as a form of exploitation Edwards dismisses self-representation in consumerism as banal narcissism, viewing “masculinity as increasingly premised more upon consumption than production” (pp. 1-2). He also contends that “these developments [are] to be equally personally destructive and socially divisive as they are individually expressive and democratically utopian” (p. 2). This thesis takes a different view: despite the widely accepted contention that the emergence of men’s fashion is facilitated by the expansion of consumer society, this study affirms the influence of New Man on the male consumer society. For instance, Mort draws on feminist critic Judith Williamson’s affirmation and asserts that the attitude of feminism “was far from positive about the flurry of interest in this long-ignored subject” (1997, p. 15). For Mort, New Man is “[a] hybrid character, his aetiology could not be attributed to one single source. He was rather the condensation of multiple concerns which were temporary run together” (1997, p. 15). He concludes that New Man is rather a complexion for the social context: “[i]n journalism and fashion, in commercial and manufacturing culture, as well as in the political arena, men were at the center of a wide-ranging debate” (p. 15). This study would like to follow what Mort’s view that the New Man is not so much an entity or an authentic man, but a contradictory composite anticipating change in the conception of masculinity. While the New Man is a commercialized character, I argue that it echoes the socially imbricated gender roles in the West, as argued by Craik and Mort. In short, 18.

(28) New Man emerges as a character influenced by the trends of the second-wave feminism in the 1970s in America, which brings about “changing opportunities for women as it has been a reassessment of masculinity itself” (Craik, 1994, p. 197). Craik posits that “one outcome of feminism has been the characterization of men in negative ways and attacks on ‘macho’ notions of masculinity” (p. 197), a view that resonates with what Mort’s argument that traditional masculinity is rendered in a “crisis” (p. 15). In short, the character of New Man is the re-evaluation of masculinity in traditional Orthodox in multiple aspects and in various cultures, in coherence with second-wave feminism in the West. In Craik’s investigation of the New Man as she cites from Gentle (1988) and Logan (1992), the New Man seems to be everything but the old-fashioned man, which. seems to be derived from several masculine types: “The gentlemen” who is “styled and stereotyped as the strong and silent type”; the action man who is “virile, strong, independent and anomic”; and denoted by the cowboy, war hero and Marlboro man; the slob who is functional but uninterested in speed and style; and the chauvinist who is authoritative and ambitious (but equally ruthless and a misogynist). (Craik, 1994, p. 197). Mort maintains that the commercialized New Man “was linked to the more progressive and caring versions of fatherhood, portrayed in the marketing of stores such as Mothercare” (1997, p. 16). Craik shares with Mort in noting the importance of the cultural industry in modern consumption influencing the social context. As she cites from Chapman (1988),within the commodification process “attributes of 19.

(29) narcissism and nurturing have been added to codes of masculinity” (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 198). In my study, I argue that the fashion industry participates in this trend of making the New Man and that the New Man in fashion is represented as a fashion-conscious figure. While the fashion industry is one cause of the New Man, its being a composite of multiple masculinities merits more careful scrutiny. In Mort’s thorough investigation on such a new identity as New Man, he is aware of the changing characters of British men’s masculinity. However, he puts more emphasis on the consumption and the hitherto changing trajectory of masculinity rather than the imagery of men’s fashion. For Mort, New Man is rather a phenomenon or a movement, yet I will try to delineate the New Man figure in relation to its engagement in consumption. As recognized by Craik, the most conspicuously changed masculinity of New Man is the self-consciousness of being male, and the consciousness and his own look. As Craik notes, “New Man was not only aware of fashion but an active consumer in the pursuit of his sense of self” (1994, p. 198): the new attitude toward the self as being male therefore brings the male body into relief. The most obvious attribute of New Man is the very exposure of bare male bodies. As Craik argues, “the marketers’ version of the New Man placed the male body at the center of identity and sexuality” (p. 198). Edwards’s primary delineation of New Man is nevertheless “two sides of a coin” (1997, p. 44): as the corporate power look and the outdoor casual. And his interpretation is based on “mainstream conception.” As he argues, the representations of male bodies are “quite fixed,” “traditional” and “stereotypical” as “[t]he men concerned are always young, usually white, particularly muscular, critically strong-jawed, clean shaven (often all over), healthy, sporty, successful, virile, and 20.

(30) ultimately sexy” (p. 44). He evidenced his contention in his case study of the cult television commercial of American jeans brand Levi Strauss’, “the Launderette,” performed by the male model Nick Kamen. In the commercial, Kamen appears as a young soldier who enters a launderette and starts stripping his clothes off, including a pair of 501 jeans, until he has barely anything on except in a pair of white boxers. All this meanwhile he is aware of various male and female spectators at presence. Edwards contends that Kamen’s body is “blatantly sexual” (p. 52) and therefore traditional and phallocentric as a performance of “defensive masculinity” (p. 53) as opposed to the senior male next to him fully clothed. The “sexiness” of the New Man in the homosocial context is, according to Edwards, setting up social division of men’s bodies and creates anxiety for all men in being male (p. 41). However, Edwards’ critical view of consumerism over-simplifies issues of masculinities and male identity in the society. In my thesis, I hope to show that, in terms of masculinity, there doesn’t seem to be a full explanation of “personal” anxiety in relation to “stereotypical” or “old,” defensive masculinity of musculature. What I would like to do here is to draw attention to these imageries in men’s fashion rather than follow Edwards’ thesis, a thesis that exudes anxiety and a sense of powerlessness in his portrayal of masculinity in a homosocial context. My project thus requires a more radical analysis of men’s bodies and a view that investigates masculinities other than Edwards’s modernist Marxist views. Compared with Edwards’s conclusion regarding “men’s personal anxieties” (p. 6), my argument here is more aligned with Bordo’s (1994) awareness of the gender inequality in the representations of bodies in the patriarchal social climate. In Reading the Male Body, Bordo (1994) cites from Sheets-Johnstone (1992), 21.

(31) arguing that “[w]ithin Western cultural practice generally . . . , a male’s body is not anatomized nor is it ever made an object of study in the same way as female bodies” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1992, as cited in Bordo 1994, p. 32). She critically questions: “so long as men are transparent to, uninterrogating of, themselves, how can women have a real conversation with them about gender?”(p. 32). She therefore insists on reading the male body against its concealment. Her argument challenges Edwards’ deterministic perception of the female body, and radicalizes the gender politics in fashion. In both Bordo’s and Edward’s critique, the modern Orthodox society mechanism of conceals the male body constructs the male body as private while female as public (1994, p. 32; 1996, p. 44). While Edwards concludes that the influence of men’s fashion merely materializes in causing social divisions of masculinities within consumerism, I side with Bordo in acknowledging that “[w]hen men problematize themselves as men, a fundamental and divisive sexual ontology is thus disturbed” (1994, p. 32). Here Bordo is citing Luce Irigary’s description of woman as “the sex which is not one,” in contrast to man as the sex which is “the one” (p. 31). As Bordo notes, such difference is neither based on a scientific, biological difference, nor a sociological, differentiated lived experience, but rather “sexual difference as it has been constructed by a Western, phallocentric imagination, the identification of ‘man’ with phallic unity is justified” (p. 31). At the same time, Bordo is fully aware of male dominance in Western society, which she renders as follows:. [n]ot to deny the formidable social, historical, and cultural actualities of male dominance, but to reveal the ways in which that dominance maintains 22.

(32) not only the female body but the male body as a place of shame, self-hatred, and concealment. (Bordo, 1994, p. 32). Resonating with Bordo, Mort (1996) also takes note of the mythical concealment as a masquerade of humanity and norm. He contends that the representation of the male body in men’s fashion is “viewed as the culmination of a series of much broader initiatives, which were breaking open masculinity’s best-kept secret; forcing men to look self-consciously at themselves and their identities, rather than as the concealed norm of power and privilege” (p. 15). My strategy in the present study is to draw on Bordo’s reading of the male body in order to fundamentally problematize the “conventional” phobia, following her examination of the mythic “Man”. Yet the project here is to retrieve the hidden, rejected, dark, and phobic elements in the social conception of masculinity within homosocial contexts. It then requires not only an acknowledgement of this myth of “Man” in concealed male bodies, but also a scrutiny of whether these representations of the male body does not become phallocentric.. 6. Shapeshifters in European men’s fashion. In Craik’s (1994) study of the historical trajectory of contemporary men’s fashion, he notices that the market of men’s fashion has split up into three breeds: “New Man has spawned variants of masculinity which exhibited distinct fashion statements” (p. 200). Craik cites form Carter and Brûlé to posit that the figure of “New Lad” emerges as a new image in men’s fashion, “[w]hile the New Man has aged into a contented family-oriented lifestyle, the new boys are more outgoing” (Carter & Brûlé, 1992, p. 23.

(33) 49, as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 199). Meanwhile, in opposition to the “New Lad” is the “Iron John,” which is “something of a throwback to the chauvinistic male” (p. 199) that rejects the “feminine” fashion. The “New Lad” refers to a youthful type of male consumer, with relatively audacious taste in designer’s labels and looks:“[t]he New Lad acknowledged the attitude of the New Man but was more interested in a hedonistic lifestyle and male pastimes” (Craik, 1994, p. 200). Here, again, I depart from Edwards’s classical Marxist discourse, which refutes the cultural construction of masculinity of the New Lad and which regards it as another stereotype. Even if the contemporary representation of the New Man is of a family-oriented type, as argued by Craik, Edwards reveals his anxiety toward masculinity in his investigation of images in men’s fashion, although he has recognized that these representations of sexualized male bodies are seen as a reverse of traditional male activity as opposed to female passivity:. This notion of reconstruction of masculinity through the practices of representation and consumption also underpins men’s studies of masculinity, which have tended to assert that these images do imply an important development in conceptions of masculinity which is potentially applied in practice. (Edwards, 1997, p. 46). Edwards’ perspective seems to shift away from gender/sexual politics toward a traditional Marxist view:. They claim that the increasing pervasiveness of images of masculinity, particularly when tied to definitions of sexuality, tends to rupture the 24.

(34) traditional mode of masculine activity and female passivity (the idea that men look and women are looked at) and, indeed, the increasing role of men as consumers, as opposed to producers, of fashions and representations of themselves is seen as increasingly central. The argument here centers upon the notion that masculinity and masculine identity were traditionally defined through work, or production, rather than consumption which was seen more as a feminine preserve, as in the stereotype of the happy housewife going shopping, typical of advertising for washing powder. (Edwards, 1997, p. 46). My study contests Edwards’ disapproval in “feminizing” male in the representations by his contention that “people do not necessarily practice what they preach” (1997, p. 46) and wish to problematize the question raised by him of definition of masculinity activity in a relation more than a general Marxist production and consumption. In short, I argue against the banal view of consumerism as a relation of domination/oppression. If the imagery of the New Lad is a commodity, then while contemporary men’s fashion is gaining importance, it is too soon to reject such social dynamite with such a monolithic interpretation. More importantly, be it New Man or New Lad, men’s fashion is still marginal even in Edwards’ wider social spectrum. It is therefore urgent to analyze any possible ideology behind each type of imagery in fashion.. 7. Alterity against monochromatic West: on the edge of the consumption. Other than issues dealt with by Edwards’s pessimistic, purely Marxist view, there are other questions that have yet to be addressed. With the proliferation of men’s 25.

(35) fashion in the globalized market, new forms of cultural male bodies emerge and get circulated. Yet, the issues of high expenditure of fashion in consumerism do not seem to be sufficiently explained. It is my intention here to reevaluate the male bodies in the representations of men’s fashion, instead of just accepting what Edwards calls “stereotypes.” Ostensibly, Edwards seems to reduce the relation between men and men’s fashion to a dichotomous view of “affluent and sexy men” who favor fashion as opposed to “men of the mass” who are anxious of fashion. As previously argued by Craik (1994), consumerism never fully hinders the accessibility of fashion to consumers. Even in a dichotomy of these two masculinities in the West, neither can the two be explained with a simple relation of dominance/subordination whether in terms of masculinities or consumption. In the article “His Story of Her Fashion” (1997, p. 9), Edwards seems to reject the legitimacy of other ways of reading, contending that there is neither an interpretation for all men nor an interpretation from a purely “male” perspective. Yet, judging from his biased perspective of viewing masculinities in the society, it is highly doubtful whether there is a purely sociological, and not pre-determinedly patriarchal, male perspective of men’s fashion. Bordo (1999) suggests that even in the Orthodox world, the imaging of “men” and the relation between men’s appearance and men’s fashion are diverse and sometimes even contradictory. She once cited a reader response to the advertisement campaign of the American brand Dockers menswear in The New Yorker, which caters to men who do not want to look “too fashionable.” Contending the notion “‘[t]hat men don’t want to look like they’re trying to be fashionable or sexy’ was rather culture-bound” and possibly “applies to American, English, and Japanese men” (1999, 26.

(36) p. 201), she holds a skeptical attitude toward univocal views of men’s fashion:. But are we really to believe that French, Italian, and Spanish men share this concern? And, when we expand the category “male” beyond human beings, biologists have shown that the demonstration of male splendor is a key element in the vertebrate mating game. Are American males just an anomalous species? (Bordo, 1999, p. 201). Bordo (1999) believes that the reader’s protest reflects a diversity of international attitudes toward men’s fashion. The perspective here also agrees with her in that “men’s fashion-phobia” is rather cultural bound than predetermined and essential. Consequently, as she values this reader’s response as a reminder that “there are dangers in drawing broad conclusions on the basis of only those worlds with which one is familiar” (1999, p. 201), the argument here will continues to question if such an Anglophone social concept being promoted as universally applicable. That is to say, the perspective here will adopt her intention as in the following passage:. To look at the variables of race, class, and history is to produce a picture of male attitudes toward fashionable display that is far from consistently phobic. (Bordo, 1999, p. 201). Edwards’s (1997) social study and Craik’s (1994) art historian investigation juxtaposed, we realize that socially the rhetoric about the “inappropriateness” of men’s fashion in Western culture reflects a differentiating attitude toward the relation of fashion and gender. There is a view that men are not allowed to show interest in 27.

(37) fashion, for fashion has long been considered a feminine phenomenon, and moreover, a “homosexual” sign. Or, some people believe that men’s fashion is simply utilitarian, without any aesthetics. Fundamentally, Edwards’s interpretation of men’s fashion has been emphasizing its incongruity with socially normative masculinity without being conscious of its social inscription of alterity and “femininity,” as well as the awareness of how fashion has already been a realm of a struggle for women between feminism and patriarchy (Bordo, 1993). In resonance to Bordo’s (1999) reading of contemporary men’s fashion, Craik’s genealogy of men’s fashion in the European society maintains that “historically and cross-culturally” there is nonchalance toward men’s fashion. She clearly pointed out that “[f]rom the eighteenth century, in western European male fashion has received less attention than women’s” (Craik, 1994, p. 176), and that consequently the fashion industry reciprocally emphasizes women’s fashion. Moreover, Craik does believe that such an indifference is more of a historical construction, and “indicatively, most studies of contemporary fashion emphasize female fashion and marginalize attention to male dress” (1994, p. 176). According to Bordo’s (1999) and Craik’s (1994) genealogies of men’s fashion, in the Renaissance period the distinction of dress codes between the sexes is a rather significant social structure. The construction of dualist gender rules in the historical trajectory of modernity is made possible with the social conformity of men, in a process of un-fashioning men:. [F]rom the nineteenth century . . . , men’s fashions have offered fewer choices at any one moment and therefore acted to oppose conformity on 28.

(38) those adhering to fashion. Normative men have either resisted fashion or conformed to mainstream elements. (Craik, 1994, p. 178). According to Craik, the social construction of men’s fashion is through “marginalization” — that is, men’s fashion has always been constructed as a cultural Other, and the “fashionable masculinity” is thus seen as a deviation from social norms (1994, p. 178). To miss the marginal masculinity without considering the alterity of men’s fashion is to ignore the gender relations between the sexes, and the incorporation of patriarchy in Western modernity, rendering fashion as a feminized Other, as Evans (2003) elaborates how fashion has become the cultural other in her citation from Loos’ (1982) work:. As fashion was demonized by modernists, fashion and femininity became modernism’s ‘other’, its dark continent of excess, waste and pointlessness, the ‘rotten’ of bourgeois culture against which modernist ideologies rallied. (Evans, 2003, p. 305). Steele (1985b) has argued that in the historical trajectory of Western modernity, men’s fashion is in the antithesis of European culture and nationalism (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 182). The Macaronic fashion appeared during the 1760s to 1770s in the UK, a style derived from the French and Italian court fashion which “epitomized the desire of aristocrats to distinguish themselves from the growing bourgeoisie and minor gentry through their clothes” (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 182). With the growth of civil society and British patriotism, the extravagant Macaronic style was invested with “vanity, irresponsibility, effeminacy, and the lack of patriotism of the aristocracy” 29.

(39) and “perceived as symptomatic of corruption, tyranny and foreign attitudes” (as cited in Craik, 1994, p. 182). Similarly, with the demise of the European aristocratic court society and breakout of the French Revolution, the elaborate and glamorous men’s fashion in Europe implied domination of the court and was thus attacked and denounced. To be brief, men’s fashion has already been caught in the tension between classes and between different types of masculinities in the West. Therefore, before jumping to the conclusion that men’s fashion works through the social constructions of the masculinity of Man, alienating other masculinities in the power relations of class/race/sex, it is worthwhile to scrutinize the internal power relations in the Western hegemony. If the contemporary multinational fashion industry is deemed as dominating the scene of Western modernism, we ought to examine the alterity of fashion, especially that of men’s. Instead of evaluating masculinity from the viewpoint of mainstream social determinism, which returns to the singularity of monochromatic Anglophone view of masculinities, adopting Bordo’s insight of bodies in men’s fashion can provide a perspective which other than biases toward normative sexuality — only in this way can other masculinities in men’s fashion emerge. Therefore, the male images in contemporary fashion need to be re-considered, not as objects of the compulsory male gaze or new ideals, but as new possibilities of articulation to the mainstream masculinity. A study on the contemporary images of men’s fashion then becomes important, and while insisting on reading the Western men’s fashion, I argue that it is as important to beware of the expansion of American culture through globalization. With this in view, this study seeks to investigate the internal instability of masculinities manifested in the European fashion world. The argument to make in this thesis is 30.

(40) through re-reading the social incongruity inside contemporary European men’s fashion against its social norms in modernity, and interrupting Anglophone reduction of the masculinities in the West through a close reexamination of the various formulations of masculinity manifest in the West from modernity to today.. C.. Methodology:. 1. “The look” as commodity: consumerism upgraded in contemporary fashion. As Mears contends, “fashion produces powerful representations of idealized class, gender, race, and sexual identities” (2011, p. 16). She acknowledges the fact that contemporary Western fashion plays an important part in the formation of contemporary cultural aesthetics: the fashion industry is more than selling goods, is influential in inscribing socially intelligible genders. In academia fashion images are constantly being studied from various angles, especially images of women:. Plenty of scholars from cultural studies, media studies, and feminist and intersectionality theory have analyzed the cultural meanings of fashion images and advertising. Feminist scholars have made the case that images of fashion models represent the objectification of women’s bodies, defining and enforcing normative ideals of feminine beauty that disparage all women, especially working-class and non-white women. In this sense, those women at the top of the display professions constitute “an elite corps deployed in a way that keeps millions of women in line. (Mears, 2011, p. 16). 31.

(41) Western fashion can’t avoid assuming subjective and sometimes arbitrary aesthetic values. However, in Wissenger’s study (2009) on the relations between models and fashion brands, she rejects polarized readings of fashion models, which view them as “enforcers of oppressive body styles” (p. 274), or mysterious icons. From her very own experience of fashion modeling, Mears (2011) discloses the fact that the “glamor” of fashion is rather constructed through fashion models’ bodies:. The backstage of fashion reveals a set of players — models, agents, and clients — and the peculiar rules of their game that usually remain hidden behind the brilliantly lit runways, the glossy magazine pages, and the celebrated glamour of fashion. (Mears, 2011, p. 5). The models’ participation in the making of fashion images merits attention: we need to take in account the entire social context rather than just take a reductionist view of consumerism. In Wissinger’s study of the participation of models and consumers’ consumption of fashion products, what is discovered is an intertwined relation: While the model industry provides the “labor force” for many clients in selling goods, “it is also centrally important in the experience of being a consumer — by framing consumer experiences and encounters with commodities.” In her view, the models engage in the fashion industry through their “self-commodification,” as the models “create an image that will sell on the model market (2009, p. 274). As she suggests, in modern times, models utilize their “looks” as commodities: “the look” is sold as a commodity in fashion. Wissinger further points out that “[t]he model’s role in commodification and branding is multi-faceted. Most obviously, models lend their image to sell products, incorporating their likeness into the image of 32.

(42) a brand” (2009, p. 274). It is the main concern to view the models’ position in the whole fashion industry as significant as the designers’ and photographers’ authorship. Wissinger and Entwistle regard them as “cultural intermediaries,” drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of “field of cultural production” (2007, as cited in Wissinger, 2009, p. 277). As they view it, the models’ occupation involves symbolic production of meaning, “in taste-making or defining, shaping the ways in which we encounter and make sense of artefacts in their work of mediation” (Wissinger, 2009, p. 278). If the aesthetic values in fashion are mediated through the bodies of models, then it is worthwhile to reconsider how the symbolic meaning is coded through the production of the works of models in the European fashion industry.. 2. Reading the model’s “look” as text: the male model’s body and gender “performance” in fashion. In her view of the aesthetics-producing fashion industry, Mears (2011) asserts that fashion images reflect the intersection of the socially intelligible and project culturally idealized gendered body on the bodies of the models.. Models do much more than promote the sale of fashion. The model look promotes and disseminates ideas about how women and men should look. Fashion images are prescriptions for masculinity and femininity. (Mears, 2011, p. 16). She also finds empirical analysis to be more suitable than any objective anatomy, 33.

(43) for fashion imagery cannot be treated as any ordinary commodity:. When dealing with aesthetic goods such as “beauty” and “fashionability,” we would be hard-pressed to identify objective measures of worth inherent in the good itself. Rather, an invisible social world is hard at work behind the scenes of fashion to bequeath cultural value onto looks. (Mears, 2011, p.5). Furthermore, from a post-structuralist point of view, the perspective here is taken from Mears’s view of models’ look as:. in fact a system of meanings, such as a language or a code, tied to a social evaluation system. People learn to read and decipher this code in order to see distinctions between one model and the next, as well as their positions within the bigger fashion picture. It represents not just a person or an individual beauty but also a whole system of knowledge and relations among people and positions connected within an industry. (Mears, 2011, p. 7). Building on Butler’s idea of gender and performance (1990), Mears notes the dissociation of an interior “essence” of the gendered self from a gendered body:. Gender, we know, is a matter of active “doing,” not mere passive being, so modeling can be thought of as the professionalization of a certain type of gender performance, one that interlocks with race, sexuality, class, and other 34.

(44) social positions. (Mears, 2011, p. 16). From the perspective of consumption, a model serves as a medium of selling aesthetics of the body for the fashion industry. Yet, from the perspective of cultural critique in this thesis, the aesthetics of a model’s body in fact envisages a culturally “intelligible body” in Bordo’s argument, as it reflects cultural conceptions of the body, norms of beauty, models of health (1993). Therefore the analysis here will focus on the masculinity of the male models, as asserted by Mears that fashion models are the profession for cultural conception of gender:. If modeling is the professionalization of gender performance, then it is a prime site to see the construction of masculinity and femininity, as well as race, sexuality, and class. (Mears, 2011, p. 16). If the bodies of models as representations can be interpreted and read in multi-dimensions, then to decipher models’ looks is to re-evaluate the ideology of contemporary fashion which may reflect formulations of gender, class, and race in a given society. In the case of this study, male models play a critical role in the making of images of masculinity. First, the images created by the fashion industry legitimize the to-be-looked-at-ness of male bodies, contradicting the general prohibition to look at men’s body as argued by Mulvey (1975). What allows fashion to be viewed as an object of academic studies is its resemblance to cinema, as both involve a body for the spectator to project on—the body of the model. This body, in Mulvey’s understanding, is regarded as a surrogate of the spectator. If a new possibility in men’s fashion can be constructed through consumption, its 35.

(45) being a technique of self-representation and a lifestyle to live nonetheless forms a sex/gender identity against a pre-given one. This is why and how fashion is a worthy topic for academic work. In order to allow new possibilities of identifications, we ought to look at the significance of “other” masculinities in contemporary fashion such as masculinities of the “playboy” or the ”puritan,” as well as the association of men’s dress with social ranking, and the difference between formal and informal attire in men’s dress code (Edwards, 1997, pp. 15-17). The contemporary constitution of fashion industry in the West mostly involves well-known fashion brands and fashion publishing. In Mort’s (1996) acute study of masculinity in contemporary men’s fashion, he is aware of the fact that the making of the fashion industry is collaborative. In his case study of the more avant-gardist fashion magazine in UK, The Face, he sees a whole range of supporting crew as “imagemakers” including designers, photographers, dressers, editors, and models (1996). The repertoire of fashion images, manifested in fashion campaigns or editorials in a magazine, includes largely the body of the model at the service of fashion. However in current scholarship on contemporary fashion images, there has been little attention to the male models’ looks, despite their presence in the industry. What this thesis seeks to do is exactly to explore this little trodden path and examine the imagery of the male fashion models as well as their gender performances, and also to see in what ways their works are significant in destabilizing hegemonic Western gender roles. The materials to be studied include the imagery in fashion advertisements, runway looks, lookbooks or catalogues, ranging from prestigious fashion houses Milan and Paris to some avant-garde brands based in Europe, along with editorials in 36.

(46) French, Italian or British trend/fashion-oriented magazines such as Arena Hommes Plus, 10 Men, and Vogue Hommes International. What will not be studied are mainstream lifestyle magazines based mostly in the Anglophone world like GQ, Maxim, and FHM. Other than print materials, videos on Fashion TV, outtakes on photographers’ or fashion bloggers’ websites will also be studied.. 37.