Representations of masculinity

"Images of masculinity are variously and, on occasion, contradictorily interpreted, yet one factor which remains constant is the assertion that these representations construct masculinity as a part of a dynamic process of interpretation and implication. Masculinity is not seen as a fixed essence reflected in representation; rather the representations create the sense of masculinity as essence. Significantly, it is also argued that there is no one masculinity constructed or represented, rather a series of masculinities that are hierarchically ordered according to colour, class and sexual orientation. Images of white, middle-class and heterosexual masculinity are therefore hegemonic whilst those of black, working-class or homosexual masculinity are subordinate. In addition, the hegemonic and subordinate are mutually reinforcing each other. Therefore, what we are often considering when looking at images or representations of masculinity are not solely the overt images or representations themselves, but the complex and overt conceptions of masculinity upon which they are premised."

(Men in the Mirror, Tim Edwards, 1997)

image from here

Changing conventions of men's fashion have entailed re-worked attributes of masculinity that have transformed male bodies into objects of gaze, of display and decoration. This radically undercuts the Victorian and post-Victorian idea of masculinity as the display of restraint in a disciplined body. 

(Craik, 1994, p.203)

Daughters-mothers and fashion

Do you ever share clothes with your mother? Does she have the same taste as you? Perhaps she has given you a special fashion item, which she got from her mother? Is your daughter an extravagant dresser, just like you? Do you have a personal story that you would like to share about fashion in your family? 

I am observing the relationship between daughters-mothers and fashion. I want to look at your origins of style and the relationship that you have with fashion or with a special item of clothing. There can often be found a legacy and a heritage of style between mothers and their daughters and I find this certain origin of style interesting. Also, I would like to know how time can reflect on a piece of special clothing and how this can give a deeper value to your personal fashion. All this is a part of research for my studies in fashion curation at ArtEZ.

It's all about your roots, past, new generations, legacy, memories and slow fashion.

Now I would love to hear YOUR story! 

Please email me on narrativeoffashion@gmail.com

Image from here

Some thoughts..

Fashion and narcissism can be connected in advertising. Contemporary fashion imagery often demonstrates a presence of self-absortion and mirrors a certain narcissistic awareness. It also emphasizes the importance of the generally fabricated appearance, which  aims to reach the desired outcome of collective consumerism.

Narcissism and consumerim are related in connection to desire, in the context of what a person is, once was or what they would like to be. Modern consumers can be under the allure or the influence of glamourized imagery and this way may create a desire to be what they see in the fashion images. In this context the consumer might vision an idealized image of what they would like to be and remain mislead by narcissistic manipulation.

The perfect image of the self which fashion promotes requires narcissistic attention and in this way promotes narcissism itself. This distorted attention to one’s body or appearance can be observed to encourage illusions of megalomania, in which one sees the self as being superior to others and capable of such attitudes as arrogance, egocentricity and vanity...

To be continued..

on the dandy

As I have been recently researching menswear and the characteristics of narcissism in men's fashion, the person from the past who represents the narcissistic "new man" not only by a well maintained appearance, but also with a well established presence of self-absorption is George Bryan Brummel, the very first dandy of the early 19th century.

"Brummel would spend hour after hour discarding the lightly-starched strips of muslin or cambric that his servants held out - ”our failures” he called them - until he found just the right arrangement that constituted ”a cravat”... His Eton stockings were impeccable, his boots were free of the tiniest spot, his mirrors were said to be cleaned with Champagne, his linen washed with country water and dried in country air... Brummel consciously presented himself to the studying glances, and played his role of fashion doll with professional pleasure. He shared this passion of being seen and with many of his contemporaries. One of the dandy characters in the novel The Exclusives confesses, for instance, that he comes to Hyde Park to see the ladies, but, even more, to show himself, to be admired."

A History of Men’s Fashion, Farid Chenoune, Flammarion, 1993

The Modern Mirror Man

The male figure has transformed into a new image over the past years and needed to adjust into the changing times. Masculinity has acquired new translations and many variations. 

The contemporary emerge of the New Man challenges the ‘traditional’ concept of what is considered masculine in the Western society. This phenomenon presents characteristics that have not been a part of the 'traditional' masculine figure in a while. So, therefore the topic of my next research looks at how narcissism and the New Man are connected. I am interested in how narcissism can be seen in contemporary men's fashion and how such designers as Hedi Slimane affected this phenomenon. Why is this aspect of masculine narcissism so fashionable at the moment?

This Tom Ford AW 08 advertising campaign is a good visual example of the topic.

Fashion killed off dandyism

"Fashion is a collective imitation of regular novelty, even when it uses the alibi of expressing individuality, or as we might now say, 'personality'. It is essentially a mass phenomenon that has attracted the interest of sociologists, who see it as a good example of pure dialectic between the individual and the community. Moreover, Fashion has entered the mainstream, as evidenced in the remarkable boom in specialized women's magazines. Fashion is an institution, and nobody today still believes that it distinguishes. Now only unfashionable is distinctive. In other words, from the mass point of view, Fashion is perceived only by its opposite: if Fashion is health and morality, unfashionable is merely sickness and perversion.
We have witnessed a paradox. Fashion killed off all conceived originality in clothing by tyrannically taking over its institutional originality."

- Roland Barthes, Dandyism and Fashion
(The New Man, ArtEZ Press, 2010)

A new exhibition curated by my lovely tutor José Teunissen. 
Art & Fashion. Between Skin and Clothing in the Kunstmuseum in Wolfburg (05.03.2011 - 07.08.2011)
The Fashion and objects by Walter Van Beirendonck, Louise Bourgeois, Hussein Chalayan, Christophe Coppens, Comme des Garçons, Salvador Dalí, Naomi Filmer, Robert Gober, Martin Margiela, Francesco Vezzoli, Viktor & Rolf, Anna-Nicole Zische and many others.
The exhibition explores the relation between art and fashion. Since the sixties art and fashion share the same avant garde feeling. From then on fashion no longer expresses power, money and social class. Instead it starts to express art and culture. Fashion and popular visual cultures – like pop art – became from the sixties on the new visual aesthetics of society. Fashion and Art became in the same way conceptual. During the eighties Japanese designers as Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons start to explore the boundaries of clothing and the meaning of fashion. Viktor & Rolf and Hussein Chalayan too started to present fashion shows in the new millenium that looked like art-installations.


The exhibition was presented before in the Museum Boijman Van Beuningen. Watch the introduction video for Art & Fashion!

http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de/