Documente Academic
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Fa i r c h i l d B o o k s , I n c .
N ew Yo r k
All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in
any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, tap-
ing, or information storage and retrieval systems—without written permission of the publisher.
Credits for previously published essays: From Chapter 1: Banner, Lois. 1992. The fashionable sex, 1100–
1600. History Today 42 (4): 37–44. From Chapter 2: Breward, Christopher. 2003. Masculine pleasures:
Metropolitan identities and the commercial sites of dandyism, 1790–1840. London Journal 28 (1): 60–72;
Morra, Marisa. 1985. Silent informers: Men’s coats from a 19th century period of transition. Dress
11:68–76; Martin, Richard. 1982. Post-modern menswear: Irony and anomaly in men’s attire of the 1980s.
Dress 8:36–41. From Chapter 3: Barber, Nigel. 2001 Mustache fashion covaries with a good marriage
market for women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 24 (4): 261–72; Entwistle, Joanne. 2004. From catwalk
to catalog: Male fashion models, masculinity, and identity. In Cultural bodies: Ethnography and theory,
eds. H. Thomas and J. Ahmed, 55–75. Oxford: Blackwell; From Chapter 4: Cross, Robert J. 1998. The Teddy
Boy as scapegoat. Doshisha Studies in Language and Culture 1–2: 263–91. From Chapter 5: Lynch,
Annette. 1999. “It was style with a capital ‘S’”: Versions of being male presented at the Beautillion Ball.
In Dress, Gender, and Cultural Change: Asian American and African American Rites of Passage, 97–112.
Oxford: Berg. From Chapter 6: Robinson, Dwight E. 1998. Fashions in shaving and trimming of the beard:
The Men of the Illustrated London News, 1842–1972. American Journal of Sociology 81 (5): 1133–41.
From Chapter 7: Tyler, Bruce. 1994. Zoot-suit culture and the black press. Journal of American Culture
17 (2): 21-33; Duggan, Scott J., and Donald R. McCreary. 2004. Body image, eating disorders, and the drive
for muscularity in gay and heterosexual men: The influence of media images. Journal of Homosexuality
47 (3/4): 45–58. Chapter 9: Kuchta, David M. 1990. “Graceful, virile, and useful”: The origins of the three-
piece suit. Dress 17:118–26.
Introduction xi
Introduction 3
The Fashionable Sex, 1100–1600, L o i s B a nne r 6
Discussion Questions 17
Something Borrowed: Masculine Style in Women’s Fashion,
S a r a h C o s bey 18
Discussion Questions 32
The Ubiquitous Necktie: Style, Symbolism, and Signification Through
Transitions of Masculinity, K a t hleen H uun 33
Discussion Questions 51
Introduction 55
Masculine Pleasures: Metropolitan Identities and the Commercial Sites of
Dandyism, 1790–1840, C h r i s t o p he r B r e w a r d 58
Discussion Questions 74
Introduction 111
Mustache Fashion Covaries with a Good Marriage Market for
Women, N i g el B a r be r 115
Discussion Questions 125
From Catwalk to Catalog: Male Fashion Models, Masculinity,
and Identity, J o a nne E n t w i s t le 126
Discussion Questions 144
Goth Boys in the Media: Femininity and Violence,
C a t he r ine S p o o ne r 145
Discussion Questions 159
Introduction 163
From Cool to Hot to Cool: The Case for the Black Leather Jacket,
M a r ilyn De L o n g a n d J uye o n P a r k 166
Discussion Questions 179
Men’s Fashion and Politics: “. . . A Son of Liberty Will Not Feel
the Coarseness of a Homespun Shirt . . .” Su s a n N o r t h 180
Discussion Questions 198
Punk Male Fashion and the Aesthetic of Entropy,
J o s é B l a nc o F . 199
Discussion Questions 213
vi | contents
Introduction 233
“It Was Style with a Capital ‘S’ ”: Versions of Being Male
Presented at the Beautillion Ball, Anne t t e Lynch 236
Discussion Questions 252
It Won’t Stop: The Evolution of Men’s Hip-Hop Gear,
Rebecc a J . R o bin s o n 253
Discussion Questions 264
Dressing Up Italian Americans for the Youth Spectacle:
What Difference Does Guido Perform?
D o n a l d T r ic a r ic o 265
Discussion Questions 277
Butch Queens in Macho Drag: Gay Men, Dress, and Subcultural
Identity, Sh a un C o le 279
Discussion Questions 294
East Meets West: The Aloha Shirt as an Instrument of
Acculturation, L in d a B o yn t o n A r t hu r 295
Discussion Questions 310
Introduction 313
Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard:
The Men of the Illustrated London News, 1842–1972,
D w i g h t E . R o bin s o n 316
Discussion Questions 322
Body Art and Men’s Fashion, L le w ellyn N e g r in 323
Discussion Questions 336
Fashioning Men’s Bodies: Masculinity and Muscularity,
Tim o t hy S . F r e s o n a n d L in d a B o yn t o n A r t hu r 337
Discussion Questions 354
contents | vii
Introduction 377
Zoot-Suit Culture and the Black Press, B r uce Tyle r 381
Discussion Questions 392
Constructing the Columbine Shootings as an Appearance-Linked
Social Problem: An Interpretive Analysis, J ennife r P a ff O g le ,
M o lly J . E ckm a n , a n d C a t he r ine Am o r o s o L e s lie 393
Discussion Questions 409
Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Drive for Muscularity in
Gay and Heterosexual Men: The Influence of Media Images,
Sc o t t J . Du g g a N , p h . d . , a n d D o n a l d R . M c C r e a r y , p h . d . 410
Discussion Questions 421
Introduction 425
Uniforms and Men’s Fashion: Tailoring Masculinity to Fit,
J ennife r C r a ik 429
Discussion Questions 444
Male Civil War Reenactors’ Dress and Magic Moments,
K imbe r ly A . M ille r - S p illm a n 445
Discussion Questions 464
The Evolution of Western Style in Menswear,
L a u r el E . Wil s o n 465
Discussion Questions 479
Modern Armor: A Study of the American Football Uniform,
Rebecc a J . R o bin s o n 480
Discussion Questions 492
viii | contents
Introduction 495
“Graceful, Virile, and Useful”: The Origins of the Three-Piece Suit,
D av i d M . K uch t a 498
Discussion Questions 511
Dress Code for Assemblymen: The Political Implications of the Suit
in South Korea, Y o o n - J un g L ee 512
Discussion Questions 524
Fashion Cycles in Men’s Jackets, Dress Shirts, and Slacks,
An d r e w Reilly 525
Discussion Questions 537
Contributors 538
contents | ix
T
his book came about as a result of the shortage of literature we
believed to exist on the topic of men and dress. As instructors, we
were often faced with the challenge of achieving more balanced
discussions “gender-wise” in our respective courses, whether they
dealt with the history of costume, the social psychology of dress, cultural
aspects of dress, or clothing aesthetics. Existing scholarship tends to
focus on women and dress, perhaps due to the fact that there is a predomi-
nance of female scholars in the textiles and clothing discipline. As dis-
cussed below, the subject of dress traditionally has not been considered
“manly” in nature, and this may have discouraged male scholars generally
from pursuing the topic. The overall elaborate nature of women’s fashion
compared with men’s fashion over the past two centuries may also account
for this focus on the feminine. However, the result is that the subject
of men and dress—particularly Western men’s dress from a sociocultural
perspective—has not received the attention it deserves among scholars of
textiles and clothing, and this may well contribute to a distortion in our
understanding of men’s relationship with dress and appearance.
No one book can comprehensively address the topic of men’s dress.
However, it is our intention that, by focusing consistently on men’s experi-
ence of such traditionally “feminine” territory, we might help the reader
discover ways in which the study of menswear supports established themes
in the study of dress while offering insight into the male viewpoint on
the subject.
| xi
xii | introduction
The book comprises 33 readings that have been grouped into nine chap-
ters based on themes that systematically reappeared in the literature on
men’s dress or that we identified as being particularly relevant to the
study of dress in general. Most of the readings suitably could be placed in
more than one chapter, and we encourage the reader to think about other
themes illustrated by each reading in addition to that of the chapter in
which it appears. The authors of the various readings approach the sub-
ject of men’s dress from diverse disciplines and perspectives (see contrib-
uting author biographies), thus illustrating the topic’s relevancy to an
array of academic fields.
Generally speaking, two main types of readings are included in this
book. The first of these consists of research based on existing information
introduction | xiii
xiv | introduction
Postmodernism Defined
introduction | xv
xvi | introduction
References
Babbie, E. 2007. The practice of social research. 11th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Baudrillard, J. 1983. Simulations. Trans. by P. Foss, P. Patton, and P. Beitchman. New York:
Semiotext(e).
Damhorst, M. L. 2005. Dress as nonverbal communication. In Meanings of dress, eds.
M. L. Damhorst, K. A. Miller-Spillman, and S. O. Michelman, 2nd ed., 67–80. New York:
Fairchild.
Davis, F. 1992. Fashion, culture, and identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Freedman, R. 1986. Beauty bound. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Gitlin, T. 1989. Postmodernism defined, at last! Utne Reader, July/August: 52–61.
Horn, M. J., and L. M. Gurel. 1981. The second skin. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kaiser, S. 1997. The social psychology of clothing. 2nd ed. New York: Fairchild.
Kaiser, S. B., R. H. Nagasawa, and S. S. Hutton. 1991. Fashion, postmodernity and personal
appearance: A symbolic interactionist formulation. Symbolic Interaction 14 (2): 165–85.
————. 1995. Construction of an SI theory of fashion: Part 1. Ambivalence and change. Cloth-
ing and Textiles Research Journal 13 (3): 172–83.
Kefgen, M., and P. Touchie-Specht. 1986. Individuality in clothing selection and personal
appearance. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan.
Kerlinger, F. N. 1986. Foundations of behavioral research. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1962. The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
McCracken, G. D. 1985. The trickle-down theory rehabilitated. In The psychology of fashion,
ed. M. R. Solomon, 39–54. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D.C. Heath.
————. 1988. Culture and consumption. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press.
Morgado, M. A. 1996. Coming to terms with Postmodern: Theories and concepts of contem-
porary culture and their implications for apparel scholars. Clothing and Textiles
Research Journal 14 (1): 41–53.
Morgan, E. 1972. The descent of woman. New York: Stein and Day.
Roach-Higgins, M. E., and J. B. Eicher. 1992. Dress and identity. Clothing and Textiles
Research Journal 10 (4): 1–8.
Simmel, G. 1904. Fashion. International Quarterly 10: 130–55. Reprint, American Journal of
Sociology 62 (May 1957): 541–58.
Sproles, G. B. 1979. Fashion: Consumer behavior toward dress. Minneapolis: Burgess.
Veblen, T. 1899. The theory of the leisure class. New York: Macmillan.
introduction | xvii
Chapter
men’s Fashion as
Defiance
I
n 1993, when Erica Kane was blackmailed into remarrying Adam
Chandler on All My Children, she did not don the usual white wedding
dress. Rather, she wore a black dress and veil. The solemn black color,
quite the polar opposite for a Western wedding, revealed the charac-
ter’s contempt for her situation; although she was forced into a disagree-
able marriage, her wardrobe revealed her defiant attitude.
Defiance is the rejection of authority, which may come in the form of
another person, a group of people, or a tradition. It is a reaction against
someone or something that holds (oppressive or abusive) power over an-
other. Dress—the things we choose to wear and not to wear—enables us to
show the extent to which we embrace or wish to distance ourselves from a
situation we find ourselves in or a role we are asked to fulfill (Goffman
1961; Kaiser 1997). In the case of Erica Kane, her attire was mute testi-
mony to her role as Adam Chandler’s bride. The relationship between dress
and roles is explored further in Chapter 8.
An example of an individual rejecting the authority of another person
might be the rebellious adolescent who tests the limits set forth by a par-
ent. One way for adolescents to defy their parents is to wear something of
which their parents disapprove. Teenagers can often attest to hearing the
phrase “You’re not going out looking like that” exclaimed by a concerned
parent. Parents have de facto authority over children and set guidelines
and limits as to what they expect of them. These limits may include
restricting which types of fashion they can adopt. Certain protocols
may be expected—such as wearing attire deemed appropriate for certain
| 163
164 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Note
1. Blumer (1969, 289) recognized the “collective adjustment” function of fashion, an-
choring individuals to the present amid ongoing societal change.
References
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Fashion: From class differentiation to collective selection. Sociologi-
cal Quarterly 10:275–91.
Fiore, Anne Marie, and Patricia Anne Kimle. 1997. Understanding aesthetics for the mer-
chandising and design professional. New York: Fairchild.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapo-
lis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Kaiser, Susan. 1997. The social psychology of clothing. 2nd ed., rev. New York: Fairchild.
i n troductio n | 165
166 |
Form
The black leather jacket communicates through its form, so we must con-
sider how that communication takes place (DeLong 1998; Meyers 1989). The
term literacy implies an ability to decode messages; when the term visual is
added, the implication is that visual literacy is an ability to decode visual
messages. Visual literacy is dependent on semiotics, the study of “signs” and
their perceptual significance in human communication. Because the ele-
mental components of visual processing are the abstract dot, line, color,
texture, dimension, and movement, such abstractions gain perceptual sig-
nificance in the way they combine and interact to create focus and provide
recognition and meaning. Interpreting the black leather jacket requires an
awareness of the interacting relationships of diverse sensory data.
168 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
170 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
F i g u r e 4 . 4 . Tensions
related to the black leather
Rugged Protector Individualist Survivor
jacket.
Hero Anti-Hero
Straight Gay
Powerful Vulnerable
Gay or Straight
Cole (2000) discusses the appeal of leather to gay men, which goes be-
yond its role as clothing. As a fabric, black leather is saturated with mean-
172 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Hero or Antihero
In the 20th century, Americans were introduced to a hero image intri-
cately intertwined with the black leather jacket, the adolescent, and the
motorcycle. Constantino (1997) relates that the term teener had existed in
the 19th century, but the concept of a separate age group did not. About
mid–20th century, adolescence gained attention as a distinct age group
with a set of developmental tasks. Sizing systems were created for the
174 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Fashion or Antifashion
Fashion, or the idea of a continuous evolution of what we wear (Stern
2004), was born in Western cultures and emerged full-blown during the
latter half of the 19th century. Choices of dress are always defined within
a particular context: The fashion system provides the raw material of our
choices, but these are adapted within the context of the lived experience
and characteristics of the person—that is, gender, occupation, age, and eth-
nicity. From the beginning of fashion, there have been arguments and
movements against fashion, such as artists’ proposals that proceed from a
common will to reject official fashion and replace it with a utopian form
of dress that is antifashion. In the late 19th century, the looser fit of fe-
male aesthetic dress worn in defiance of the fashionable corset was a har-
binger of changing dress codes in the early 20th century. Similarly, for a
period of time in the mid–20th century, the black leather jacket in the
United States embodied the teenage symbol of defiance and antifashion.
Scholars of the history of dress have considered that clothing forms ex-
press the spirit of the era. The discipline of material culture asserts that
products are reflective of their makers’ and users’ culture, beliefs, attitudes,
ideas, and values. Ephemerality is a concept that implies changing social
meanings (Attfield 2000). This concept can be applied to the black leather
jacket because of the emotions and identities the leather jacket has medi-
ated over time that exemplify a unique characteristic of the jacket. In the
176 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Conclusion
The black leather jacket traversed the 20th century, evolving from cool,
to hot, to cool. In the beginning, it was cool in its association with the
178 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
References
Attfield J. 2000. Wild things: The material culture of everyday life. New York: Berg.
Brustein, R. 1958. America’s new culture hero, feelings without words. Commentary 25 (2):
123–29.
Cole, S. 2000. Don we now our gay apparel. Oxford: Berg.
Constantino, M. 1997. Men’s fashion in the twentieth century. New York: Costume & Fashion
Press.
Damhorst, M., K. Miller-Spillman, and S. Michelman. 2005. The meanings of dress. 2nd ed.
New York: Fairchild.
DeLong, M. 1998. The way we look. New York: Fairchild.
Entwistle, J., and E. Wilson, eds. 2001. Body dressing. Oxford: Berg.
Farren, M. 1985. The black leather jacket. New York: Plexus.
Goffman, I. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
Hollander, A. 1978. Seeing through clothes. New York: Viking.
Johnson, K. 2006. Interview by Marilyn DeLong, September 20, St. Paul, MN.
Kidwell, C., and V. Steele, eds. 1989. Men and women: dressing the part. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution.
Meyers, J. 1989. The language of visual art. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Mitchell, K. 2004. Leather is, simply, cool. Wearables Business, October: 18–19.
Polhemus, T. 1996. Style surfing, what to wear in the 3rd millennium. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Salisbury, M. 2004. Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Forbes FYI Fall (174): 92–97.
Stern, R. 2004. Against fashion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tuan, Y. 1995. Passing strange and wonderful: Aesthetics, nature, and culture. New York:
Kodansha America.
Discussion Questions
Susan North
180 |
Sumptuary Law
Sumptuary law demonstrates the correlation of class and politics via the
medium of dress. This unique type of legislation sought to govern, among
other consumables, the clothing worn within a given society, usually on
the basis of style and materials. While revealing myriad anxieties regard-
ing gender, luxury, wealth, and the overall health of the state economy,
sumptuary law was primarily concerned with class and social status, at-
tempting to restrict expensive and fashionable clothing exclusively for
ruling elites. Such legislation first appeared in Europe in the late Middle
Ages, when feudal aristocracies began to be challenged from below, in par-
ticular by the newly established merchant class (Hunt 1996). Because its
wealth derived from trade rather than land or birth, this new sector of so-
ciety was particularly threatening as consumers competing for luxury
goods, including fashionable clothing. Indeed, some of the richest of the
mercantile class in late medieval Europe made their money on the primary
resources of fashion, including precious metals, furs, silks, fine wools and
linen, and the exotic dyestuffs with which they were colored—trade that
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 181
182 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 183
184 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 185
186 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 187
Englishmen are usually very plainly dressed, they scarcely ever wear
gold on their clothes; they wear little coats called “frocks” without
facings, and without pleats, with a short cape above. Almost all wear
small round wigs, plain hats and carry canes in their hands, but no
swords. Their cloth and linen are of the best and finest. You will see
rich merchants and gentlemen thus dressed, and sometimes even
noblemen of high rank, especially in the morning, walking through
the filthy and muddy streets. Englishmen, however, are very lavish in
other ways. They have splendid equipages and costly apparel when
required. Peers and other persons of rank are richly dressed when they
go to Court, especially on gala days . . . (de Saussure 1902, 112–13)
188 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 189
190 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 191
With publication of the writings of Karl Marx and Max Engels and their
condemnation of capitalism, inspired by the horrors of the textile facto-
ries and sweated labor in Britain, the merchant’s plain black coat and
trousers took on an inescapable taint of corruption (Figure 4.8). By the
early 20th century, the bourgeois business suit had acquired connotations
as negative as the grand habit of the ancien régime. Grounded in Marxist
ideology, the Russian Revolution illustrated the limits of sartorial choice
available to political activists by the Bolsheviks’ rejection of mainstream
men’s fashionable dress. Not only was the three-piece suit a symbol and
product of capitalism, its presence in Russia dated back to Peter the Great
and his insistence on European fashions at court in place of traditional
Russian clothing (Ruane 2002). Any one of the rich varieties of dress
unique to Russia’s many ethnic groups could have formed a natural sym-
bol in which to clothe communist zeal. Unfortunately, Tsar Nicholas II pre-
empted such a gesture by wearing Russian folk costume at court and in
public as a visual reinforcement of imperial rule (Ruane 2002, 67).
After the overthrow of the tsar in 1917, the question of “what to wear”
became pressing for the communist party, not just from a symbolic and
ideological perspective, but from the practical need to provide clothing for
millions. With the centralization of most industries, including textile
manufacture and ready-made garments, the cut and design of clothing was
a political decision. The rejection of the traditional man’s suit was due not
only to its bourgeois associations but also to the influence of the dress re-
form movement of the late 19th century and its concerns about the health
and comfort of men’s clothing (Newton 1974). During this period, the aes-
192 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
The Cultural Revolution of China was even more authoritarian in its ap-
proach to clothing and appearance than the Russian experience discussed
above. Mao Zedong not only condemned silk gowns and precious metal
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 193
194 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 195
Conclusion
Examining the association between dress and politics reveals the transi-
tory nature of each; the ephemeral nature of fashion has long been recog-
nized, but the fleeting character of radical ideology has been acknowledged
only recently with the decline of Marxism (Cowling and Reynolds 2000).
There is often a correlation between ideology and dress in political upheav-
als, but the precise nature of this relationship is unique to each revolution,
as well as short-lived. Sartorially astute radicals who choose to denote their
politics with clothing know that they must cut a dashing contrast to that
of the establishment. Dress that seeks to convey an ideologically convinc-
ing message must also provide a stylish, minimalist alternative to a gaudy,
overdecorated abomination of bad taste and worse government, or provide
a funky and colorful contrast to dull, be-suited bureaucrats. But political
idealism does not guarantee sartorial taste; the hero of the revolution can
be a peacock or a slob, or resist outright efforts to have his or her personal
tastes overridden by any kind of fashion dogma. Dress only fits politics
comfortably but momentarily in the early stages of rebellion, when it is
freely chosen to express specific beliefs. A revolutionary “uniform” strictly
imposed will be rejected outright or subtly subverted. Dictates of the new
social order, both sartorial and political, eventually become as oppressive
to the proletariat as the last regime. For whereas modest working dress
often functions as a political statement for seditionists, the exploited
masses do not revolt for the right to dress in the clothing they already wear.
People rebel for the right to express their political views, to vote and be
represented, and to govern; they also rebel for the entitlements of the privi-
leged, including the right to dress as they wish, according to their own per-
sonal tastes and as stylishly as their money, freely earned, will allow.
note
1. Young men who were training for a profession were often rowdy, violent, and unruly—
perfect for any type of insurgency.
References
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London: Unwin Hyman.
Ashton, R. 1989. The English civil war. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
196 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
m e n ’ s f a s h io n a n d politic s | 197
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Discussion Questions
1. What political ideologies are discussed in the reading, and how were
they expressed through style of dress?
2. The author discusses various groups or regimes that sought to con-
trol the types of dress that people wore. Who were these groups, and
how did they try to achieve this control over dress?
3. After answering question 2, make a list of societal characteristics
that support or are necessary for fashion to exist.
198 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
| 199
200 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
True androgyny came to punk via the New York Dolls, a group more con-
cerned with appearance than any other proto-punk American band. Recy-
cling elements from glam rock, they often performed in drag, even though
all band members considered themselves heterosexual. The Dolls’ sexually
ambiguous attire included see-through outfits, ballet tutus, strapless
dresses, halter or tank tops, fitted spandex trousers (often worn without
202 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
The year 1976 was marked by the appearance of some of the most famous
punk acts, including the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned. From its
inception, British punk seemed more fashion conscious than its Ameri-
can counterpart due in part to the close ties between the Sex Pistols and
the store on King’s Road owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne West-
wood.6 The store was crucial in creating the British punk look, and Savage
(2002) calls the work of McLaren and Westwood “social engineering”
through fashion.7 The designer pair opened their first store, Let It Rock, in
1971. It was considered the mecca for Teddy Boy revival clothing and of-
fered variations of jazz or zoot suits and slim, Edwardian-inspired looks.
The store also offered 1950s double-breasted, two-button jackets with
wide lapels and padded shoulders, as well as cardigans, embroidered vests,
204 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
206 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
208 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Like many other subcultures before it, early punk thrived on opposing the
mainstream and its style. Defiance to the hegemony was accomplished by
creating an aesthetic of disorder aimed at increasing the entropy in the
society it challenged. As with similar subcultural movements, the appeal
of punk and its chaotic imagery eventually became so widespread that the
very society it rebelled against turned punk into a commodity. Beginning
in the early 1980s, stereotypical versions of most punk fashion trends
were adopted by rebellious youth around the world who hit the streets
proudly showcasing numerous piercings or tattoos, striking Mohawks,
bright fluorescent hair dyes, and controversial imagery on t-shirts and
other apparel products. The presence of these neo-punks in the streets be-
came a popular tourist attraction, particularly in London, thus decreasing
the appeal of the look as a symbol of defiance. The media transformed
punk into a profitable business, with fashion magazines and newspapers
publishing guidelines on how to create Mohawks or other punk looks while
commercial products—including hair dyes, armbands, and piercing jewelry—
were aggressively marketed to punks by specialty stores. Antifashion be-
came high fashion when designers Zandra Rhodes and Jean-Paul Gaultier
incorporated punk elements in their collections. Overall, the individual-
ized style and original hostility of punk was transformed by a postmod-
ern desire to incorporate subcultural styles into the mainstream.
Punk bands of the early 1980s were more concerned with fashion than
previous acts. The Jam, which had a strong cult following into the early
1980s, incorporated elements from mod and psychedelia into their ward-
robe. Other bands performed in colorful and eccentric costume ensembles.
Adam and the Ants wore historically inspired military jackets combined
At the dawn of the 21st-century, punk had been fully inducted into the
realm of mainstream fashion. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London
hosted a successful retrospective of Vivienne Westwood’s work; torn jeans
and vintage t-shirts were sold at high prices by many retailers. Even punk
icon Iggy Pop appeared on fashion spreads as a model for John Varvatos.
The stereotypical punk look of the early 1980s was even packaged and
available as a Halloween costume, and an abundance of books, journal ar-
ticles, and college courses painstakingly detailed every aspect of punk
music, fashion, and lifestyle.
210 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Notes
1. The second law of thermodynamics establishes that everything in the universe began
with structure and order; every subsequent reaction, however, increases disorder (entropy)
and irrevocably moves the universe toward randomness and chaos. Entropy measures the
level of disorder in a system, which is determined by the amount of energy no longer capa-
ble of producing work.
2. Unusual fashion has been a trademark of avant-garde art groups, including Dada, sur-
realism, and futurism, and for subcultures such as Teddy Boys, Zoot Suiters, and hippies.
Tricia Henry Young (1989) discusses the connection between Dada and punk and character-
istics shared by avant-garde groups, such as the blurring of boundaries between art and
everyday life, the prevalence of untrained performers, and the juxtaposition of disparate
objects.
References
Arnheim, R. 1971. Entropy and art: An essay on disorder and order. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Cartledge, F. 1999. Distress to impress?: Local punk fashion and commodity exchange. In
Punk rock: So what, ed. R. Sabin. London: Routledge.
Cogan, B. 2006. Encyclopedia of punk music and culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Colegrave, S., and C. Sullivan. 2001. Punk: The definitive record of a revolution. New York:
Thunder’s Mouth.
Davies, J. 1996. The future of “no future”: Punk rock and postmodern theory. Journal of Pop-
ular Culture 29 (4): 3–25.
Frith, S., and H. Horne. 1989. Art into pop. London: Routledge.
Gilbert, P. 2005. Passion is a fashion: The real story of the Clash. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo.
Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Routledge.
Marcus, G. 1989. Lipstick traces: A secret history of the twentieth century. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
McNeil, L., and G. McCain. 1997. Please kill me: The uncensored oral history of punk. New
York: Penguin Books.
Muggleton, D. 2000. Inside subculture: The postmodern meaning of style. Oxford: Berg.
O’Hara, C. 1999. The philosophy of punk: More than noise!! 2nd ed. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Osgerby, B. 1998. Youth in Britain since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell.
Savage, J. 2002. England’s dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, punk rock, and beyond. New York:
St. Martin’s Griffin.
212 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Discussion Questions
1. The author of this reading observes that punk was aligned with post-
modernism and its “spirit of fragmentation.” What does he mean by
“spirit of fragmentation” and “juxtaposition of disparate elements,”
and how do you think punk style reflected these concepts?
2. The author states that punk eventually “dissipated” into a variety of
postmodern looks. Discuss examples of current fashion that borrow
from or are consistent with punk style, particularly in terms of men’s
fashion. Do these features still communicate defiance?
3. What is the “do-it-yourself” quality of punk style that the author re-
fers to several times in the reading? Would anyone who uses the “do-
it-yourself” approach to dress be considered punk? Why or why not?
Youthquake
“Whaddya rebellin’ against, Johnny?”
“Wha’ya got?”
—Johnny in The Wild One
The young always have the same problem—how to rebel and conform at
the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and
copying one another.
—Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant
After six years of grim austerity, the years 1951–61 marked a period of un-
precedented affluence in Britain (Bognador/Skidelsky 1970; Lewis 1978:
9–41). This was particularly so during the Macmillan years, when the
Prime Minister informed a surprised population that they had “never had
it so good” (Sked/Cook 1990: 138–59). Citing some telling statistics, the
cultural historian Robert Hewison notes that
Between October 1951 and October 1963 wages were estimated to have
risen by 72 per cent, prices by 45 per cent. There was full employment,
and the availability and consumption of pleasurable possessions such
as cars, washing machines, record players and television sets testified
to the expansion of the “affluent society.” (Hewison 1987: 6)
214 |
In those days [when I was an adolescent] there were big boys and
girls, or young men and women—but no such thing as a teenager: who,
one must insist, is a new kind of person, chiefly on account of his sic
economic power. (MacInnes 1966: 57)
MacInnes was the first writer to describe the new teenager lifestyle with
empathy and understanding in his cult novel Absolute Beginners (1959).
What distinguished working-class children from their parents more
than ever before was not merely economics, however, but the widening dis-
crepancy in their expectations of life, particularly with regard to leisure.
Enjoying the greater egalitarianism that had arrived in the wake of the
election of Clement Atlee’s Labour government in 1945, these young people
had no intention of following their parents into forelock-tugging social
subservience. If their parents had known their place, so to speak, then these
youngsters refused to recognise a fixed and inferior social station. The
novels of Alan Sillitoe, Keith Waterhouse and David Storey probed this new
working-class teenage refusal to pull on the yoke of adult responsibility
and conformity. The new subcultural response of teenagers was thus
The result of this expression of “alien intent” was the sudden appear-
ance of what we now refer to as the “generation gap.” An early enquiry into
this problem concluded that: “There are clear signs of alienation between
the young people of today and the adult generations” (Schofield 1963:
6–7). One contributing factor may be what is perceived to be the innate
conservatism of British society:
The threat, as adult society saw it, manifested itself most clearly in
the exponential rise in the juvenile crime rate during the second half of
the 1950s. Offences committed by young people under the age of 21 rose
from 24,000 in 1955 to 45,000 in 1959 (Lewis 1978: 118). For adult society
the words “teenager” and “juvenile delinquent” were becoming almost syn-
onymous.
Since the Sixties the existence of a separate teenage culture, in Western
societies at least, has become a familiar concept—acceptable, too, largely on
account of the fact that middle-class teenagers participated more and more
in the creation of popular youth culture, diluting the initial anger of work-
ing-class youth, making it “safer.” It is perhaps necessary to recall, there-
fore, both the sense of claustrophobia felt by this first teenage generation,
and the shock and incomprehension with which its rebellion was met by
adult society at that time. Pushing against confinement, these working-
class juveniles set about negotiating “space” for themselves, sometimes
through delinquent behaviour, (although, as we shall see, this was fre-
quently sensationalised by the press media). As a result, adult society—the
“Control Culture” (Clarke/Hall et al. 1975)—set in motion a whole range of
disciplinary measures.
In Britain, the first adolescents to make a show of shaking off the aus-
terity of the postwar period, “the first to walk down the road to the prom-
ised land of Teen Age” (Savage 1982: 12), and the first consequently to be
disciplined by adult society were the Teddy Boys (hereafter referred to as
Teds), so-called on account of their “Edwardian”1 style of dress. The Teds
first appeared around 1954 in working-class areas of south and east Lon-
don. They reached their peak in 1956, and died out after the race riots in
the summer of 1958.2 Though short-lived, their subcultural gesture had
resounding significance:
The Teddy Boys broke new ground. They had established a teenage
market. They had introduced a fashion that was totally working-class
in its origins. And they had made it acceptable for males to dress
purely for show. (Barnes 1991: 8)
They not only “dressed-up,” however; they were also prone to aggressive
and violent behaviour. At a time when, as George Melly puts it, “good boys
216 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Once youth has separated itself from adulthood, and made a public
dramaturgical statement about their difference from adult expecta-
tions of them, they feel free to explore and develop what they are.
This is why their image is deliberately rebellious or delinquent. It
quite dramatically emphasises their difference. (Brake 1990: 191)
218 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
. . . you would always have your suits tailor-made even if it took a year
of saving and many months of privation. A suit was your armour and
your colours and further defined your sense of aesthetics. (Berkoff
1996: 15)
Thus costumed (in the fullest sense of the word), Berkoff the Teddy Boy
was free to perform his image of himself on the dance floor:
The jive was one of the greatest dance forms ever invented. And
so all your arts were in some way fulfilled. You were the dandy,
the mover and performer in your own drama, the roving hunter and
lover, the actor adopting for the girl the mask of your choice. (Berkoff
1996: 39)
The Teds were the first teenage subculture in Britain to construct new
identities for themselves in order to compensate for socioeconomic mar-
ginalisation. One explanation for this was that they came from a class that
was in the throes of experiencing the break-up of its traditionally close-
knit communities. The policy of slum clearance during the 1950s had a
disastrous and irreparable impact upon the working-class communities of
east and south London (Wilmott/Young 1990: 121-99). As whole streets of
terraced houses and tenements were demolished and families were rehoused
either in tower blocks or the new satellite towns on the outskirts of London,
family and neighbourhood ties were broken (Phil Cohen 1996). The Teds, as
with the skinheads who followed them a decade later (Clarke 1976a), thus
felt the need to recreate community and territoriality among themselves by
constructing and rigorously self-regulating a group-oriented style.
In addition to the more “benign” strategies of donning a costume and
dancing, the Teds also expressed their group identity through fighting.
Why this should have been so is suggested in the 1953 American film The
Wild One, in which the protagonist Johnny (played by Marlon Brando, an
early icon of rebellious youth) the leader of a motorcycle gang, attempts to
justify the group’s delinquent behaviour. He declares that
These guys are nameless, faceless fry-cooks and grease monkeys all
week, working at dreary jobs they hate. They do violent things be-
cause they’ve been held down for so long.
The Teds were not just proletarian; they were all more or less drawn from
the “submerged tenth” of lower working-class youth—the lumpen (Jefferson
1975). Fyvel (1963) characterised the average Ted as a young unskilled
worker whose earnings were too low and irregular for him to take part in
the process of embourgeoisment enjoyed by his better-off working-class
peers. Consequently, the Teds kicked against their limited options for lei-
sure and social advancement. In his landmark study of working-class males
in secondary education, Learning to Labour (1977), Paul Willis has demon-
strated convincingly how, by dissociating themselves from the middle-class
values dominating the education system, they effectively conspire in their
own social oppression by condemning themselves to the least skilled and
lowest paid employment. Consequently, leisure becomes extremely impor-
tant for these working-class teenagers as they seek from it the excitement,
self-respect and autonomy which are so conspicuously absent from work.
220 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
If, as Melly suggests, “[The Teds’] bodies were their canvas” (Melly 1970:
32), then they were also their weapons. For Bourdieu, the body becomes
the site where working-class consciousness is materialized, particularly
the strong, excessive body. This working-class body, with its strength and
virility, he argues,
. . . a class which, like the working class, is only rich in its labour power
can only oppose to the other classes—apart from the withdrawal of its
Since the Teddy Boys asserted themselves through powerful and dra-
matic physical performances, the response of adult or “normal” society
was to label, restrict, restrain or punish their bodies in a variety of ways.
Foucault (1977) has revealed in detail the ways in which Western societies
have used the body as the site where social power is most compellingly
exerted. The body is where the power-bearing definitions of social and
sexual normality are, literally, embodied, and is consequently the locus of
discipline and punishment for deviation from those norms. In the follow-
ing section I examine some of the primary disciplinary measures taken
by adult society to thwart the Ted threat.
222 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Cohen adds that moral panics are generally linked with various youth
cultures (particularly within the working class), whose behaviour is viewed
as deviant or criminal. The very first moral panic with regard to a youth
subculture in Britain was adult society’s response to the Teddy Boy.
More pernicious on account of the stamp of authority with which they
were invested were the attempts undertaken by sociologists, psycholo-
gists and other “socially accredited experts” during the 1950s and early-
60s to analyse the lifestyle not just of the Teds but of the whole teenager
phenomenon in a way that would “explain away” the danger. Mark Abrams
(1959a; 1959b) for example, examined teenager spending patterns; J. Bar-
nard (1961), in an attempt to understand the beast, drew up an “overview”
of what he called “teen-age [sic] culture”; B. Berger (1963) wrote on the
“youthfulness” of youth culture; Michael Schofield (1963) wrote portent-
ously of the sexual behaviour of young people; and W. Miller (1958)
sounded the alarm about gangs and delinquency. Boëthius notes that
In the case of the Teds, a key discursive strategy on the part of “normal”
society was to view them as sociopaths or even criminals. Attempts were
made by adult society to demonise them, often by “questioning” their col-
Teddy boys are . . . all of unsound mind in the sense they are all suffer-
ing from a form of psychosis. Apart from the birch or the rope, de-
pending on the gravity of their crimes, what they need is rehabilitation
in a psychopathic institution . . . because they have not the mental
stamina to be individualistic they had to huddle together in gangs.
Not only have these rampageous youngsters developed a degree of
paranoia with an inferiority complex, but they are also inferior apart
from their disease . . . It is the desire to do evil, not lack of comprehen-
sion which forces them into crime. (Brake 1990: 73)
More often than not . . . in the social problem films, Teddy Boys are
merely “folk devils” to whom a much broader violence or prejudice is
attributed as though to remove the blame from society in general.
(Bracewell 1997: 71)
224 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
Conclusion
Why did adult society respond with such overwhelmingly repressive mea-
sures? The most plausible explanation is that it needed to make a scape-
goat out of the Teddy Boy for everything that was perceived to be going
wrong with Britain in the 1950s: the antagonism between the generations;
the breakdown in law and order; racial tensions; and, more generally, Brit-
ain’s increasing lack of self-esteem in the postwar order. For Britain the
second half of the 1940s and the 1950s is a litany of grim soul-searching
May [1956] saw the making of the Teddy Boy. He was given a form and
a substance. He had become a “menace.” He was not only introduced
to the public, he was introduced to himself. He learned that, because
226 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce
At the Elephant and Castle, the home ground of South London Teddy
Boys, riots in the cinema were reported by excitable newspapers to
have led to two thousand young people taking to the streets in an
orgy of vandalism. By subsequent standards it seems to have been a
mild sort of riot: nine arrests, two policemen injured, some cups and
saucers thrown about the streets and one or two £1 fines awarded. But
wherever the film was shown afterwards there was further trouble
and ripping out of cinema seats . . . (Lewis 1978: 129)
1. Ted is a familar form of the given name Edward. The Edward in question is King
Edward VII, who reigned during the years 1901–10, the “Edwardian” Age.
2. Since the history of the Teds has been well documented, it is unnnecessary to repeat
this information here. For detailed accounts see Rock/Cohen (1970), Jefferson (1973; 1975),
Middleton/Muncie (1982), Melly (1989), Brake (1990) and Polhemus (1994).
3. It should be pointed that although, as Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber note in their
“Girls and Subcultures: An Exploration” (McRobbie/Garber 1975), there were a small group
of girls who saw themselves as Teddy Girls, the Teddy Boy style was primarily just that, a
style for boys. In this paper, therefore, I treat it as primarily a manifestation of male youth
culture.
4. The “zooties” appeared in the 1940s in the United States. They were young African-
Americans and Mexican-Americans who, by dressing up flamboyantly in zoot suits, estab-
lished their style as “an emblem of ethnicity and a way of negotiating an identity. The zoot
suit was a refusal: a subcultural gesture that refused to concede to the manners of subservi-
ence” (Flügel 1971: 110). Two notable zooties were Malcolm X and Cab Calloway. “Spivs” were
the flashy black-market hawkers who appeared in Britain during the years of austerity im-
mediately after the war (see David Hughes 1964: 86–105).
5. It is interesting that Arthur Seaton, the rebellious young protagonist of Alan Sillitoe’s
novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1959), receives a beating for his delinquent be-
haviour at the hands of uniformed soldiers.
References
Abercrombie, Nicholas & Alan Warde (1990) Contemporary British Society (5th ed). Cam-
bridge: Polity Press.
Abrams, Mark (1959) The Teenage Consumer. London: London Press Exchange.
Barnard, J. (1961) “Teen-age [sic] culture—an overview.” Annals, special ed., “Teenage Cul-
ture,” vol. 338 (Nov.), 1–12.
Berger, B. (1963) “On the Youthfulness of Youth Culture.” Social Research, vol. 30, no. 3 (Au-
tumn), 319–432.
Berkoff, Steven (1996) Free Association. An Autobiography. London: Faber & Faber.
Boëthius, Ulf (1995) “Youth, the media and moral panics.” In Förnas, Johan & Göran Bolin
(eds), Youth Culture in Late Modernity. London: Sage.
Bognador, Vernon & Robert Skidelsky (eds.) (1970) The Age of Affluence. 1951–61. London:
Macmillan.
Bourke, Joanne (1994) Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890–1960. London: Routledge.
Bracewell, Michael (1997) England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie. London:
HarperCollins.
Brake, Michael (1990) Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Culture and Youth
Subcultures in America, Britain and Canada (3rd ed). London: Routledge.
Clarke, John (I998a) “The Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of Community.” In Hall, Stu-
art & Tony Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through Rituals. London: Hutchinson, 99–102.
———— (1998b) “Style.” In Hall, Stuart & Tony Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through Rituals. Lon-
don: Hutchinson, 175–91.
———— Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, & Brian Roberts (1998) “Subcultures, Culture and Class—a
Theoretical Overview.” In Hall, Stuart & Tony Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through Ritu-
als. London: Hutchinson, 9–74.
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Discussion Questions
1. The author mentions that the Teddy Boy attire was significant be-
cause it was symbolic rather than functional. What does he mean by
this statement?
2. Why did the upper class view the Teddy Boys’ way of dressing as defi-
ant behavior?
3. How did the media use the Teddy Boys’ dress to vilify them?
230 | m e n ’ s f a s h io n a s de f ia n ce