Review: Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear

Fashioning Masculinities is the blockbuster V&A menswear show, sponsored by Gucci. It’s a beautiful achievement, held in the spacious underground galleries. It would, of course, be hard to create a comprehensive exhibition of the dress of 50% of the population, across the world and across all time. The show mainly concentrates on the Western world, with an odd little foray into, say, Indian underwear when they just couldn’t resist. It’s also seen though a queer lens. 

V&A menswear show – sponsored by Gucci

The exhibition is sponsored by Gucci, whose head designer, Alessandro Michele, has taken the brand into its current over the top, playful, gender confounding direction. His statement reads, in part, “It’s time to celebrate a man who is free to practice self-determination without social constraints, without authoritarian sanctions, without suffocating stereotypes.”

Undressed

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Calm and cool with lush sweeping string music, the first room “Undressed” is monochromatic white with a little black, to echo the inspiration: white marble statues from Greece.

Really, I would be happy with just this. The theme is (deliberately) entirely homoerotic: a Tom of Finland print catches the eye squarely upon entrance, and a trompe l’oeil Jean Paul Gaultier suit jacket depicts an idealised male form which, as the information plaque notes, “does not skimp on details below the waist”. Next to the Jean Paul Gaultier stand a couple of mannequins in tighty whiteys, their pert bottoms, abs, pecs and contents of their pants clearly delineated. Then there is a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph, a film of a Matthew Bourne/New Adventures ballet where the muscular male performers are clad only in their white scanties, and those white marble athletes dot the room.

Body Positivity

Of course, this muscular standard is not attractive, attainable or desirable for all, and so inclusive body positivity is explored alongside it in a video with attention to nude male dancers of differing body sizes and shapes. Del LaGrace Volcano‘s photograph, “Zach’s Back” features a transman, and a satirical print, “Laceing a Dandy” from 1819, depicting a man padded at the hips and shoulders, pulled in at the waist, is included to remind us that beauty standards for the body have ever been sought. In the cartoonist’s opinion, it was an excessively feminine silhouette – apart from the mention of “don’t spoil my breasts” a suggestive camel toe can, in fact, be spotted in the man’s breeches.

V&A menswear show – Overdressed

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Historically inspired capes and coats. Photo Genevieve Jones.

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

The next room is “Overdressed”. Of course, you emerge into rooms of rich colour, exploring men’s peacock tendencies. In the 16th century, beautiful colours and layers of  fabric were de rigueur for a prosperous and fashionable man. Also naturally, the iconic portrait, Giovanni Battista Moroni’s “The Tailor” (1565-70) is here. This sumptuously dressed young man, a great advert for his trade, cocks his head to gaze at the viewer as he lifts his scissors.

Another beautiful work is a portrait c1590-1610 after Girolamo Macchietti of Alessandro de’Medici, a mixed-race man who was Duke of Florence. He wore fashionable silks alongside armour, to protect himself from would-be assassins who resented his position and his skin colour. The sartorial effect is striking. Especially because the brocaded pattern of the silk on his skirt-like garment is exactly matched in painted design on his metal armour. This also features lace-like borders in gold accordingly. Sadly, one day, he went out without his chain mail vest on, and was killed.

17th century fashion was insanely decorated as well, with fine embroidery even on a man’s stockings. In like fashion, the amazing embroidered suit with its matching pink lined cape that Billie Porter famously wore to the 2019 Golden Globes fits in well. The beautiful ensemble was designed by Randi Rahm.

V&A menswear show – Colour

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Gucci suit. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Now we come to an exploration of colour. Pink was not a female-only colour until lately, because the costliness of the pigment made it equally suitable for a splendid man. Now it is being reclaimed for male clothing. Outfits in purple, blue, burgundy, red, yellow and orange stand, for some reason, on a giant red-upholstered billiards table for a display case. They span many periods and then there is a snippet of information about each colour.

Similarly is a beautiful little vignette, my favourite in the show. It centres on the palette of pale blue through to sea-foam. There is an unusual frock coat of blue silk velvet with a tiny leopard print from 1785-90. It is set alongside new work from Gucci. A silk damask with pink roses on a pale blue background with white entwining ribbons is used for a narrow-cut man’s suit. Additionally it is accessorised with a pink bow tie and blue satin slippers. A small Nicholas Hilliard miniature, also displayed in the case, of a young man in a garden might serve as the inspiration for the floral theme of this group. It has a background of topiary and the sound of birdsong.

Redressed

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Price Edward’s tweed suit. Photo Genevieve Jones.

Then on to “Redressed” which contains, for instance, an example of a tweed suit worn by Edward, Prince of Wales. He was rather a trendsetter. And Napoleon’s Naval uniform, or one of them anyway.

View from the V&A Menswear show. Photo Genevieve Jones.

And then it’s the black and white years. Or in fact, mainly black, as men’s clothing became sober from the Edwardian period onwards. For a while it was all frock coats and top hats. There are also examples of women who have subverted this dress code by wearing it themselves. Vesta Tilley and Gladys Baker are shown in photos. One was a drag king of the late 19th and early 20th century, and one a black lesbian performer. And of course, Marlene Dietrich, gender-bender of the 1930s, whose suit is here too.

Other especially famous people’s suits: Gary Oldman, David Bowie, and a lovely black sparkly number worn by Timothy Chamalet.

V&A menswear show – the finale

Timothy Chamalet’s sparkly suit. Photo Genevieve Jones.

And then to the finale, a trio of dresses on a platform amidst pulsating enormous screens as a backdrop. Billy Porter’s beautiful black velvet gown, (“I’m not a drag queen, I’m a man in dress”) worn to the Oscars. A frothy turquoise tulle confection of a ball gown, worn by Harry Styles on the cover of US Vogue. And finally British drag queen, model and reality star Bimini Bon Boulash’s “Wedding Dress”. It was worn for the finale of Drag Race UK season 2.

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear was on at the V&A Museum until the 9th Nov 2022.

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