Womenswear is generally the focus of attention when it comes to fashion. To highlight the idea of masculinity and the pushing of limits in men's fashion, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is focusing on menswear for the first time. The first major V&A exhibition to explore the strength, creativity, and diversity of male apparel and appearance is Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear.
This exhibition explores how designers, tailors, and painters – as well as their customers and sitters – have created and enacted masculinity during a period of extraordinary inventiveness in men's fashion.
Classical sculptures, Renaissance paintings, iconic photographs, and powerful films and performances are displayed alongside historical treasures from the V&A's collections. From Gucci, Harris Reed, Grace Wales Bonner, and Raf Simons' looks to paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola and Joshua Reynolds, contemporary artworks by David Hockney and Omar Victor Diop, and an excerpt from Matthew Bourne's New Adventures' all-male dance performance, the exhibition explores the variety of possible masculinities from the Renaissance to the global contemporary.
It recounts the history of men's fashion while also presenting audiences with shifting gender standards.
Undressed, Overdressed and Redressed are the three components of the show.
'Undressed' refers to men's undergarments and bodies. It cleverly begins with a confrontation with the prevailing Western European male body tropes. It contends that everything can be traced back to mankind, comparing themselves to the iconography of classical Greek, Roman, and Renaissance sculpture, using an edit of the plaster casts that launched the V&A's initial art-educational collection. "The normalizing of hyper-masculinity like this has generated current gym culture," says Hercules, with his bulging muscles.
Overdressed, the second gallery, refers to a wide range of fashions and time periods. It delves into the elite masculine wardrobe, which is characterized by enormous shapes, luxurious fabrics such as silks and velvet in bold colors, and symbolic patterns that reflect rank, money, and personality. Armoured breastplates, silky smoking suits, cosmetics and shaving tools, sweeping capes, ribbons, and lace, including a wooden carving by Grinling Gibbons that imitates a Venetian needlepoint lace cravat, are on exhibit. Overdressed highlights how ancient ideals begin to shift via the prism of modern fashion designers such as Rahemur Rahman and Kim Jones, with a whole rainbow of manly costumes on exhibit.
"Overdressed” is like a fabulous dressing up box where we're mixing looks from the 18th century and fabulous portraits with looks from the 1960s and contemporary fashion to celebrate the moments in history when menswear has embraced color and decoration," says Rosalind McKever, co-curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition "Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear" (V&A).
Redressed, the third gallery, begins with a look at English country tailoring and the origins of the suit, with historic garments from the V&A collection on display alongside contemporary reimaginings, including a kilt by Nicholas Daley, before delving into how military uniforms influenced civilian dress.
From Oscar Wilde, Claude Cahun, and Cecil Beaton to The Beatles and Sam Smith, Redressed features paintings and comprehensive photos depicting shifting fashions and attitudes. The dissolving of the suit, and how a new breed of fashion designers from Rick Owens to JW Anderson to Comme des Garçons to Lesiba Mabitsela are slicing away at traditions, both for menswear and masculinity, was introduced by Robert Longo's 1981 drawing from the series Men in the Cities.
Furthermore, from Harry Styles and Billy Porter to David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich, prominent celebrities are displayed in various outfits. The highlight of this gallery is the multiplicities of masculine sartorial self-expression. Clothing beyond the binary is highlighted and celebrated via innovative designs and different representations.
The show examines gender norms and boundaries in fashion through the outfits. And by integrating non-binary models and women, the show includes all types of menswear, blurring the barriers between what is considered feminine and masculine.
Overall, It highlights the concept of masculinity and the pushing of limits in men's fashion.
It had a fantastic selection; they put together a lovely collection of items from the past, including clothes, paintings, and other artworks that demonstrated how diverse men's fashion is, how much it changes over time, and how much more vibrant it used to be.
One of the most enjoyable aspects was seeing the magnificent costumes and gender-bending outfits that various designers have created for men throughout history.
It is really an amazing exhibition, ideal for anybody interested in not just fashion but also gender and masculinity, as well as simply broadening their horizons.
