great-masculine-renunciation

Was there a ‘great masculine renunciation’ of fashion in the 19th century?

(ABSTRACT)

Figure 1. Waistcoat, Great Britain (1860-1870), Victoria and Albert Museum

Flugel’s proposal that “men gave up their right to all the brighter, gayer, more elaborate and varied forms of ornamentation" (Breward, 1999, pg. 24) is supported by the notion that during the course of the century, darker colours became increasingly popular, and the variety of fabrics used were simplified (Perrot, 1994). This 'renunciation' of ornament and colour is reflected by the sobering dress of the Count d'Osay, as recounted in 1845: “Last time he was as gay in his colours as a hummingbird … to-day in compliment of his five more years, he is all in black and brown” (Breward, 2004, pg. 21). The subdued colour palette, as Jean Baudrillard submits, represented the masculine ideals of dignity, control and morality (Perrot, 1994); Thomas Carlyle further observing in Sartor Resartus that “Clothes have made Men of us” (Carlyle, 1836, pg. 35). When analysed alongside the general consensus that an overt interest in appearance and clothing held the negative connotations of unmanliness and effeminacy (Breward, 1995), this shift in mentality could substantiate the change in behaviour towards men's fashion, contrasting that of the previous century when it was customary for the men to show their wealth through a luxurious display of fabrics and accessories: a belief exemplified by the media’s accusatory attachment of 'perversion' and sartorial excess in the Wilde trials of 1895 (Breward, 1995).

Contradicting the 'great masculine renunciation' however, there were still examples of brightly coloured and patterned dress worn by men throughout the period. The waistcoat was especially a focal point for decoration (Buck, 1984): with the custom of wearing a patterned or embroidered waistcoat enduring well into the nineteenth century (Byrde, 1979). Charles Dickens, on his American tour in 1842, was noted for taking a number of bright waistcoats: disparagingly regarded in the media as “somewhat in the flash order” — although he was also described as the “next Count d’Orsay” (Byrde, 1979, pg. 86). Comparably, the plaid double breasted waistcoat dating from 1860-1870 (Fig. 1), reflects the fashion for polychromatic tartans and checks (VAM, n.d.). Tartan was repeatedly endorsed by royalty during the nineteenth century, the visit of George IV to Scotland in 1822 generating a vogue for the print, and Queen Victoria’s lease of Balmoral in 1848 renewing its popularity (Butchart, 2018). Despite this fashion for bolder colour and pattern in male dress, by the 1860s and 1870s higher fastenings on coats, as well as the fashion of wearing a coat, waistcoat and trousers in the same material, saw the decline of the decorative waistcoat (Buck, 1984).

Figure 2. Fashion plate from the West End Gazette (March 1873) Victoria and Albert Museum

Mary Blanchard argues that the separation of gender roles in nineteenth century society was reflected in the ideal male body: seen as virile, soldierly, patrician, and public, which complimented the domestic confinement of the ideal female (Blanchard, 1995). Whilst the garments worn by men outside of the domestic setting have been described as increasingly sober, informal attire was often the opposite: contrasting the modesty of both women’s private dress, and men’s public dress (Perrot, 1994). “Cross-cultural fashion design inspiration has been a long-standing element in the fashion industry. The West usually directing its attention to the East for sources of interest and inspiration” (Whittingham Hunn, 2019). Indicative of the colonial involvement and public interest in the ‘Orient’, the dressing gown featured in Figure 4—patterned with a boteh, pinecone or paisley motif, and secured with a corded and tasselled tie—reflects the fashion for domestic menswear to be decorated in bright colours, braid, embroidery and designs in the oriental style (Perrot, 1994). With a growing consumer popularity, Eastern designs such as the boteh, were adapted into the Western fashion economy: British manufactures, like that in Paisley, beginning to produce their own. Furthermore, the declining popularity of paisley shawls in the 1860s saw these manufacturers devise other uses for the

patterned cloth, including for some elements of menswear (Welters and Lillethun, 2018). On the

other hand, by the 1850s, the smoking or lounge jacket—depicted on the left in Figure 4—mostly eclipsed the dressing gown in popularity across the West (Byrde, 1979). One example described in the American publication ‘Bloomingdale’s Illustrated 1886 Catalog’ as made of cloth with a “deep facing of quilted satin, quilted satin cuffs and pockets” (Bloomingsdale Brothers, 1988, pg. 65), the smoking jacket was more restrained in its appearance, although, as illustrated above, the dressing gown was still being fashionably worn later on into the century.

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