A gauche et droite_this and that_more or less_a bit of everything and a little of nothing_all in one blog_all on this blog_disparate ideas and thoughts under the fashion perspective_interior design_cult cinema_gallery exhibitions_and of course my personal work!
I think it was about time for this project to be completed and for these photos to be released. It is one of those cases that words are not enough, or even necessary, to describe the images that will follow; it is one of those cases that the pictures speak for themselves. Although there are certain things that have to become clear and, of course, several acknowledgements that have to be addressed.
First of all, the following pictures were made in order to complement and display properly a number of hats that i had constructed and stylized as part of my History of Costume module a few years ago. In my opinion, it was not only necessary, but also vital to capture those hats under a specific aesthetic and atmosphere. It is a group work, as it will be demonstrated from the several models, make-up artists and hair-stylists that took part, and whose names will be credited accordingly. However, i owe my gratitude and a big 'Thank You' to the photographer of those photos, Nicolas Andreou. After this particular collaboration, the endless hours of photo-shooting and the numerous e-mails, Nicolas has become for me something more than just-a-friend!
Honestly, i miss those days and would do it again and again, only to feel the joy of collaborating with such pleasant and artistic individuals.
*and last but not least i have to personally thank my tutor and mentorMika Panagou for her guidance, help and support, and for all these things that i've learned by her side.
In her
book, ‘The Clothed Body’ (2004: 117), Patrizia Cafelato defines, accurately the
links between fashion and music as 'two intimately connected forms of
worldliness, two social practices that go hand in hand,
sustaining one another in the medium of mass communication and drawing into a
common sensibility which translates into taste.' But what happens when fashion overshadows music? The
questions which arise today are: do singers need more than just their talent by
which to stand out and be recognized; or has the contemporary music industry laid
down a new model of success, based on costumes, spectacle and performance?
Looking at the role of the dress, body and gender in relation to the music
performer, this post explores whether the use of extravagant clothing and
the mobilization of other ‘performative’ practices can outshine talent. A comparative analysis between Queen’s I Want To Break Free (1984) and Lady Gaga’s Yoü And I(2011)
music videos, will examine not only the relationship between fashion and music,
but also the importance of employing ‘camp’ practices, in order to tell a
particular story. This exploration is not intended to be a comparison between artists, but rather an overview on how
the standards within the post-modern music industry have evolved towards a
particular model of music performance, which undermines talent for the sake of spectacle and entertainment.
As Cafelato
(2004:121) has argued ‘Fashion and music have always used citations,
experiences, influences and suggestions taken from the past.’ and, in this
sense, it would be almost disgraceful to talk about the role of costume in
music performance without mentioning Elvis Presley’s stage costumes. Elvis not
only wore innovative and provocative outfits, but he also managed to challenge
the limits of the typical male suit. As Miller (2011:76) points out: ‘[Elvis’s
costumes] represented a certain kind of decadence and a notion of the excessive
possibilities of fame.’ The interesting thing with Elvis’s costumes is that,
despite their excessive decoration, they ‘provided [him] both a frame on which
all his stage costumes were built and a frame of core masculine embodiment.’
(Miller, 2011:76), without raising questions about his sexuality. Without
getting overwhelmed by his stylistic choices, Elvis established a certain
visual model of male music performance, in combination with an unquestionably
talented voice.
Another male performer who experimented with definitions of masculinity
through his image and his fashion taste is David Bowie (Rojek, 2001; Miller,
2011). During the 1970s, Bowie meticulously built his image, not
only through his performances, but also with his personal lifestyle. He
presented himself as ‘the first bisexual rock star’ (David Bowie, 1972 cited in
Watts, 2006), blurring and challenging the notions of gender and, although,
wearing a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold The World (1970) he
didn’t subordinate his talent as a musician. The continuous experimentation
with his personal looks and outfits, combined with his chameleonic scalability
managed ‘to utilize [him] as an artwork’ and ‘to set up his commercial image’
(Firth, 1988 in Miller, 2011:138). Throughout the years that followed Bowie’s
eccentric appearances, hundreds of young boys and girls emulated and copied his
styles and, although, he became the inspiration for a number of fashion
editorials and designers, his talent was never questioned.
On April 02,
1984, the British rock band Queenreleased
the music video for their song I Want To Break Free, which was written by the
bassist of the group John Deacon. In the video, the four members of the male
band were dressed up as women in
a pastiche of the long-running British soap opera ‘Coronation Street’ (Tony
Warren, 1960 - ). Playing with the ideas of gender, drag, and camp, the music
video casted the bassist John Deacon as a conservative grandmother; the
guitarist Brian May wearing hair-rollers and fluffy slippers; the drummer Roger
Taylor as a blonde schoolgirl, and the front man of the band, Freddie Mercury,
as a typical housewife, loosely based on ‘Coronation Street’s’ character Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear).
Among the 4
transformations, Mercury’s ‘dragging-up’ (to paraphrase the act of ‘dressing-up
as a drag’) is the one worth describing in detail. Mercury wears a black wig,
pink earrings, a pink blouse with a pair of profound fake breasts underneath, a
black leather miniskirt with suspenders and low-heeled shoes. Although the
other three members of the band are costumed in order to impersonate their drag
characters in the most accurate way, Mercury kept his thick trademark moustache
for the drag act, but shaved it for the later sequence.
Widely accepted by the UK audience, the I Want To Break Free music
video went straight to number 3 in the United Kingdom. As Roger Taylor later
explained, ‘We [Queen] wanted people to know that we didn’t take ourselves too
seriously’ (cited in Blake, 2010:285). Using the four basic features of camp:
‘irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humor’ (Babuscio, 1984 cited in
Kleinhams, 1994:187), Queenmanaged
to deliver their song’s message, by making a statement against the established
social values and prejudices, challenging the concept of nature versus nurture and positioning themselves against sexual
oppression. Through this particular music video Queen managed to fascinate the
UK audience, which was familiar to the ideas of dragging-up and employing camp
practices as part of a music performance. In the United States, the I Want To Break
Free music video did not receive the anticipated response. It only peaked at
number 45 in the US charts and it was also banned by the MTV. According to May (cited
in Blake, 2010:285-286), 'They [The
US audience] hated the video, … It was received with horror in most of America.
They just couldn’t get it. To them it was boys dressing up as girls and it was unthinkable,
especially for a rock band … They were visibly embarrassed. Hence, the US audience failed to understand the video’s
typical British humor and to see the soap-opera connections; instead they
probably interpreted the drag action as ‘an open declaration of transvestitism
and Mercury’s bisexuality’ (May, 2010 in a radio
interview with Kerry Ellis in Weekend Wagan). Despite its ambiguity, Queen’s music video neither entrapped
the band’s career, nor obliged them to produce only provocative and extreme
videos, so as to remain at the forefront of the music industry.
Twenty-five years after Queen’s I
Want To Break Free challenging music video, the American singer and songwriter Lady Gaga, released the music video for
her song Yoü And
I (2011). Since her very first appearance in 2008, Lady Gaga has triggered
various reactions both for her songs, but even more for her futuristic outfits
and stylistic choices. Every single of her performances has been criticized,
either in a positive or negative way, but has never been ignored. Having around
her a numerous group of collaborators, consultants and, as Chris Rojek calls
them, ‘cultural intermediaries’ (2001:10), she always manages to attract the
media and to be ubiquitous. Excess and spectacle are two elements inextricably linked to Lady Gaga’s
performances, in
a way that, not only her devoted fans, but also a large number of spectators
around the world expect, or even demand, to see whenever she appears.
Lady
Gaga’s Yoü And I song was part of her second studio album ‘Born This Way’
(2011) and it had a special sentimental value for her, as it was inspired by
one of her former relationships. Influenced by Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ song,
featuring also Queen’s guitarist Brian May, Yoü
And Imusic video has a lot in
common with Queen’s I Want To Break Free music clip. Departing from her usual pop songs, Lady Gaga used
rock and country music influences and produced a song that shocked her fans. The
video clip proved even more ambiguous. Probably not so obvious at the first
glance, the Yoü And I music video draws a lot of comparisons
with the I Want To Break Free video. So thematically, as well as
stylistically, both videos are based on the idea of transformation,
masquerading and changing genders. In the same way that Queen’s members decided to dress up as women, Lady
Gaga, was not only disguised as a man, but she took it even further and, in
collaboration with the photographer and director Nick Knight, created her
fictional male alter-ego, Jo Calderone.
Gaga is not afraid to kiss publicly her male counterpart, in order to prove not
only, how gender can be performative, but also how the body can be interpreted
in different ways within a wider cultural context. The only difference is that, Mercury used his bisexuality in a
creative and humorous way, while Lady Gaga wanted so badly to be, what Sontag
calls, ‘campy’ (1964:282), that she overshadowed her song. Furthermore, Lady
Gaga’s transformation to Yuji, a
mermaid -the mythological aquatic creature of undetermined sex- stretches the
boundaries of binary sex even further, in the same way that David Bowie did
when he appeared with long hair and wearing a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold the World (1970).
Regarding the acceptance of Lady Gaga’s
video by her fans, there were generally positive reactions, but the video also
met some negative reviews, in the same way that a part of Queen’s audience
criticized their drag act. According to The
Guardian ‘there's growing evidence of fans
starting to turn on her [Gaga] – many of whom feel she has no right to declare herself as the
ambassador of queer culture.’
(Martin, 2011) Additionally, in his article Tim Jonze (2011) also mentioned
that ‘… dissapproving voices in the gay community complained that Gaga had hijacked their sexuality as a
marketing tool.’ Even if Gaga does not have to try
hard to reach the gay audience, and even if she uses her celebrity status, in
order to fight for the gay community’s rights, this does not necessarily means
that all of her acts are widely acceptable.
In 1984, Queen dressed up in one of the most
unflattering and anti-fashion ways for the production of their I Want To Break
Free video and they efficiently delivered their message against oppression
across their audience. Brave enough to produce such a provocative video and
having talent as their strongest weapon, Queen managed to keep their identity
as a band, without getting trapped by the illusion of spectacle and the use of
merely visual props, as a way of surviving within the competitive music
industry. On the other hand, employing the same pattern of dragging-up and
making extreme stylistic choices, in 2011, Lady Gaga created the clip for her
song Yoü And I. The use of extravagant costumes
and rambling spectacle was not something new for Gaga; the interesting thing is
that in this particular video Gaga went one step further and, not only appeared
in outrageous costumes, but switched genders, in order to provoke the
anticipated reactions. Put differently, in this video she overdid it; she
played her last card by basically reproducing herself and a series of her
previous performances, editorials and appearances, in a way that, once again,
she got lost into the spectacle that she created. Matthew Perpetua’s comment on
Gaga’s video evidently reflects the former suggestion: ‘Yoü and I is a return to form that
throws roughly eight million visual ideas at the viewer’ (Rolling Stone, 2011).
left: Vanity Fair (September 2010) & right: Yoü And I (2011)
left: Vogue Hommes Japan (Autumn/Winter 2010-2011) & right: Yoü And I (2011)
Lady
Gaga is not only there; she is almost everywhere, and her presence within the
music industry and, more generally, within the visual and popular culture has suggested
new rules for the other singers to follow. Lady Gaga,
nowadays, directs what consists a successful performer and how the concept of
dressing up to an outrageous degree and the use of spectacle ensures the
success of a music video performance. She manages to be one step ahead
and to impose the pace for the rest of the singers either to imitate, or to
challenge her, but not to ignore her. In this point, it would be relevant to
mention a few examples among the numerous music artists who employed Lady
Gaga’s tactics, in order to reach wider audiences and especially the queer
community. One of the most famous singers who follows the Lady Gaga's norm is Kylie
Minogue. Not only through her music videos, but especially during her live
appearances, Minogue performs wearing elaborate and extravagant costumes, which
in combination with the spectacular sets and the dancing routines create a show
that demonstrates all of her abilities as a performer, but leaves her talent as
a musician and her voice in secondary importance (Aphrodite
Les Folies Tour 2011). In the same pattern, Katy Perry’s California Gurls(2010) and E.T. (2011)
exaggerated music videos are so captivating in terms of spectacle and costumes,
that don’t let the spectator to pay the proper attention to the songs.
Another
example, which epitomized the use of camp aesthetics in a more Gaga-ish way,
was Madonna’s impressive performance during the half hour show at the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game (February, 2011). Dressed up as Cleopatra and accompanied by a huge procession of Egyptian
soldiers/dancers, Madonna performed a spectacular act, which draw many
parallels to Lady Gaga’s live routine on American
Idol (2011), performing the song The Edge of Glory.
left: Lady Gaga, American Idol (2011) & right: Madonna, NFL Super Bowl XLVI (Feb. 2012
On January 26, 2011 London’s Evening Standard newspaper published an
article on page 3, revealing that the University of Cambridge had permitted one
of its students to write his dissertation on Lady Gaga’s place in the history
of pop art. According to the newspaper, the undergraduate student Amrou
Al-Kadhi ‘finds parallels with Andy Warhol in Gaga’s shows and videos’
(Herrmann, 2012:3). Put differently, Al-Kadhi acknowledges Gaga as an artist;
as a taste maker within 21st century’s culture; not as a singer, not
even as a musician. The question is whether Lady Gaga would like to be
remembered as a singer or as an outrageous fashionable artist-performer? It
would be premature to evaluate Gaga’s career, since it is only 4 years old, but
it is undeniable that the image she has shaped plays a very important role in
her success. It is hard to imagine that Lady Gaga continues to act when the
spotlights and the cameras are turned off. The persona that she has created
offers a degree of mystery, and it would be interesting to speculate what will
happen if she decides to change her public profile within the coming years.
Will her fans continue to follow and accept her if she abandons her extreme
outfits? Or, is her established image inescapable and is she basically trapped
by the image she has created?
* The above post is part of my Essay: 'From Radio Ga Ga to Lady Gaga: performance versus talent, under the discourse of 'camp' and other 'performative' practices.', written for my 'Contextual Studies' module. For your information this essay got an A (actually my first A!) and if would like to use any part of it, please do not hesitate to ask me (first!)
I guess that it was about time for a post like this. The following post is part of my essay ‘1988
– 2012: Contextualizing GQ’s
Cover Face; masculinity,
representation and male celebrity culture.’for my'Cinema,
Performativity and Gender: Globalisation,
Celebrity Culture And The Fashionable Image' module; and if this enormous title does not make any sense to you, don't worry, it does not make any sense to my either! Let's keep it simple and call this module - just - 'Celebrity Culture'. As you have probably already understood my fascination with 'Masculinity' continuous, and since i realized that not only GQ's articles and themes interest me, but also its men's fashion editorials catch more and more of my attention, i decided to examine how
the magazine's cover face developed through the years. I initially started reading the British GQ as part of my research for one of my former essays on Steve McQueen, and till then i have become a loyal reader. I will never forget the hours that i spent at the British Library carrying trolleys with loads of GQs, but i have to confess that it was a great research experience and a quite enjoyable one. For your information this essay got an A; and this is one more reason that i am proud of! Since a considerable part of my essay was dedicated to David Beckham, a special post will follow within the next few days. For those of you who are David's fans, please stay tuned!
Throughout
the 1980s, a considerable number of writers, described the shifts in men’s lives and behavior as a
‘crisis’ in masculinity; a ‘crisis’ that, according to them,
reflected the changes that happened in society in relation to: work,
education, parental authority, sexuality and representation (Mort,
1988; Rutherford, 1988; Whannel, 2002). However, there is also a
number of writers who support that ‘Masculinity is not in crisis,
and it is actually quite secure’ (Whannel, 2002:26; see also Edwards, 2006).
Based on Connell’s argument that ‘the term “crisis”
presupposes a coherent system of some kind, which is destroyed or
restored by the outcome of the crisis.’ (1995, cited in Edwards,
2006:17), this post will adopt the view that what constitutes a
‘crisis’ is not only unclear, but also that the word ‘crisis’
draws negative connotations and is generally related to a situation
(a ‘crisis’ in economy for example), rather than a procedure of
change, as with the case of masculinity.
Starting
in the mid to late 1980s, a series of ‘apparently unprecedented and
diverse developments’ (Edwards, 2011:48) took place in relation to
men’s appearances and men’s relationship to fashion and
consumption. Fashion designers showed a particular interest in
designing fashionable clothes for men and started to include menswear
in their catwalk shows. Moreover, the expansion of male-oriented
products, particularly in the field of cosmetics and grooming, made
men more conscious about themselves. Most importantly, the commercial
success of lifestyle magazines aimed directly at men as consumers,
along with the increase in the advertising of men’s products,
promoted ‘new ways of seeing and, [perhaps], new ways of being a
man.’ (Jackson et al., 2001:2) Among these magazines, GQ
(originally Gentlemen's
Quarterly)
was launched in order to become ‘the essential reading for a
particular kind of man – a lifestyle manual for the professional
who has achieved success with style’ (Daily
Telegraph,
1988 cited in Nixon, 2003:142) and managed within a few years to
establish its position as one of the most successful men’s
lifestyle magazines in the United Kingdom.
GQ
positioned
itself as a magazine that wanted to attract a more mature audience (25-45
years old): ‘a more serious minded, conservative [audience]’
(Nixon, 2003:159). In order to make this distinction clear, GQ
chose
the businessman and politician Michael Heseltine to be its first
cover face. According to Nixon (2003:159), ‘Heseltine represented
for GQ
both
a conservative version of “style” and – [most] importantly –
the centrality of success and the making of money.’ Under the first
issue’s titles: ‘Degrees of Style’ and ‘Speed and Danger in
St Moritz’, and especially under the cover’s story ‘Heseltine:
On the Road Back to Power with Britain’s Beautiful Bad Boy’,
several correlations can be drawn. The use of Heseltine made it clear
that GQ
will
be addressing men that could embody both taste and achievement.
Michael Heseltine (GQ, Dec/Jan 1988)
From
1988 to July 1993, GQ
remained loyal to its initial position, featuring only males on its
front cover and having a certain preference to British actors,
businessmen and politicians. Up to the 1990s, it had become clear that the emergence of the UK
men’s magazine market not only offered new role models for the men
to follow and emulate, but also made it legitimate for men to look at
other men in a different, ‘homosocial’ way (Sedwick, 1985 and
1993). What was for years, almost exclusively, a privilege for women started
to attract men’s interest too. The timing was
right. On the one hand, men’s interest in their appearance had
become one of the most important issues for them, and, on the other
hand, there was a market full of products that wanted to ‘target
men as the wealthier gender and … to make money out of men’s
concerns with their appearance alongside women’s.’ (Edwards,
2011:50)
In
August 1993, Michael VerMeuler (GQ’s
creative director from April 1992 to December 1995) placed Sharon
Stone, the American actress and Basic
Instinct’s (Paul Verhoeven,
1992) leading star, on the cover of GQ
and,
since then, a new era for the magazine started. By using the title
‘Sharon Stone: Seriously Sexy’ and featuring Stone in a rather
sexy pose, wearing only a nude color gabardine that deliberately
revealed her shoulder, her breast heart-line and her leg, it became
clear that the magazine was moving towards a new direction, leaving
behind its established and secure practices.
left: Alan Rickam (GQ, July 1992) & right: Sharon Stone (GQ, August 1993)
Until this issue, GQ’s
tradition was to include men and only men on its front cover and to
focus on their face, in order to subconsciously emphasize the idea of
thought and to privilege the male mind, without paying much attention
to men’s bodies and clothes. Up
to 1995, not only more and more women started to appear on GQ’s
cover, but also American actors outnumbered the British ones, adding
an international prestige to the magazine. Amongst them, Clint
Eastwood, Robin Williams, Michelle Pfeiffer, Drew Barrymore, Johhny
Depp, Uma Therman and Meg Ryan clearly demonstrated that Hollywood
started to play an important role in shaping overseas celebrity
culture. It is also interesting to point out that during that period
the first models started to appear on GQ’s cover. Away
from its original placement within the marketplace, GQ repositioned itself. In April 1997, James Brown moved to GQ
and his drastic influence became immediately obvious on the
magazine’s covers that were released under his guidance. Not only
more and more females, particularly models, started to appear on GQ’s
front cover, but most noticeably the poses that these female adopted
fetishized the female body in an almost pornographic way.
left: Caprice (GQ,
May 1997) & right: Emma Noble (GQ, December 1998)
From November 1999 to March 2002, and this time under Dylan Jones
editorship, only women were featured on GQ’s
front page. For 30 consecutive issues, exclusively female stars from
several fields were placed on the magazine’s cover. It was during
that period that GQ’s
coverage clearly showed its preference to popular models, and
especially the Victoria’s
Secret
ones. What Stephen Gundle calls, ‘the phenomenon of the
supermodels’ (2008:362), which was particularly enhanced during
the 1990s by Gianni Versace, was evidently reflected on GQ’s
front cover. Liz Hurley, Eva Herzigova, Naomi Campbell, Heidy Klum
and Claudia Schiffer became the idols of that era, not only in the
United Kingdom, but on a global scale. Not so obvious from the
first sight, this fascination with the female body and the
fetishization of women as the object of the male desire conceals the
deeper anxieties that haunt men’s psyche.
left: Naomi Campbell (GQ, Dec 1994) & right: Eva Hergicova (GQ, Dec 1995)
Until 2005 it had been pretty clear that GQ
was trying to redefine men’s style and to become Vogue’s
equivalent for menswear (Jones, 2000:6). From 2005 to 2008, men
started gradually to appear again on GQ’s
cover and, it was about that time that GQ
established one of the its most high-esteemed traditions: the GQ
Men of the Year Awards, which added a
further prestige to the magazine’s status. Since then, a whole new attitude occurred in order
to emphasize GQ’s
role and significance in reconstructing modern Britain’s male
imagery. Furthermore, from 2005 and onwards, female
actresses started to replace models’ roles, not only on the front
covers of men’s magazines, but also in fashion editorials and
catwalk shows. Proving that they are not only good-looking, but they
are talented too, Rachel Weisz, Angelina Jolie, Cameron Diaz,
Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Alba are only among the numerous
actresses that posed for GQ
during that period, adopting not so provokingly sexy, but rather
relaxed and unconventional postures.
Continuing GQ’s
cover historical overview, there has been only three and a half years
left till the circulation of its most recent issue in April 2012.
Throughout these years, several comments can be made in order to
demonstrate the magazine’s current profile. First of all, an
apparent balance between males and females has occurred (either 6
male/6 female, or 5 male/7 female). Moreover, a certain tendency
towards hosting actors and actresses on the magazine’s cover can be
observed, underscoring, once again, the significance of cinema in
shaping modern celebrity culture and fashion taste. It is also worth
noticing that on July 2009, the fictional film character Brünoand not the original actor of thehomonymous film (Brüno, Larry Charles,
2009), Sacha Baron Cohen, appeared on GQ’s
cover. Representing, what Chris Rojek
calls, a ‘celeactor’, and defines him as ‘a fictional character
who … becomes an institutionalised feature of popular culture.’
(2000:23), GQ’s
cover showed not only how a film character can become more important
than the actor himself, but also how
rational has become such a queer personality to appear on the front
cover of a straight men’s magazine.
left: Brüno (GQ, July 2009) & right: Jeniffer Aniston (GQ, December 2008)
In a total of 274 GQ
issues, more than 130 actors and actresses have been placed on the
magazine’s cover. Especially
after 2009, the percentage corresponding to the actors
and actresses who appeared on
GQ’s covers is equal to 60% and demonstrates clearly how
significant is the contribution of cinema in shaping contemporary
celebrity culture. More importantly, international male movie stars,
such as Johhny Depp, Russel Crowe, Robert Downey Junior, Michael
Fassbender and Daniel Craig have been employed, by the magazine’s
editors, in order to attract the much
coveted ‘straight’ and ‘upmarket’ male audience (18 – 45
years old). It is no coincidence that ‘[these] cinematic
celebrities can currently generate intense media interest and
function as fashion icons [and role models] quite independently of
their on-screen roles’ (Church Gibson, 2011:53). Hence, modern men
not only try to emulate the styles of these celebrities, but they
also identify, on their faces and meticulously structured bodies, the
kind of man they want to become.
Throughout GQ’s
front cover overview several conclusions can be drawn, considering
not only how the face of the male celebrity has evolved from 1988 to
the present day, but, most importantly, how different patterns of
masculinity have developed during the last 24 years and how this
progress has been reflected on the magazine’s front page. Taking
into account only the men that appeared on GQ’s
cover, this post will conclude by making the following points.
Starting from the beginning, Michael Heseltine, GQ’s
first cover face, gave its place to David Bowie, who was replaced by
John Travolta, who few years later appeared on the same cover with
David Beckham, who was subsequently substituted by Brüno.
So close and, at
the same time, so distant these
random examples illustrate how ‘Masculinity is not an eternal and
static object; masculinities change over time and the boundaries of
masculinity are almost always the subject of redrawing, policing and
contestation’ (Whannel, 2002:29). From Heseltine, the businessman,
to Brüno,
the gay fictional movie character, there is a big
distance and it is precisely because of this that celebrity culture
can wield such power which blurs boundaries and brings these so
different and diverse personalities to the same level.
Despite London's awful weather... All-right, you all know how much i love London, so let's try something else.. Despite London's (and the rest of Europe's) rainy weather (rainy to the point of getting bored and having nothing else to do than praying for the rain to stop!), we are in the middle of Spring and Summer is technically 40 days + 1 night away. Since menswear collections for spring/summer 2012 showed the trends that will reign during the summer (ages ago..!) and considering that almost every shopping window is getting more and more summer-ish, i wouldn't say that it is neither too early, nor to late for a post like this. Once again, masculinity (!) but this time masculinity comes dressed with 'a' suit. No, not an ordinary suit, but 'the white suit'; this white suit where a large number of designers included in their collections; this white suit that is a piece statement by itself; this white suit that gives an extra point or an elegant element, if you prefer, to its wearer; this white suit which perfectly matches a tanned masculine body.
Before starting my overview, i want to quote a phrase that not only reflects my personal opinion regarding the male suit, but i think that it expresses most women, and why not also men, perspective on how a suit should be considered:
'A well-tailored suit is to women what lingerie is to men.' (I would really like to know who said this, but unfortunately it looks pretty hard to name him/her. Instead of putting 'unknown', i will just put 'a wise man said'!)
White on White always looks chic. (Additional tip by Dolce & Gabbana: Please gentlemen be brave and stylish enough to roll up your pants hems!)
The double-breasted one_Dolce & Gabbana_menswear s/s 2012
Tone on tone in white shades is always flattering and safe.
The single-buttoned one_Dolce & Gabbana_menswear s/s 2012
Why make it complicated? Wear white from head to toe.
The three-buttoned one_Dolce & Gabbana_menswear s/s 2012
A white suit doesn't mean that it is plain. Textures give a point of interest to a sharp silhouette.
The slighlty-baggy one_Calvin Klein_menswear s/s 2012
A lightweight two-piece white suit can be a man's perfect partner in the heat.
The really-baggy one_Calvin Klein_menswear s/s 2012
Elegant linen in a summer classic is always a safe choice.
The slightly off-white one_Salvtore Ferragamo_menswear s/s 2012
Take the 'navy' look to the next level. Stripes can give a more 'Riviera' touch.
The 'navy' one_Tommy Hilfiger_menswear s/s 2012
Play with the dimensions: cropped trousers and slim lapels.
The boyish one_Dior Homme_menswear s/s 2012
Pastel grey, cream or pink are an elegant match; add a pop of colour with a pocket square.
The more relaxed one_Giorgio Armani_menswear s/s 2012
Without ever loosing its elegance, the white suit will always be a timeless piece in a man's wardrobe.
The grunge one_Givency_menswear s/s 2012
Formalwear can also come with prints. Match your white suit with a 'hawaiian' print shirt for total summer look.
The 'brave' one_Bottega Veneta_menswear s/s 2012
And i will close this post with a Greek designer who works in New York and whose name is synonymous with stylish menswear style: For a more bohemian look match your white suit with a loose white t-shirt and a white foulard or scarf.
