“Fashioning Masculinities: the art of menswear” at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London
London's Victoria & Albert hosts its first dedicated exhibition to men's fashion: “Fashioning Masculinities: the art of menswear”.
It causes a certain shock to think that it had to arrive to 2022 for a museum that is generally bold in its exhibition proposals such as the V&A - Victoria & Albert Museum to dedicate a first exhibition to menswear (from March 19 to November 6 2022). All the more so in the city that has always been a reference point for men's fashion, both in its institutional aspects and in its subcultures, from Beau Brummell (actually from even earlier, just think of the pre-French Revolution Anglomania) to the Mods , from Savile Row to punk, from Glam Rock to the deconstruction of the men's suit by Craig Green , the designer who opens the exhibition with a model of the S / S 21. There are few precedents also in the rest of the world: "Bravehearts" at the Met in 2003, focused on the appropriation of the skirt as a symbol of the refusal to meet conventional expectations, a journey that began with hippies and Rudi Gernreich up to Walter Van Beirendonck, passing through Jean Paul Gaultier , Vivienne Westwood and Dries Van Noten . And a 2016 exhibition at LACMA in Los Angeles, “Reigning Men: fashion in menswear, 1715-2015”, which explored the extremes of sobriety and flamboyance .
>> Scroll down to discover the exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London "Fashioning Masculinities: the art of menswear" and the interview with co-curator Rosalind McKever and researcher Marta Franceschini
“Fashioning Masculinities” occupies three themed exhibition galleries Undressed, Overdressed, Redressed . In the first a copy of the Apollo of Belvedere and a sculpture by Rodin alongside works by David Hockney, the Sri Lankan Lionel Wendt, the South African Zanele Muholi, advertising campaigns by Calvin Klein and scenes from "Spitfire", an 88 film by Matthew Bourne set in the world of men's underwear advertising. The Overdressed space aligns cuirasses, tuxedos, precious hoods (one by Dolce & Gabbana ), an eighteenth-century Burano lace tie carved in wood by Grinling Gibbons formerly owned by Horace Walpole, and the portrait of Alessandro Farnese by Sofonisba Anguissola. In a triumph of precious fabrics and floral patterns proposed for the contemporary man by Kim Jones with Dior , Alessandro Michele for Gucci , Rahemur Rahman, Ahluwalia and the Nigerian brand Orange Culture. A section on pink highlights the renewed popularity of a color that had become synonymous with femininity from the 1800s onwards, with Joshua Reynolds' portrait of the Earl of Bellamont flanked by a photo of Harris Reed , in a pale pink metallic fabric dress that it wouldn't look out of place in a Van Dyck painting. The portrait, entitled "Fluid Romanticism", literally takes up the "Fighting for the beauty of fluidity" creed of the 25-year-old LA designer, graduate of Saint Martins, who dresses Emma Louise Corrin and Iman for the Met Gala, loves glam rock and crinolines and whose personal style is as flamboyant as elegant. And pink is an outfit by Grace Wales Bonner, like the embroidered cape tailored for Billy Porter by Randi Rahm for the 2019 Golden Globes. The Redressed section goes to Beau Brummell, the undisputed arbiter of early 19th century men's elegance , to Nicholas Daley's kilt, another Saint Martins graduate with an aesthetic that includes Savile Row as an exploration of his own Scottish and Jamaican roots.
This is also the space of subcultures, of clothes as a means of political and political resistance for the construction of identity and dissolution of conventions, but also of leather outfits, from Tom Ford of the Gucci era to Donatella Versace. And frock coats, from the 1800s to the Prada catwalks, Alexander McQueen and Raf Simons , and in the photos of Oscar Wilde , the surrealist photographer and writer Claude Cahun, by Cecil Beaton, or worn by the Beatles and Sam Smith. While the dissolution of the suit is told through creations by JW Anderson , Comme des Garçons , and the South African artist Lesiba Mabitsela. A hundred outfits and a hundred works of art, selected starting from a reflection on the present of men's fashion from gender fluidity to coed fashion shows. Even if, as the archive photos of L'Officiel show, a constant reinterpretation of gender boundaries was at the center of fashion as early as the 60s-70s. We talk about “Fashioning Masculinities” with Rosalind McKever, who is co-curator together with Claire Wilcox , and Marta Franceschini, research assistant.
L'Officiel Hommes: Why did it take so long to dedicate an exhibition to men's fashion? While for years menswear has exploded in terms of offer, creativity, visibility of designers?
Rosalind McKever: We've actually been working on it for over three years, and the idea has been in the air for at least ten. The mission of the V&A has always been to support the creativity of the industry, and this exhibition reflects the moment by exploring the overwhelming topicality of gender fluidity, coed shows, an explosion of creativity exemplified by designers like Craig Green.
LOH: A deliberately provocative question: at least judging from the press release, doesn't the exhibition risk an excess of “politically correct”? With a queer aesthetic and artists of African or Asian origins almost over-compensating for their previous absence from the conversation?
RMK: The exhibition aims to be a barometer of the questions that society is asking itself today, of the current conversation on the media and on social networks. Personally I hope it instills in viewers a sense of creative confidence and empowerment with respect to a phenomenon such as men's fashion which is no longer a mechanism to encourage conventionality, but a means to express one's individuality.
LOHI Why did you decide to structure the exhibition according to the three guidelines Undressed, Overdressed, Redressed?
Marta Franceschini: We were interested in a reflection on masculinity understood in the sense of performance of masculinity beyond the binary definition of gender. From the beginning, the way of wearing things, the attitude, not to say the "contempt" (the fundamental requirement of the attitude of the gentleman in the treatise of Baldessar Castiglione, "Il cortegiano" of 1528, ed.) Were necessary to center of our conception of the exhibition as much as the clothes themselves. So it seemed very natural to us to adopt this common thread
RMK: We did not want to propose a chronological path and we were interested in how the clothes were worn, therefore the portrait of Alessandro Farnese by Sofonisba Anguissola is emblematic, the so modern way to wear the cape.
LOH: What percentage of the exhibits come from the V&A itself rather than from other institutions?
RMK: I don't know exactly, there are important loans from the National Gallery for example, but above all works by the V&A that have never been exhibited before. We have done extensive research across all departments of the museum, not just the Textiles and Fashion Collection, and specifically the Theater & Performance Collection. That's where we discovered a film like “Spitfire”, where they danced in their underwear: the link to that particular moment of Armani and Calvin Klein's late 80s men's underwear advertising, between kitsch and sexy, immediately clicked.
LOH: In some ways one of the precedents to this show was the spectacular display “David Bowie is” from 2013. Is there any Bowie outfit in “Fashioning Masculinities”?
RMK: There is only one look, by Thierry Mugler, black, sober, almost monastic: because even a garment that does not shout for attention can be extraordinarily theatrical. After all, throughout the exhibition we have tried to surprise by showing unexpected things.
LOH: Have donations of men's fashion to the V&A increased in recent years?
RMK: A collector gave us a good number of Gucci and Versace outfits, and Charlie Porter (fashion journalist, former Financial Times menswear critic) his clothes.
LOH: Has the sponsorship from Gucci in any way influenced your editing, perhaps widening certain fields of research?
RMK: We actually put together the exhibition first, then we look for sponsors. It is obvious that there was a natural affinity with Gucci on the subject.
LOH: How would you place this exhibition in the dynamic of the V&A?
RMK: I hope it is a beginning, not a point of arrival. All the more so because the current generation is a generation of designers who frequent museums to get inspired. And bringing Harry Styles' outfits to a museum institution is a way to attract an audience that is different from our regulars.
MF: Our interpretation was to give visibility to multiplicity of definitions of masculinity: we speak to the creative generation to come.
