Do Clothes Maketh The Man?
Female Singapore|June 2022
A resounding yes, going by how fashion has helped to shape, reinforce and increasingly in recent years — disrupt the masculine identity, as an ongoing exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum explores.
Keng Yang Shuen
Do Clothes Maketh The Man?

The ongoing exhibition, Fashioning Masculinities: The Art Of Menswear, at London's Victoria And Albert Museum aims to retrace the history of clothing and male appearance in a thematic way to show how masculinity has been - and is a plural and fluid category. On this page, a look from the Spring/Summer 2022 collection by up-and-coming British designer Edward Crutchley and, opposite, a portrait of Charles Coote, the first Earl of Bellomont, dating back to the 19th century that captures how men dressed flamboyantly in the past to show off their wealth and status.

The exhibition boasts some 200 displays spanning modern-day fashion imagery (see Harry Styles in Gucci's Pre-Fall 2019 men's campaign on this page); gender-ambiguous outfits by cutting-edge cult designers like (bottom row, from left) Priya Ahluwalia, Grace Wales Bonner, and Craig Green; and both classic and contemporary artworks including (opposite page, clockwise from top left) a drawing from Robert Longo's famed 1981 Men In The Cities print series; Tiresias, a performance by Cassils in which the artist melts a neoclassical torso carved in ice with his body heat; Yinka Shonibare's satirical Diary Of A Victorian Dandy: 17.00; and Omar Victor Diop's print, Jean-Baptiste Belley.

Context is always important, which is why the exhibition includes contemporary voices in fashion and art to show the many readings of masculinity. Among them is the emerging designer Harris Reed - one of the most prominent voices in the fashion industry today advocating for gender fluidity - pictured here dressed in one of his own looks.

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