Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear

Sumptuous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the history of menswear.

Every vista across the show is beautiful and it is packed with wonderful clothes and portraits. I loved the gentle theming but was please that I had done an online curators talk on it before I went as I think this made the themes more obvious.

I loved the fact you came into a black and white space on the theme of undressed which took a series of classical sculpture and looked at their influence on drapery and men’ body shape and body image. This found a link between the men of the Grand Tour, Ballet Russe costumes and David’s fig leaf. I loved a joyous video by Anthony Patrick Manieri called “Arrested Movement” of naked men of various shapes and sizes dancing.

The section, overdressed, looked at how power and wealth have been shown through exuberant clothing. I loved the section on colour which placed a rainbow of mannequins on a billiard table. It also had a section on lace including this wonderful Grinling Gibbon’s carved cravat shown with a real one.

The final section looked at the role of the suit from its origins as we known it with Beau Brummel though frock coats, tuxedo’s, miliary uniforms and country wear. This contrasted beautifully with the finale of the show which featured three dressed which had been worn very publicly by men during the planning of the show. It gave a wonderful flourish to end on.

I loved the use of clothes, paintings, photographs and videos to tell this story. My only critique would be that it is all very aristocratic and upper middle class. A section on work wear might have levelled it a bit although I realise often the clothes so not survive. Maybe looking at its influence on high fashion might have made the link.

Closes 6 November 2022

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