Men, masculinity and style in 2008: A study of men’s clothing considerations in the latter aughts

Abstract

This article examines how, in the latter aughts, men from the United States thought about their style, favourite clothing, masculine style(s) and the ways they imagined masculinity as articulated through everyday practices of fashioning the body. The body is a site of identity production, situated within broader cultural expectations, commitments and ideals. This study explores men’s relationships to masculine ideals while dressing the body. We ask: how do men think about masculinity in relation to dress? How do they define ‘masculine style’? In this article we examine individual responses about everyday appearance decisions, as well as larger trends. The study is a cross-section from a particular moment in time (May 2008) and uses demographically balanced open-ended survey responses to gauge men’s relationships to masculine ideals while dressing the body. We use descriptive statistics to illustrate how men in the United States – at a particularly transitional moment in time – articulated their perspectives on favourite clothes and masculine style.

Fashion vs style: The repudiation of fashion in online menswear communities

“…My findings are consistent with previous studies on men's aversion to cultivating a fashionable appearance (Bakewell, Mitchell and Rothwell 2006;Galilee 2002;Green and Kaiser 2016;Kaiser Looysen and Hethorn 2008;Noh et. al.…”

“…Where fashion studies has been concerned with menswear, this work has tended to be concerned with the more contemporary, fashionable or youthful aspects of men's clothing such as the new man (Edwards 1997;Mort 1996;Nixon 1996), the metrosexual (Shugart 2008), youth subcultures (Hebdige 1979;Polhemus 2010), cutting-edge designers (Geczy and Karaminas 2017), self-identified followers of men's fashion (Barry 2015;Barry and Martin 2015;Barry and Phillips 2016;Rinallo 2007) and gender rebels (Barry and Martin 2016). At the other end of the spectrum there has been research on men with ambivalent feelings towards fashion, such as men who struggle with the fits on offer (Barrie 2014), are more concerned with practicality (Galilee 2002;Green and Kaiser 2016;Noh et. al.…”

Bro‐ing Up the Brand: Privileged Masculinity in Birddogs Shorts

“…For example, Holt and Thompson outlined the “man‐of‐action” identity that allows men to enact a mix of breadwinning and rebellious behaviors (436). Elsewhere, men’s specific consumption patterns have been categorized as metrosexual (Casanova et al 68–69; Green and Kaiser 129–30) and white‐collar (Casanova 100–01). Meanwhile, Darwin has outlined what she calls “omnivorous masculinity,” whereby consumption of both high‐ and low‐brow products can be a masculine undertaking, especially as it relates to beer culture (303–5).…”