ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the study of men's fashion, like fashion generally, follows certain consistent themes as well as transforming the remit of its study at key points of political, social, and economic change. The “youthquake” and social revolutions of the post-World War II period, for example, saw the range of clothing options transformed for men. At the same time, the way in which the topic began to be seriously studied in the post-1970s period, began to consider sexual, racial, colonial, and post-colonial specificity as well as the gender dimorphism, class difference and social change beloved of early-twentieth-century sociology. These comments set the backdrop for the essay, which attempts to examine some of the large shifts in clothing culture for men while at the same time indicating the academic landscape around the study of men's clothes. The major frames that structure the account include the cult of youth and ongoing Romanticism, the secularization of sport, the influence of modern warfare in generating men's fashions, the tendency to prefer modern ideas of comfort and convenience, and the transformation of fashion knowledge and fashion urbanism from print to hyperreality. Reference is made to various “off-center” or non-metropolitan cases, including colonial Sydney and goldfields Australia.
