LONDON — “Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear,” Victoria and Albert Museum’s first major exhibition examining men’s fashion throughout history, in partnership with Gucci, is opening its doors to the public this Saturday through Nov. 6.
Ahead of the official opening, the museum revealed on Wednesday that the exhibition’s finale will feature gowns worn by “Pose” actor Billy Porter, singer Harry Styles and drag performer Bimini Bon-Boulash, alongside a commissioned film by Quentin Jones with Cadence Films.
Installation inside the “Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear” exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum. PETER KELLEHER/COURTESYThe three garments were chosen for their viral impact in defying social stereotypes in popular culture. Porter’s tuxedo gown by Christian Siriano first appeared on the Oscars red carpet in 2019; Styles’ custom gown and tailored jacket were made by Alessandro Michele at Gucci for his American Vogue cover in 2020, and Bon-Boulash’s gown is a wedding dress by Ella Lynch that they wore for the season two finale of “RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K.” All three looks are on display in a U.K. museum for the first time.
Rosalind McKever, co-curator of the show, said during the opening preview that the three gowns not only were “very important media moments” during the pandemic, but also “a really important thing to address in the finale of the show, and look at how these questions that are very much present in high fashion are also now really impacting the mainstream media.”
The show presents around 100 looks and 100 artworks, dating from the Renaissance to the modern day. Contemporary looks from fashion designers like Harris Reed, Edward Crutchley, Craig Green, Grace Wales Bonner and Raf Simons will be displayed alongside historical items from the V&A’s collections, such as paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola and Joshua Reynolds, contemporary artworks by Robert Longo and Omar Victor Diop, and an extract from the all-male ballet performance “Spitfire” by Matthew Bourne.
The co-curator and her colleague Claire Wilcox decided that instead of showing the progress of menswear chronologically, all elements are grouped into three themes: Undressed, Overdressed and Redressed.
“It would be more exciting and interesting and more possible to think about their power and their expression of masculinity. We use these three sections as governing principles, and you’ll see that we’ve particularly used color as a way to group objects that allowed us to visually present an argument for menswear has always been changing, always been in flux, as with masculinity,” McKever said.
Undressed explores the male body and underwear in a utopian dreamscape. This part looks at how classical European ideals of masculinity have been perpetuated and challenged over the centuries. Examples of traditional idealized male bodies, such as plaster casts of the Apollo Belvedere and the Farnese Hermès, will sit alongside contemporary representations of the body from David Hockney, Lionel Wendt, Zanele Muholi and Isaac Julien through to a Calvin Klein advertisement.
This theme also features garments by Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Virgil Abloh for Off-White, Jean Paul Gaultier and A-Cold-Wall’s Samuel Ross to show how fashion is challenging masculine ideals and celebrating body diversity. Auguste Rodin’s Age of Bronze sculpture and “Tiresias,” a performance by Cassils, are also featured.
The Overdressed section explores the elite masculine wardrobe. It features armored breastplates, smoking suits, sweeping capes, ribbons and lace. This part also includes grooming, with makeup and shaving equipment.
Aristocratic portraits by Joshua Reynolds and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau are displayed alongside pink ensembles by Thom Browne, Pronounce, Harris Reed and Grace Wales Bonner, as well as modern fashions from Kim Jones for Fendi, Alessandro Michele for Gucci, Rahemur Rahman, Ahluwalia and Randi Rahm, who created the striking floral suit and cloak ensemble worn by Porter at the 2019 Golden Globe.
McKever said this part really “wanted to show people the history of pink and lace and the way that things that in the 21st century we may associate with femininity, actually, historically, were a really important part of the masculine wardrobe.
“Comparing those to how contemporary designers are using those same elements. So, for example, looking at Harris Reed, using pink and lace, to really transform the politics of those clothes, which were historically worn by men, but they were very much worn by men in positions of power and in positions of conformity. So looking at how there’s a kind of rebellion to it was really important,” she added.
The last part of the exhibition, Redressed, highlights the evolution of suits, from Regency-era England’s fashion opinion leader Beau Brummell to the contemporary runway. It depicts the origins of the suit with historic garments from the V&A collection shown alongside contemporary re-imaginings, including a kilt by Nicholas Daley.
This theme also touches base on British subcultures that looked to define their styles through tailorings, such as the Mods and Teddy Boys, as well as men’s affinity for leather and frock coats, with examples by Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Prada, Alexander McQueen and Raf Simons.
This final section explores the dissolving concept of a suit, with evidence from designers like Rick Owens, Jonathan Anderson, Comme des Garçons and Lesiba Mabitsela, showing how they are deconstructing the idea of menswear and masculinity.
To get every piece to arrive ahead of the show was an enormous logistic challenge during the pandemic, McKever revealed.
“A lot of these pieces were very difficult to acquire. Like the Apollo Belvedere sculpture, which only came from Cambridge, getting an object that large and heavy across Britain was a feat and also the Siriano gown in the final gallery was in a Christian Siriano exhibition in Georgia until only a few weeks ago,” she added.