Queering masculinities

Ondertitel:dress, gender, and the body in the Antwerp fashion scene

Although from the late 1980s onwards the Antwerp fashion scene has inspired generations of designers, it has received but little attention from a theoretical and academic point of view. Most of this research, moreover, has been focused on its institutionalization processes. Starting from Antwerp fashion’s avant-garde and conceptual reputation, which has revolved around the city as a place for resistance to the normative, this dissertation has sought to bring gender identity and sexuality into the critical debate. Specifically, I have been undertaking the first attempt at analyzing Antwerp fashion through the lens of masculinities combining insights from the fields of fashion studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, and queer studies. To shed light on the redefinition of masculinity, menswear, and the representation of the male body in Antwerp fashion from the past four decades, the thesis focuses on the creative practices of a number of designers from different generations (Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, Raf Simons, Bernhard Willhelm and Glenn Martens) who have questioned – or indeed “queered” – the cultural conception of male aesthetics through non-conventional masculinities. The analysis of the selected case studies and their critical fashion practices has allowed a multifaceted understanding of the relationship between fashion and masculinity through the perspectives of gender, sexuality, and the body, and most importantly how in the Antwerp fashion scene we can identify an incubator for vanguardist fashion practices characterized by a particular attitude toward designing menswear and representing the male body. This study is based on a qualitative content analysis of (audio)visual (e.g. photographs, images and videos of fashion shows, catalogues, look books) and textual (e.g. press articles from newspapers and magazines, press releases, invitations, exhibitions and other project leaflets, books and catalogues dedicated to the designers’ works) materials collected during archival research in Belgian and international fashion museums, and interviews with relevant personalities from the field that have first-hand experience with the rise of Antwerp fashion.

Jaar van publicatie:2023

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Open