Masculinity, masquerade and display: Some thoughts on Rick Owens"s Sphinx collection and men in fashion

The ideas in this article stem from my earlier work on fashion and femininity and were prompted by the fashion designer Rick Owens"s Sphinx collection at Paris Men"s Fashion Week in January 2015. This controversial collection was a highlight of the fashion industry"s menswear shows, a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Critical studies in fashion & beauty 2016-06, Vol.7 (1), p.19-29
Main Author: Bancroft, Alison
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The ideas in this article stem from my earlier work on fashion and femininity and were prompted by the fashion designer Rick Owens"s Sphinx collection at Paris Men"s Fashion Week in January 2015. This controversial collection was a highlight of the fashion industry"s menswear shows, and garnered almost as much attention as the womenswear shows usually do. I contend that fashion is and remains a feminine cultural form, regardless of the anatomy of the wearer, with the proviso that the feminine is, or can be, a site of resistance. The question I want to address here is, what are male bodies on display actually saying, not just in the Rick Owens show, but in fashion more widely? My answer to that question draws heavily upon the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan, and deploys them to an analysis of the work of Rick Owens. My study of this collection draws heavily on the psychoanalytic writings of Jacques Lacan in its theorizing of contemporary men"s fashion shows, and takes as its point of departure the idea that fashion is inherently feminine, and thus always feminizing. OA
ISSN:2040-4417
DOI:10.1386/csfb.7.1.19_1