The Male Fashion Bias

Mr. Mark Neighbour

A Practice-Led Masters by Research Degree

Faculty of Creative Industries

Queensland University of Technology
Discipline: Fashion

Year of Submission: 2008

Key Words

Male fashion

Clothing design

Gender

Tailoring

Clothing construction

Dress reform

Innovation

Design process

Contemporary menswear

Fashion exhibition

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Abstract

Since the establishment of the first European fashion houses in the nineteenth
century the male wardrobe has been continually appropriated by the fashion
industry to the extent that every masculine garment has made its appearance in
the female wardrobe. For the womenswear designer, menswear’s generic
shapes are easily refitted and restyled to suit the prevailing fashionable
silhouette. This, combined with a wealth of design detail and historical
references, provides the cyclical female fashion system with an endless supply
of “regular novelty” (Barthes, 2006, p.68). Yet, despite the wealth of inspiration
and technique across both male and female clothing, the bias has largely been
against menswear, with limited reciprocal benefit. Through an exploration of
these concepts I propose to answer the question; how can I use womenswear
patternmaking and construction technique to implement change in menswear
design?

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Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted
for a degree or diploma at any other higher educational institution.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no
material previously published or written by another person except
where due reference is made.

Signed:

Mark L Neighbour

Dated:

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank and acknowledge everyone who supported and assisted this
project. In particular I express gratitude to:

My supervisory team, Kathleen Cattoni and Prof. Suzi Vaughan for their
enthusiasm, support, patience and belief

QUT Creative Industries Faculty for the MA scholarship and ongoing support

My fellow Fashion practice-led post-grads Paula Dunlop, Madeline King, Dean

Brough and Susan Sewell for helping to keep the joy of making alive and for
their distractive and supportive abilities

Carla Binotto for her endless enthusiasm and attention to detail

Patricia Howlie for always being there to listen – and having a landline

Wendy Armstrong for her generosity of spirit and understanding

All those who helped bring my final exhibition to fruition; in particular Lubi
Thomas, Matthew Seneviratne and Antony Peloso

Madeleine Vionnet, “the greatest dressmaker of the twentieth century” for having
lived to create such a wealth of enticing, confusing and inspirational garments
and Betty Kirke for her determination to bring Vionnet’s work into the lives of
clothing practitioners

My sister Barbara and my mother Delma Neighbour whose love, commonsense

and resourceful determination inspired my own joy of making

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(Intentionally left blank)

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Table of Contents

Table of Figures 8

Introduction 11
The research question 12

Part 1 – Where do we start and how do we get there?

Interpretive Paradigm & Methodology 14
The where and why of gender 16

Part 2 – Where did we come from and how did we get here?
The serious business of dressing – A technical history of modern
menswear 19
Is this where we should be? – Male dress reform 22
Where can I get one of those? – Innovation in menswear 29
Where are we now? – Contemporary menswear 31

Part 3 – Where do we want to go today?

Design process and creative practice 36

Conclusion 49

Appendix 50

References 51

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Table of Figures

Figure 1. 15
Fringed “Body hair” bodysuits 2007
Image photographed by Leon Frainey

Figure 2. 15
Male skirt – Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2008
Retrieved March 21 2008 from www.farm3.static.flickr.com

Figure 3. 21
George Delas’s 1839 drafting invention, the “somatometer”
Image 1993 Flammarion

Figure 4. 23
Dr. Gustave Jaeger
Retrieved April 17 2007 from www.fashion-era.com/images

Figure 5. 24
Thayaht wearing a tuta – diagram of garment design/construction
Image 1993 Flammarion/Private collection

Figure 6. 25
Members of the Men’s Dress Reform Party c.1930
Image 2001 Flammarion/Getty Images

Figure 7. 28
Giorgio Armani Spring /Summer 1996
Image 1996 Christophe Kutner

Figure 8. 32
Aitor Throup drawings and finished garments
Retrieved May 5 2008 from www.maricazottino.com

Figure 9 33
Greg Lagola – “One-piece” jacket
Image 2007 Surface Publishing

Figure 10 34
Greg Lagola – “One-piece” jacket spread flat
Image 2007 Surface Publishing

Figure 11. 37
Shirt Block Construction 1870
Image 1965 Theatre Arts Books

Figure 12. 37
Shirt Block Construction 2006
Image 2006 Blackwell Publishing

Figure 13. 38
The basic shirt block “components” – back, front and sleeves 2008
Image by Mark Neighbour

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Table of Figures (cont.)

Figure 14. 38
The reconfigured components 2007
Image by Mark Neighbour

Figure 15. 38
The final reconfigured block design template 2007
Image by Mark Neighbour

Figure 16. 39
Designs based on reconfigured shirt design template 2008
Image by Mark Neighbour

Figure 17. 41
Traditional pant block 2007
Image 2007 Blackwell Publishing

Figure 18. 41
Reconfigured pant patterns 2008
Image by Mark Neighbour

Figure 19. 43
Black voile shirt 2008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 20. 44
White linen shirt 2008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 21. 45
Wool jersey vest 2008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 22. 46
Wool coat 2008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 23. 46
Fleece jacket 2008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 24. 46
Knit jumper 1008
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

Figure 25. 47
The Male Fashion Bias Exhibition.
Image photographed by Leon Frainey

Figure 26. 48
Wool jersey t-shirt
Image photographed by Mark Neighbour

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(Intentionally left blank)

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Introduction

Since the establishment of the first European fashion houses in the nineteenth
century the male wardrobe has been continually appropriated by the fashion
industry to the extent that every masculine garment has made its appearance in
the female wardrobe. For the womenswear designer, menswear’s generic
shapes are easily refitted and restyled to suit the prevailing fashionable
silhouette. This, combined with a wealth of design detail and historical
references, provides the cyclical female fashion system with an endless supply
of “regular novelty” (Barthes 2006, 68). Yet, despite the wealth of inspiration and
technique across both male and female clothing, the bias has largely been
against menswear, with limited reciprocal benefit. Therefore while womenswear
has been continually re-invigorated through a process which appropriates
traditional male attire, men’s fashion of the modern period has rarely drawn on
the techniques and silhouettes of women’s fashion.

Two interconnected ideas underpin this imbalance. First is the prevailing notion
that menswear is a self-referencing system, with an evolutionary path based
within its own culture and traditions rather than on a seasonal renewal of
fashionable attire. Secondly, traditional male clothing culture promotes
innovation within its systems of manufacture and the fabric and construction
technologies these systems produce. Therefore, while “fashion is a
phenomenon both of innovation and conformity” (Barthes 2006, 86), the ways in
which innovation and conformity are played out across gendered modes of
design and production could be explained thus: On the one hand traditional
male clothing promotes innovation through its modes of manufacture leading to
conformity in design. On the other hand womenswear fashion culture promotes
innovation to conform creatively – the cyclical fashion system.

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The research question

Taking this dichotomy as a starting point, this research project applies

techniques traditionally associated with the production of female fashion to the
production of contemporary menswear as a means of examining the
connections between issues of design, gender and technique. A number of key
questions underpin the research process: How can innovation occur as a result
of this mis-matching of technique and genre? How can an alternative vision of
contemporary menswear be achieved through the practical application of
womenswear patternmaking and construction technique? How can this be
achieved within the boundaries/possibilities the menswear genre presents? How
can a more ambiguous representation of gender be presented through clothing?
This project aims to make work which can provide a new way of thinking about
how garments relate to the male body (for example how the three dimensional
qualities inherent in womenswear technique work in relation to the planar
qualities of traditional menswear) and how these techniques in turn could be
utilised to challenge strict binary gender codes perpetuated by menswear and
womenswear traditions. The production of male garment designs, patterns and
prototypes will determine answers to these questions and provide a visual
record and reference library of the researched practice.

The project is practice-led, meaning that I explore my key research questions

through a studio-based paradigm which firmly situates creative practice as both
a vehicle of enquiry, and, a research output in its own right (Gray & Malins
2004). Consequently, the examinable outcomes of the project are a collection of
garments, patterns and drawings presented at The Block, Creative Industries
Precinct June 4th & 5th 2008, and, an exegesis of 9,000 words (weighted 70% &
30% respectively). Part One outlines my interpretative paradigm and my
methodology. It summarises my professional background and introduces the
concept of the ‘Technician as Designer.’ It also establishes the design
boundaries and possibilities of my fashion research through a discussion of the

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gendered body and clothing. Part Two provides an historical context for the
production of menswear and the gendering of the manufacturing and design
processes of modern clothing. It analyses attempts at subverting the established
paradigm of masculine clothing over the last century discussing their successes
and failings. It also positions menswear within a contemporary context and
discusses the work of two individual designers in order to position my practice
within an international context. Part three outlines the various stages of the
creative practice and presents the research outcomes of the process. This
exegesis introduces the creative work by outlining the conceptual framework it
investigates and presents a detailed contextual review of the project. It moves
between questions of both practice and theory and thus aims to articulate the
relationship between the two.

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Part 1 – Where do we start and how do we get there?
Interpretive Paradigm & Methodology

I come to this project with nineteen years experience in the fashion industry. I
have worked as a womenswear patternmaker and machinist, as a designer for
Australian label dogstar, as a lecturer at TAFE and currently as a technical
assistant at QUT. Consequently my practice is firmly based in the pragmatics of
good fit, production ease and economy of fabrication and it is through this
experience that my work as a designer is channelled. The technical
understanding I have is integral to the processes I use to create clothing. I
cannot imagine a new garment without thinking of the actual tasks needed to
make it whole. To me, creativity needs to be based within an acknowledgement
of the tangible limitations of the processes and materials on offer. I do not see
this as a limitation to design creativity, but rather an encouragement to
investigate the full potential of those processes and materials. My research is
based on exposing the potential that comes from the combination of the human
form, the fabric that covers it and the practitioner who melds the two: I see my
practice as that of the Technician as Designer.

Having honed my technical skills in the domain and culture of womenswear I

was curious to test these in the (relatively) unfamiliar territory of menswear.
However, having positioned my practice within this explorative creative context, I
must make it clear that I am not interested in creating clothing that simply takes
the token symbols of feminine clothing and repositions them onto the generic
structures associated with traditional masculine dress. Nor am I interested in
limiting my practice to garments that have no life beyond the theatricality of the
catwalk environment. I am capable of creating such garments and indeed
produced three as “show stoppers” for the 2007 QUT Graduate show as seen in
figure 1 below. However, it is intended that my research forwards menswear
design and consequently, commercial appeal and wearability are utmost in my
mind. Contemporary designers such as Gaultier and Westwood are especially

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known for deploying shock tactic strategies to produce male clothing cut from
fabrics such as lace and satin along with implementing corsetry and drapery
technique.

Figure 1. Fringed “Body hair” bodysuits 2007

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 2. Jean Paul Gaultier S/S 2008

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As Potvin notes, these examples only “foreground, once again, the paradigmatic
position of female fashion and adornment, privileged over male clothing” (2004,
86). And while they may provoke my interest on a purely technical level,
garments such as “skirts for men” have become their own clichés of fashion
subversion, and I would argue that they therefore cannot be seen as inventive,
original attempts to carve new ground within the commercial menswear realm.

My project takes gender as a conceptual starting point by aiming to explore the

relation of gender identity to clothing through a series of technical experiments
which complicate the strict binary division of male and female, rather than using
shock tactics to incite a reaction. My position here aligns with theories of
material thinking. As Bolt argues

we can not consciously seek out to find the new, since by definition
the new can not be known in advance. The “shock of the new” is
thus a particular understanding that is realised through our
dealings with the tools and materials of production and in our
handling of ideas, rather than a self-conscious attempt at
transgression. This is material thinking (2007, 31).

Bolt borrows the concept of material thinking from Paul Carter who defines it as
“that simple but enigmatic step, joining hand, eye and mind” (2004, 30).
Following Bolt I see my project as a kind of “visual argument [which]
demonstrates the double articulation between theory and practice, whereby
theory emerges from a reflexive practice at the same time that practice is
informed by theory” (2007, 29).

The where and why of gender

Gender divides humans into two categories: male and female. This concept
assigns every human body a position within a binary structure of gender. Binary
divisions can take several forms – equal but opposite as in the Ying/Yang
Symbol of Chinese philosophy; opposite but female-negative; opposite but
female-positive. All these formulations of gender share the concept of binary

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division, two halves that divide each other. Since the time of Aristotle, these
roles have been hierarchically arranged making the masculine positive and the
female negative. As Cranny-Francis, Waring, Stavropoulos, and Kirkby (2003, 2)
note, “The male side of the equation is generally coded as the positive one, and
so becomes the standard by which all others are judged; in effect it becomes the
norm.”

Feminist critics traditionally define gender in relation to sex: gender being the
cultural or social construction of sex. This “construction” has been explored and
developed in feminist philosopher Judith Butler’s seminal work Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). For Butler the appearance of
“normal” gender is produced through repeated gender “acts” which obscures the
individual’s right to any inappropriate behaviour within their gender construct – in
effect establishing within society the

…tacit collective agreement to perform, produce and sustain

discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions… obscured by the
credibility of those productions – and the punishments that attend
not agreeing to believe in them (Butler 1999, 178).

Butler argues that primary to the performative aspect of gender is our

acceptance of the “internal essence” of gender acts conceived through the
binary stylisation of the body. She believes what “we take to be an ‘internal’
feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodily
acts, at an extreme, an hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures” (Butler 1999,
xv).

Butler’s contribution to the articulation of gender is arrived at through her crucial

differentiation between “descriptive” and “normative” accounts of gender: while
the normative seeks answers to the questions of which forms of gender are
acceptable and which are not, the descriptive discusses the intelligibility and
possibility of gender. Within the normative framework, “clothing is one of the
most immediate and effective examples of the way in which bodies are

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gendered, made ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ ” (Entwistle 2000, 140-141). As
Entwistle points out, clothing is so significant to our readings of the body that it
“can come to stand for sexual difference in the absence of a body. Thus a skirt
can signify ‘woman’ and, indeed, is sometimes used (in an insulting way) to refer
to a woman, while trousers signify ‘man’” (2000, 141). Therefore, despite there
being no actual link between an item of clothing and ‘femininity’ and
‘masculinity’, clothing is an essential characteristic in the social construction of
gender. With its manufactured layers, we coat the human form in meaning,
turning “nature into culture” (Entwistle 2000, 143). It is within this cultural
subjectivity that the sexes are defined through the ever changing variables of
fashion; conventions ruling that feminine appearance designate female sex and
masculine appearance designates male sex.

It is Butler’s concern for the possibility of gender that interests me. Utilising drag
performance as an example, Butler demonstrates how individuals could be
offered the opportunity of personally revising society’s gender constructions. By
seeing their own gender as a performance and considering the possibilities each
performance presents, Butler allows the individual “to rethink the possible as
such” (1999, xx), subverting society’s normative acts with those of their own
making. This disruptive quality has direct links with my design practice as
fashion is gendered and all creation within its sphere has the potential to
maintain or subvert societal norms. Just as Butler emphasises how repeated
acts of gender produce the impression of normal gender, the cultural meanings
attached to the wearing of clothing produce the codifying effect of binary
opposition under the same illusion of normality. The threat to patriarchal
societies through the subversion of dress codes is a genuine cause of moral
anxiety and it is the tension this creates that spurs my creative process. This is
not to say that I intend to make clothes that outrage and upset, but that I am
interested in working within the context of this paradigm to explore gender as a
slippery possibility as opposed to a defining social category.

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Part 2 – Where did we come from and how did we get here?
The serious business of dressing – A technical history of modern
menswear

The effects of normative gender categorisation extend beyond questions of

consumption and identity to those of technique and making. Hollander argues
that this categorisation in clothing was determined as early as 1675 when Louis
XIV of France permitted the forming of a guild of female tailors for the making of
women’s clothes. Although Louis XIV believed the guild would permit French
women, “scope for their talent, respect for their modesty, and independence for
their taste” (1994, 65), ultimately “the whole of fashion was progressively divided
into respectable tailoring for men and frivolous “Fashion” for women (Hollander
1994, 65).

The development of modern male clothing is directly and indirectly related to

both the logic and aesthetics of the business world. Not only did the business
world prescribe the actual simple shapes and colours of male clothing, but the
processes through which it was manufactured were directly associated with the
“serious business” of dressing. Developing this concept, fashion theorist
J.C.Flugel writes in The Psychology of Clothes (1930)

…men may be said to have suffered a great defeat in the sudden

reduction of male sartorial decorativeness which took place at the
end of the eighteenth century. At about that time… men gave up
their right to all the brighter, gayer, more elaborate, and more
varied forms of ornamentation,… thereby making their own
tailoring the most austere and ascetic of the arts (1971, 110).

Seemingly dumbfounded at his own observation, Flugel goes on to discuss how

at this point man denied his choice to be considered “beautiful” and therefore
could only aim to become “useful,” claiming this to be the “Great Masculine
Renunciation in regard to fashion” (1971, 111). Speaking of the period following
the French revolution, Flugel explains how the revolutionary slogan of ‘Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity’ in seeking to abolish the extravagance of the ancient

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régime and establish new social tendencies and aspirations, also changed
sartorial conventions. This new social order needed to express the common
humanity of all men, symbolically renouncing aristocratic class distinctions and
replacing them with a greater uniformity and practicality of dress. It also
reinforced the demands of a growing mercantile class and the fact that (white
collar) work had now become a respectable occupation.

The rise of the suit

In the modern era the three-piece suit has been the standard bearer for
masculine Western dress.1 The suit was a crucial dimension to the aesthetic
philosophy new urban model of the dandy whose “devotion to an ideal of dress
that sanctified understatement inaugurated an epoch not of no fashions for men,
but of fashions that put cut and fit before ornament, colour and display” (Wilson
2003, 180). While good fit had traditionally been the prerogative of the upper
classes, which relied on the skills of the bespoke tailor, Michael Zakim’s
investigation of the nineteenth century tailoring culture suggests that the
aesthetics of the modern suit are in fact underpinned by its democratic modes of
production. His analysis highlights the invention of the humble measuring tape
in the 1820s which directly facilitated the development of drafting systems.2
These systems mimicked the process of bespoke tailoring through the
application of body measurements that represented “anatomical
correspondences of a fixed nature that, in turn, became the key for cutting and
then reconnecting the cloth so that it matched the individual contours of each
body” (Zakim 1998, 58). The systems helped to resolve the “tensions between
fashion needs and the need to speed along production as cheaply as possible”

1
Most historians date the rise of the modern suit as around the 1820s when “pantaloons, vests, and coats
had become a recognizable assembly – a suit – embodying a male aesthetic of dynamism and self control”
(Zakim, 1998 p.51).
2
Drafting is a method of pattern construction based upon the systematic layout of measurements taken
directly from the human form. It was, and continues to be seen in menswear, in opposition to the
traditional technique of bespoke tailoring: garments produced through a more intuitive hand crafted
method based on individual client measurements.

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through “technological means” (Zakim 1998, 52). With the aid of drafting
systems, tailors could approximate the elegance of “a proper fit” which both
“created a utilitarian gloss that facilitated physical mobility and then smoothed
itself when back at rest” (Zakim 1998, 51).

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 3. George Delas’s 1839 drafting invention, the “somatometer.”

The demand for this “utilitarian gloss” was prompted by both the availability of
ready-made garments themselves and the development of the industrial
techniques that brought them to the market at a price democratically accessible
to all. In addition, by the 1840s tailors could purchase “seasonal fashion plates
and updated instructions for making the new styles. Some systems included
extensive alteration information that allowed for wearing up-to-the-minute
fashion details, such as wider lapels or longer coat skirts” (Zakim 1998, 55).

This represents an early indication of the way industrialised menswear design is

complicit with its mode of production, showing fashionable detail to be embodied
in its manufacture. Conversely, while drafting systems were also developed for
women’s clothing these were used to produce vestural foundations onto which
trimmings were placed for decorative effect. The accessibility of these trims was
facilitated by the Industrial Revolution and the mass production of haberdashery

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and decorative trimmings which could be used to alter garments visually through
the easy application of surface decoration. The novelty of this concept helped
develop seasonal trends in trimmings and ultimately resulted in the introduction
and acceptance of the much faster seasonal variations of clothing silhouettes by
the couturier Charles Frederick Worth in the 1860s. Decoration of garments was
in the hands of the dressmakers who applied the trims (a design process in
itself) along with undertaking the seasonal adaptation, fabrication and fit of the
garment. Without these design requirements, the tailor was left to concentrate
on the fabric and fit of the garment. Subscribing to the drafting systems the tailor
did not choose garment designs, but received what was on offer, assuming from
its source it would represent the latest in fashion. This establishes a complete
disconnect between the tailor (manufacturer) and the designer (fashion) – as
well as showing how menswear fashion is produced through variations of detail
rather than a reconsidered seasonal silhouette. This may seem at odds with the
practice of the artisanal bespoke tailor, yet as already discussed, in both
instances what is produced is a set of basic shapes that corresponds to the
plains of the body – front, back and sleeve for upper garments, front and back
for pants. In this sense the true foundation of modern menswear is its technical
reality.

Is this where we should be?

Male dress reform

While the suit has proven remarkably impervious to fashion throughout the
modern period, its place and relevance has occasionally been challenged. The
following section will briefly summarise some key ‘alternatives’ to modern male
attire and note how these have fed into key developments in contemporary
menswear design.

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 This figure is not available online.
Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 4. Dr. Gustave Jaeger

Despite the suit’s new found place in society, toward the end of the nineteenth
century the first rumblings of dress reform for men came into play. Not as a
reaction against the value of this new male uniform, but out of concern for its
ability to be considered “hygienic clothing fit for the modern age” (Breward 2004,
59). Gustave Jaeger opened shop in London in 1885 advocating for both women
and men, “the adoption of fitted woollen undergarments to protect the entire
body”, the use of less restricting stockings and breeches, and “the careful
choosing of clothing which avoided [unstable] chemicals” (Breward 2003, 67).
Despite his innovations being discounted as eccentric at the time, Breward
considers Jaeger’s work significant to the development of men’s modern
fashion. He “purveyed a kind of anti-fashion which claimed inspiration… from the
more active and democratic circumstances of contemporary life and the effects
that these wrought on consumers’ bodies,” (2003, 70) rather than the vagaries of
fashionable society.

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 This figure is not available online.
Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 5. Thayaht wearing a tuta – diagram of garment design/construction

Hoping to help overcome the depressed state of the Italian nation, another
dress-reform exponent, the Futurist Illustrator Ernesto Thayaht, designed his
Tuta in 1919 as – “a one piece straight line garment for men and boys”. What is
particularly interesting about Thayaht’s concept is his diagram of the garment
which illustrates both the design of the garment and its construction in the one
instance – a rare fusion of design and practice in menswear. Representing a
“universal garment”, the jump-suit design features a gusset inset in the crotch
area, a true innovation in modern masculine clothing design. In the early 1920s
Thayaht illustrated and designed clothing, textiles and jewellery for Madeleine
Vionnet. Vionnet scholar Betty Kirke considers his influence immeasurable on
the Parisian couturier, his futurist aesthetic inspiring her innovative cuts – “cuts
included within and extending beyond the body covering that often made
Vionnet’s work distinctive” (Kirke 1998, 63). Ironically, due to its claim to
universality, it appears that the Tuta was Thayaht’s only foray into menswear
design.

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 This figure is not available online.
Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 6. Members of the Men’s Dress Reform Party

In 1929, the Men’s Dress Reform Party was established in London to “shake up
what was perceived as the increasing dullness, formality and discomfort of
men’s clothes” (Edwards 1997, 20). While the society was quite successful in
questioning the prevailing customs and highlighting to the public the need for
“naturalness and normality” in male attire, it “was less successful, in constructing
alternatives, particularly in respect to the suit, often coming up with floppy and
poorly executed ideas that reworked the open collar and shorts styles already
popular in sports and adolescent cultures” (Edwards 1997, 20). The experiments
of the Men’s Dress Reform Society register somewhat like failed modernist
moments, for despite its obvious opposition to the “serious business” of male
fashion, its forms appear to swallow rather than follow function.

In her 1938 book Fashion is Spinach, Elizabeth Hawes, an American

womenswear designer, writes of her attendance at a lecture by Frank Lloyd
Wright, who, with each reference to the modern and the functional, disregarded
the “crack” of his highly starched evening shirt and its displacement under his
vest. She notes how architects of the time were “working on reinforced concrete
buildings, radio cities, mass production houses,” and yet wearing the “clothes

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their fathers and grandfathers had worn before them” (Hawes 1938, 295).
Hawes saw no reason why men should be any different from women, and, given
the earning power of men, why the division of the clothing budget could not be
equal. Asserting that men were screaming for attention about their clothing
“problem”, Hawes dedicated a part of her spring 1937 fashion show to the
presentation of a small collection of male designs. She presented silk, cotton
and linen for summer, sweat shirts and comfort for dinner with the removal of
ties, stiff collars and vests used, “for a spot of color” (1938, 310). Despite the
positive reception to Hawes’ male garments, she went no further into the realm
of menswear – the garments did not go into production – but she was happy that
she
…had a chance to imagine for a few minutes that men’s clothes
might be comfortable; that one day I’d actually see hundreds and
hundreds of men going about the July hot streets of New York in
cool linen tunics and silk trousers; that maybe one day the women
would relax and enjoy being a background now and then (1938,
310).

Following the Second World War in an interesting development indicative more

of modern consumption practice than production practice, the suit was
appropriated and re-fashioned by British Teddy Boys. In an ironic nod to the
Edwardian period “when luxury was their right and Savile Row unchallenged”
(Ehrman 2004, 112), Teddy Boys “took the leap of imagination to construct their
own status and visual code, through a spectacularised version of the dress of
their supposed ‘betters’ (Arnold 2001, 114) Their bastardised version of the
Edwardian look stripped “the conventional insignia of the business world – the
suit, collar and tie, short hair, etc. – of their original connotations – efficiency,
ambition, compliance with authority – and transformed [them] into empty
fetishes, objects to be desired, fondled and valued in their own right” (Edwards
1997, 111). This early form of “do-it-yourself” in male fashion pre-empted the
post-modern eclecticism of the 1980s and the now self-referencing paradigm of
modern menswear.

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By the start of the 1960s “the cosmopolitan figure of the mod” had taken over as
the media hyped and commercially manipulated subculture of choice from the
Ted’s romantic bohemianism (Breward 2003, 224). The ascendancy of this look
was facilitated by the music and fashion industries whose marketing specifically
targeted youthful consumers via television shows and radio stations. The
Moderns thrived on the consumer culture exploding about them. Their clean,
sharp look – “Italianate mohair suits, stiffly lacquered short hair and unapologetic
consumerism,” (2003, 224) represented a challenge “not embodied in physical
violence or the status of the outsider, but in his subversive potential as a threat
to the older assurances of class and gender-based hierarchies and traditions”
(Breward 2003, 224). The mod aesthetic also found an easy application in the
new fashion system and consumer culture that inspired it, developing through
Carnaby Street as a symbol of “the commoditisation of subcultural signs into
mass-produced objects,” (Edwards 1997, 110). Central to the look of the Mod,
were the menswear designs of womenswear designer Pierre Cardin who helped
(via dressing the Beatles) to instil a new playfulness in menswear through the
use of colourful fabrics and more exaggerated styling.

In the 1970s Giorgio Armani provided the most influential design shift in male
clothing in the 20th century (since the attachment of the collar to the shirt and the
self-supporting pant) by way of his deconstruction of the suit. However, he
achieved this through the softening of its component parts, as opposed to its
reconstruction. According to the designer,

Everyone wore the same uniform, a bit wider here, a bit more
tapered there, but substance was always the same. I wanted to
personalise the jacket, to make it more closely attuned to its
wearer. How? By removing the structure. Making it into a second
skin (Armani in Celant 2000, xvii).

Germano Celant links Armani’s removal of structure and its material fluidity to a
more poetic and expressive fluidity writing:

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 he conceived of clothing as a mobile object, one not fixed to
anthropological and social identities, but existing as movement and
transition between the two. His design aimed to let the product
correspond not to a gender, but to a bodily pleasure (2000, xviii).

The sense in which fluidity of structure could correspond to a fluidity of identity

(gender or otherwise) is an interesting assertion, as is the argument that design
can facilitate bodily pleasure. They are claims which are at once poetic and
subversive. Celant sees this tendency played out in an ambiguous new
masculine archetype whose “sexuality is fluid: he highlights the masculine, but
does not suppress the feminine element” (2000, xv).3 Such an argument
corresponds to my own designated project in line with Butler’s “possibility” of
gender subversion.

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 7. Giorgio Armani Spring /Summer 1996

The removal of structure from the garments Armani produced caused a

revolution in the way menswear was conceived and manufactured then and
since. Yet the softness inherent in his work was not altogether as new a concept

3
Celant is making reference to the Richard Gere character in the film “American Gigolo” for which
Armani designed the costumes.

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as the gender neutral fashion paradigm that surrounded it. Breward references
The London Tailor of 1898 in which the editor espouses the tastefulness of a cut
based upon “an understanding of anatomy and proportion [which] revealed
underlying forms rather than created them” (1999, 172). The softness of a
Vicuna coat, without stiffening or padding the editor created for a customer was
contrasted with what he called the ‘cast iron pattern of tailoring.’ No doubt a
direct reference to the readymade suit – the heaviness and distortion of form
which this method engendered prompted him to state, “It is much easier to put a
piece of cloth on a man’s breast, and stiffen it out as though… with thin tin than
to get a coat right that shall sit in its place” (in Breward 1999, 172). Despite this
historical precedent and the efforts of Jaeger, Hawes et al, it was the innovative
manufacturing processes and fabric technologies developed in the Italian
factories after WWII combined with the imagery of Hollywood glamour that
allowed Armani to repackage the suit and seduce the fashion world (Gundle
2001, 357).

Where can I get one of those?

Innovation in menswear

Armani and most of the previous references help establish the concept of
accepted change in male attire being material/technology based, as opposed to
design/patternmaking based. Through the development of new fabric
constructions, fibre formulations or manufacturing techniques, variations on the
themes of traditional clothing have been updated to make an impact on each
succeeding generation of consumers. As an extreme example of this aspect of
menswear development, sports clothing companies such as Asics push the
appeal of the innovative, offering such impressive options as “Seamology,
Thermology, Hydrology, Coolmax (active and extreme) and Icoflex, all registered
trademarks of products that offer greater movement, control body temperature,
moisture wicking, breathability, UV protection and flexible reflective logos. The
Asics sportswear website offers this explanation of its Seamology process –

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 ASICS seam technology is used to allow greater movement of the
body. Seamology technology reduces the number of garment
seams in areas of maximum movement. By incorporating vents
into seams for greater air flow and utilising multiple stitching
methods, the garments are stronger and more durable allowing
less irritation during exercise. (Asics 2008)

Yet, how does the reduction of seams allow for greater movement? Why are
vents necessary if the garment includes “moisture wicking” technology thus
making air flow irrelevant? Don’t the vents weaken the garment? Wouldn’t
“multiple stitching” cause more irritation, not less? These are my questions for
the Asics designers.

As a clothing practitioner, these are questions I am intrigued to hear the practical

answers to, yet utilising two analytic concepts from the semiologist Roland
Barthes, I will address them in a purely theoretical light. In The Fashion System
(1990), Barthes analyses “written” clothing; the descriptions of clothing in
fashion magazines, and determines that

written clothing has no practical or aesthetic function: it is entirely

constituted with a view to a signification: if the magazine describes
a certain article of clothing verbally, it does it solely to convey a
message whose content is: Fashion; we might say then that the
being of the written garment lies completely in its meaning (p.8).

In this context the technological statements and products Asics offer can be
taken as the signifiers of innovation unburdened by the “practical considerations”
of “real clothing” (Barthes 1990, 8).

Additionally, these statements can be considered in respect of Barthes’ concept

of the importance of the “detail” in male clothing. As previously noted, the dandy
came to represent the new urban archetype of the modern male after the French
Revolution. His obsessive attention to the “detail” set him apart from the new
mercantile class through “the knot on a cravat, the material of a shirt, the buttons
on a waistcoat, the buckle on a shoe, [which] were from then on enough to

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highlight the narrowest of social differences” (Barthes 2006, 66). I would argue
that statements made on the Asics website to sell the concept of innovation can
be seen as the masculine variant of the requirement of Barthes “regular novelty”
in womenswear; “regular detail” perhaps? As Barthes writes, “though slower and
less radical than women’s fashion, men’s does none the less exhaust the
variation in details. Yet without for many years, touching any aspect of the
fundamental type of clothing” (2006, 69). Therefore, just as the dandy hoped to
set himself apart through the variants of detail, the modern sports clothing
company sets out to make the same use of technological innovation to
differentiate itself within a competitive market. And in this way such companies
offer the appearance of innovation without necessarily reconsidering how male
clothing relates to the male body.

Where are we now?

Contemporary Menswear

In his introduction to Modern Menswear author Hywel Davies states that

“Modern menswear is primarily concerned with communicating individuality”
(2008, 7). He writes of “visionary” designers whose work is “challenging, diverse
and exciting.” These designers “respect the traditions of menswear and its
techniques and fuse it with a modern approach to design and innovation.” They
do this by wearing suits because they want to (and choosing to wear trainers
with that suit); following no specific rules or regulations on shape, style or colour;
dressing up or dressing down; fusing tradition with a modern approach to design
and innovation; communicating the essence of personal identity and style; using
sportswear and its fabrics, functions and details as a reference; juxtaposing
formal wear, sportswear and casual wear; being influenced by music and street
style; having a preoccupation with youth; using bold colour.

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I would argue that this list covers most elements of forward looking menswear
design over the last twenty years if not all of the last fifty. In my mind the most
important aspect noted by Davies is that

Post-metrosexuality, contemporary menswear tackles issues of

masculinity, femininity and everything in between. As sexuality
becomes less of an issue in society, menswear celebrates and
supports this diversity. Men are definitely more aware of the way
they look but also are less concerned with gender (2008, 9).

The contemporary designers featured by Davies tackle these issues through the
use of soft fabrications and techniques such as gathering, tucking and
embroidery generally used for womenswear, however in a more subtle and
commercial way than those of the aforementioned Gaultier and Westwood
creations. In regard to my own research, Davies’ inclusion of the work of Aitor
Throup stands out.

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 8. Aitor Throup drawings and finished garments

Celebrating technique over trend-led aesthetics, Throup innovates through his

use of design process, garment shaping and construction technique. Throup’s
“drawings that mutate into garments” reference utilitarian clothing, yet have “an
anatomy of their own” (Davies 2008, 13). Throup describes his work as “a

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method of creating a truly original problem, and of resolving it in an equally
original way” (in Davies 2008, 14). He then converts his drawings into wearable
versions which are the garments themselves. Also resonating with my own
practice is Throup’s process of “branding through construction” (in Davies 2008,
14). By this he claims, “all my shirts and jackets look like generic garments at
first, but on closer inspection, their construction lines are all equally distorted
and seemingly displaced” (in Davies 2008, 14). Throup feels it

is difficult for a lot of designers to communicate a truly original

vision through menswear, as they feel they are impeded by the
existing limitations of what is acceptable and successful in the
menswear market. In my opinion, successful menswear has the
confidence to detach itself from those misconceptions (in Davies
2008, 17).

Another contemporary menswear designer whose work challenges traditional

menswear practice is American designer Greg Lagola who through “missing
seams, bias, complex and sometimes impossible cuts… has been able to find
solutions to constructing garments in non-traditional ways, while maintaining
function and wearability” (Greg Lagola, 2005). He “likens his creative process to
an intellectual riddle. How do I wrap an essentially two-dimensional form, fabric,
around a three dimensional body?” (in Mooney, 2007). This question is central
to the creative processes of women’s haute couture and accordingly Mooney
compares Lagola’s construction techniques to that of master couturier Cristobál
Balenciaga, who was famous for creating architectural coats from a single piece
of fabric. As exemplified by the clothes of Balenciaga, Lagola hopes “to design
beautiful clothes from pure concept to finished garment, independent of trends
and gimmicks, and to build a body of work that stands the test of time” (Greg
Lagola, 2007).

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 This figure is not available online.
Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 9. Greg Lagola – “One-piece” jacket

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 10. Greg Lagola – “One-piece” jacket spread flat

It is disappointing as a practitioner that there is a deficit of literature written by

both fashion scholars and designers about menswear design methodologies.
Despite his dedication to the menswear design process, Lagola works with both
a patternmaker and tailor to achieve the end product. Unlike many womenswear

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designers, menswear designers such as Lagola are one step removed from the
hands-on process of creation, showing once again the menswear designers’
reliance upon the specialist traditions of manufacturing. While it is unclear
whether Throup creates his own prototypes, the impedance felt by designers
about what is “acceptable and successful” of which he speaks may be due in
part to the scarcity of reference materials about menswear design outside of
manufacturing and technical works. This is again at odds with womenswear –
during the last ten years major reference works on the design and construction
processes of Poiret, Vionnet, Chanel, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, Grès, Balenciaga,
Dior, Yeohlee Tang and Ralph Rucci among others have been published.
These books put womenswear into historical and/or contemporary context and
develop the possibilities of clothing creation through the eyes and hands of the
great designers offering concepts of design inspiration without direct regard for
manufacturing. These include: design through draping on live model/dummy;
design through sketching; design through styling/remodelling; design through
deconstruction/reconstruction. These are techniques suggested by my
womenswear experience in addition to traditional forms of drafting and
patternmaking. Through the use of these techniques and variations on them, I
intend to nudge the boundaries of menswear into the future.

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Part 3
Where do we want to go today?
Design process and creative practice

The patternmaking process I use is based upon the industrial “flat”

patternmaking method. This technique involves the use and manipulation of
basic pattern “blocks” which are constructed from a set of predetermined body
measurements based upon the target market of the individual designer or
business. It is a direct descendant of the nineteenth century menswear systems
researched by Zakim, with the block shapes forming basic cylindrical
components which cover the torso, arms and legs. The creative manipulation of
these component shapes is called “block adaptation,” a technique more attuned
to, yet not restricted to, womenswear garment development. It is the method that
I was taught during my tertiary education in patternmaking and which has been
the accepted standard within my fashion industry experience. However, the
method is not used alone during the womenswear toile/development process but
rather in conjunction with modelling on the dress dummy, adaptations to existing
styles/shapes, and creation based on direct body measurements. This is the
important development beyond the systems Zakim analysed. As Aldrich notes,
“designers generate and execute designs in different ways. A large proportion of
their work is done intuitively from a store of knowledge and impressions that
they select individually” (Aldrich 1996, 5). These working processes and their
combinations establish the limitless potential within womenswear design
practice. When utilised for menswear, these methods of womenswear
patternmaking technique help avoid “the rigid system of drafting specific
garment shapes, an integral part of the mystique and craft of bespoke tailoring”
(Aldrich 1997, 4).

With my background in womenswear, I utilise a “combination” approach to the

clothes I create. As a patternmaker and machinist I have also found that I design
through technical processes. Rather than begin with a sketch, concept board or

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 inspirational direction I begin with a pattern or a technique. I design through
problem solving and problem solve through design. In the case of this research
project I started very specifically with the idea of re-working the standard male
shirt block which has been in existence for well over one hundred years.

This figure is not available online. This figure is not available online.
Please consult the hardcopy thesis Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library available from the QUT Library

Figure 11. Shirt Block Construction 1870 Figure 12. Shirt Block Construction 2006

My first foray in this direction was conducted in miniature. Taking the technique
of cutting garments on the bias – where fabric is cut at a forty-five degree angle
to the selvedge of the fabric – a shirt block was drafted in miniature, cut and
sewn to be placed on the body of a toy “Ken” doll. This method was a playful
recreation of the method used by French designer Madeleine Vionnet (1876–
1975) who draped bias fabric directly onto the half-scale body of a wooden
mannequin. I thought this technique would instigate the same rush of fresh ideas
it inspired in Vionnet. The proportions of the doll were surprisingly similar to that
of a full-scale model and the size allowed for quick results determined only by
the process of covering a form in fabric.

Despite my original enthusiasm, working in sixth scale was frustratingly fiddly

and the process ground to a halt. I was still inspired however by Vionnet’s idea
of creating garments which took their conceptual departure point as the body
itself and the possibilities the three-dimensionality of her cutting technique would
inspire in menswear design and construction. It was the fundamental creative
freedom of Vionnet’s draping technique through which, with the tiny toiles in my

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hands, I came to see the male garment as a whole, rather than an object
comprised from its original three component parts (front, back and sleeve).

Figure 13. The basic shirt block “components” – back, front and sleeves

Figure 14. The reconfigured components Figure 15. The final reconfigured block design template

By reconfiguring these component parts and forming them into a single whole I
was left with a template which could be endlessly manipulated without the
shoulder and armhole seaming influencing my design decisions. This re-
configuration of the blocks meant the underarm seams on the sleeve and the
side seams of the body still existed, but could be repositioned at will; as could all
seaming, as seen in three designs in fig.17 below. In this way the use of this
design template follows Vionnet’s cutting method in its inspiration, with the work
on paper being the two-dimensional modelling of that inspiration. This may seem
at odds with Vionnet’s three-dimensionality, yet I would argue that this two-

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dimensional modelling is the compromise that needs to be made because the
form my practice takes is the creation of male clothing. By this, I mean that the
basis of men’s clothing is one that is in tune with the simple shapes that come
from a close fitting fabric recreation of the body shape that is then increased in
size in varying degrees to create the fashionable silhouette. Therefore, the basic
shapes that I use to start the development of these new, womenswear inspired
garments are ones I have drafted from the neat measurements of the male
body. It could also be pointed out that garments modelled directly on the dummy
have to be removed, unpinned and transformed into working paper patterns if
the styles are to be recreated. Therefore, the process enables reproduction
without stilting creation.

Figure 16. Designs based on reconfigured shirt design template

At this point I perhaps need to fully explain the garment designs in fig. 17. These
shapes start out as the basic reconfigured shirt template and through a process
of give and take within the somewhat more ambiguous areas of back, front and
sleeves, they evolve into new designs. By this, I mean that if a piece of the side
back of the template is cut off and joined onto the front side front, the design
lines change, but the garment shape and fit is unaffected. After this process is
complete, and the garment is sewn together, the design lines – the seams –
spiral or sweep around and across the body in a more intuitive manner than
when the template comprised of component parts. It is through utilising this

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method that most of my garments have been created. At first abstract, these
designs possess a lyrical quality generally unknown in menswear and yet upon
construction, still offer an obvious familiarity.

The reconfigured template disallows underarm shaping and consequently the

fitting provided by the complete armhole and shaped sleeve head. Therefore, as
per the womenswear tradition, this is evaluated during the patternmaking,
toileing and fitting stages of the sampling procedure and is dependant on the
contingencies of style and fabric. In this way, the practice ultimately has less to
do with the controlled decisions of the maker than the possibilities and
practicalities that present themselves as the product evolves before my eyes.
This is what Carter describes as “that simple but enigmatic step, joining hand,
eye and mind.” This is a process of “material thinking” (2004, xii).

It should be noted, also, that the new shirt configuration does not replace the
original blocks, but is an adjunct to them. It is my hope to extend the possibilities
of menswear design, not simply replace one system with another. Therefore,
this new template helps reconsider the possibilities of designing for the male
body. Due to a non-specific shaping that refers to the body and not traditional
garment styling it is also transferable between the staples of the male wardrobe,
accordingly I have used this approach to patternmaking to design vests, t-shirts,
shirts, jackets and coats. In Fabric, Form and Flat Pattern Cutting, I came to
discover Aldrich’s use of a similar configuration technique for womenswear
which she calls the “shaped kimono block.” Similar to my experience, she
considers this a “map” rather than a block “on which an infinite number of style
lines can be drawn” (1996, 97). While this discovery shows that the concept of
my configuration is not new – the use of the kimono as a design base for
western women’s clothing being introduced in the late nineteenth century – it
should be noted that despite Aldrich’s referencing of generic unisex shaping –
particularly in Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear (1997) – she makes no
connection between her configuration and its potential use for menswear design.

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 A similar template has not been developed for the pant block. This is due to the
more complicated fit requirements particular to lower body garments. Pattern
development involving the crotch area can be seen in a similar light to the
arm/body connection, yet a more intensive fitting process is required. The
removal of both or either of the vertical seams in the pant creates a “problem”
that both confuses and challenges this garment shaping and construction
processes. So confusing at times was the process of construction that merely
thinking through the sewing method was not enough and it was only through the
actual sewing of the garment, that the process could be remembered. In this
aspect of my creative research practice, as Carter argues, “the process of
making the work becomes inseparable from what is produced” (2004, 11).
Figures 18 & 19 show traditional pant block shapes compared to the possibility
of the reconfigured patterns developed through my research project.

This figure is not available online.

Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available from the QUT Library

Figure 17. Traditional pant block Figure 18. Reconfigured pant patterns

The shirt block configuration and the manipulation of the pant block, as already
noted, are transferable between the staples of the male wardrobe, and in spite
of my acceptance of the womenswear techniques at my disposal, the
evolutionary aspect of male attire deserved my respect and meant that
boundaries be determined. As a method of defining these boundaries I

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categorised four major fundamentals of my practice through their normative
binary oppositions – see Appendix. The highlighted (in bold) elements of the
clothing design, patternmaking and garment construction categories indicate
how I utilised them based solely on the interest I had in them as technical
elements, without consideration of preordained gender associations. Seeing
them as gender neutral, they became variables in an ongoing journey of
discovery, rather than points of contention. The process became a physical
example of Butler’s possibility of gender in the form of clothing. The elements
gained a flexibility of meaning whereby choices could be reconsidered as the
practice developed. What I want/need to incorporate today in my work can be
dismissed or revaluated dependant upon the garment/design rather than any
pre-existing societal gender association.

Taking the first category, the limited range of four “masculine” garment types
indicates the evolutionary aspects of menswear development. As Hollander
states “if the shape of the complete costume is the medium, restraint must be
exercised simply to keep the clothed body socially intelligible and not ridiculous”
(1994, 69). Appropriately for menswear, as I am not interested in creating drama
for its own sake, I selected a limited range of garments that I felt comfortable to
work with through this research project and which symbolise generic elements of
the male wardrobe. This limitation helped me present several alternatives for
each garment type, establishing a practice which can be flexed as required
within the parameters of both future fashion developments and my own clothing
design practice.

An interesting example of the ingrained aspect of gender association which

flexed within the garments was the gender divide between the right over left
closure of feminine garments and the opposite method of fastening masculine
garments. There appears to be no established explanation for this gendered
practice. In The Development of Costume, Naomi Tarrant (1994) offers several
explanations for the disparity of fastening methods, with no clear determinant. I

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resolved to take either alternative out of the equation by reducing the closure to
that of metal clips positioned down the centre front without a crossover in either
direction – see fig. 20. This succeeded until I realised that the clips themselves
are gendered, one side having a protrusion and the other an indentation and
thus classified “male” and “female”. In another gendered example, a beige
fleece jacket, hook and eye fastenings are used both internally and externally to
secure the overlays. In this instance, the resulting “feminine” overlay of right side
over left came about due to some confusion in correctly positioning the fastening
itself, so that the garment remained closed securely. It wasn’t until the garment
was fitted on the dummy that this became apparent and proves that by
considering garments technically, such normative issues can take a secondary
position.

Figure 19. Black voile shirt

The technical aspect of the design of my garments follows through to their

discernable decorative elements. Here I am following the modernist imperative
of Madeleine Vionnet, whose technique of embedding the decorative within the
structure of the garment resonates with my belief that there need be no
differentiation between the conception, design and development of new garment

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designs. Vionnet scholar, Betty Kirke notes the unified quality of Vionnet’s
clothes arguing that, “the integration of dressmaking and design was so
complete that no part of the design could be removed without destroying the
dress” (1991, 150). I also utilise this form of design integration, rather than
design application. The direct influence of Vionnet is seen in the voile shirt in fig.
20 where the fabric is at once structural, decorative and practical. The tucked
front is representative of the effect of a traditional masculine evening shirt, yet it
is cut in one with the front body of the garment and is not an applied panel. This
provides a practical way of facing the front edge of garment, gives structure to
the thin fabric, and serves a decorative end. The rows of tucking are echoed in
the topstitched collar and the darted shoulder detail which shapes the shoulder.
A more plainly decorative effect is achieved through the placement of coloured
beads on the back of a white linen shirt – fig. 21. In this instance however, the
decoration is dependant upon the structure of the shirt itself, the beads
highlighting the garment’s seaming – in particular the square back armhole –
and emphasising the garments three-dimensional qualities rather than the
predetermined application of a design element based on a flat sketch.

Figure 20. White linen shirt

The sense of indeterminacy inherent in the three-dimensionally designed

garment is of great interest to me as a practitioner. By this, I mean that the

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simple shapes of component-based garments present a clear visual form easily
“read” by the potential wearer. These shapes present a defined, yet flat, sense
of structure, one without a natural relationship to the body. Especially in
masculine clothing, seaming provides a framework through which the garment is
interpreted, e.g. shoulder seams represent the “top” of the garment, to be hung
and worn “this way up”. Side and underarm seams on upper body garments,
and inner and outer seams on pants perform a similar task, as well as being
production enablers: cutting the garment into more physically manageable and
clearly discernable pieces for cutting, bundling and sewing. By combining the
component parts, this visual framework is unified and “reading” a garment
becomes an exercise based upon an interpretation of how it relates to the body
rather than how it relates to a coat hanger. I enjoy the possibility that without the
body – as with various feminine clothes – the garments might lose their form or
purpose. However it may be seamed and shaped, fabric only takes on the
function of a garment when directly related to corporeal structure. Its creation is
in direct relation to the planes and contours of the body surface, so much so that
without the body to infuse it with life, confusion enters the equation and
interpretation is skewed.

Figure 21. Wool jersey vest

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While confusion is limited by the generic shapes of menswear, this concept
offers the possibility for further experimentation within the genre. What is
interesting for me, in regard to my own practice, is the way in which the seaming
and inherent “decoration” introduces a new visual journey around the body.
Perhaps the most advanced of the garments presented in this regard is seen in
fig.22, a wool jersey vest shown above.

The formation of the garment surface is disturbed by the “slashes” that dissipate
the simple component parts normally associated with the garment type. As
seams sewn to form a whole, the panels would become a decorative feature of
the vest, yet left open and connected only at their intersecting points, the
garment becomes dependent on the body for its total realisation. The number of
holes also both blurs the intended purpose of the openings for head, arms and
body, and focuses the wearer’s attention on the relationship their body has to
the garment in a way perhaps more in tune with feminine clothing.

Figure 22. Wool coat Figure 23. Fleece jacket Figure 24. Knit jumper

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Further blurring of the definitions implied by the traditional shirt block system is
enabled by the removal of the obviously defined “shoulder-centric” seaming of
the component shirt. By its removal, the garment contours fall from and against
the body reflecting the wearer’s form, the fabric drape, and providing the
definition of shoulder line/point, without the visual hierarchy of the “fake”
shoulder. The fall of the sleeve becomes dependent upon the shoulder not on
the construction of the garment as shown in figs. 23, 24 & 25 below. In this way,
seaming which flows across the upper body presents itself more as an integral
part of the garment than a production economy. This is perhaps the most subtly
accessible method through which a more traditionally feminine draped form can
be reintroduced into the male wardrobe. The over-sizing of men’s t-shirts, shirts
and jackets based on the conventional pattern forms provides for a similar end
result, yet the “dropped” shoulder line these styles possess adds a distortion to
the natural flow of the fabric pieces.

Figure 25. The Male Fashion Bias Exhibition

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To emphasise the practical outcomes of my design methodology, and to enable
the viewer to appreciate the garments beyond the seemingly generic menswear
shapes presented, displaying the finished garments required an equally fresh
eye. To acknowledge these technical experiments were not quite what they first
appeared to be; I decided that they should not be shown on the body, although
they did need to be embodied. The use of a moulded shoulder and neck support
for the prototypes represented a body, yet one without the gender associations
and commercial focus of the male “fashion model”. Hanging the pieces allowed
for a floating effect offering an unimpeded 360° view of the total garment surface
further enhancing the seaming and construction effects. This was particularly
effective in the upside-down hanging of the pants, emphasising the twisted
seaming and reworked crotch and pocket detailing. The sheerness of some
fabrics and the lack of a total body within the garments further highlighted both
the decoration inherent in seaming and the internal structure of the two vests on
show. An additional unintended benefit of the suspension of the clothes was the
way in which they were caught by the air-conditioning and appeared to sway in
time with the jazz music, another humanising element despite an obvious
absence of said body.

Figure 26. Wool jersey t-shirt

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Conclusion

This document has described some of the processes of my design practice and
drawn connections with both fashion history and fashion theory. The outcomes
of my research are embedded in the material objects that I have made. Thus for
me ‘the proof is in the product’. The intention of my practical research was to
uncover the processes through which womenswear patternmaking and
construction techniques could be utilised to promote change within menswear
design. The possibility of the new in womenswear design is the determining
factor in my attraction to fashion, inevitably leading me to use it as design
inspiration for my menswear practice. In opposition to this, menswear designer’s
and manufacturer’s determination to “stick with what they know” up to this point
has meant that, despite a two hundred year history, modern menswear is still in
its infancy. By rethinking the basic elements of menswear – the component
blocks – I am providing a catalyst for a major shift in the way designers
approach the future of menswear. The practical outcomes of this research, the
clothes themselves, constitute neither precisely a ‘collection’ nor a series of non
wearable ‘experiments.’ The work in its current form is akin to a set of prototypes
– samples awaiting production. Their next stage (which I have not explored as
part of this project) would see them enter into the world of desire and beauty
which fuels consumption in the fashion industry. To this end, the aspirations
that I have for my creative design practice are perhaps best encapsulated by
French philosopher Roland Barthes who “refereed a contest” in the 1967
between the classicism of Gabrielle Chanel and the futurism of André
Courrèges;

If we want to keep these two sides of the same side together,

and undifferentiated…then fashion will have been made into a
truly poetic subject, constituted collectively, so that we are then
presented with the profound spectacle of an ambiguity rather
than that of us being spoiled by a pointless choice (Barthes
2006, 109).

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Appendix

Garment Types Clothing Design

Male Female Male Female

Pant Skirt Tailored Draped
Shirt Blouse Symmetry Asymmetry
Coat Shawl Fit Form
Vest Bodice Texture Colour
Cape Mantle Detail Silhouette
Singlet Camisole Simplicity Complexity
Long johns Catsuit Conformity Contradiction
Boxers Panties Evolution Revolution
Night shirt Night gown Comfort Tension
Socks Stockings Structural Fluid
Belt Sash Technology Craft
Jock strap G string Durable Insubstantial
Practical Aesthetic
Tradition Trend

Patternmaking Garment Construction

Male Female Male Female

Square Round Patch Appliqué
Pleat Gather Welt seam French seam
Straight Curved Machine Hand sewn
sewn
Flat Uneven Front closure Back closure
Loose Tight Buttons Zips
Panels Darts Drawcord Elastic
Fit Flare Welt pocket Patch pocket
Closed Open Fly front Side opening
Measure Estimate Velcro Hook & eye
Straight Bias Topstitching Piping
Draft Drape Binding Facing

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