Men's Fashion

In his book Culture and Everyday Life, Andy Bennett provides a definition of fashion that highlights the fact that fashion has a particular utilitarian function wholly apart from that of clothing, and though a simple observation, this fact forces one to reconsider how men's fashion has been regarded for at least the last eighty years. In his book, Bennett writes that "fashion provides one of the most ready means through which individuals can make expressive visual statements about their identities," a claim most people would readily agree with (Bennett 2000, p. 96). However, this claim has not been taken to its logical conclusion in the many major academic texts regarding fashion, and particularly men's fashion, due to the erroneous belief that at some point in the nineteenth century, men "renounced" fashion, deeming it feminine and thus outside the sphere of male activity. In reality, the so-called "Great Masculine...
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