A Prance to the Music of Time

Sam Smith photographed by Alasdair McLellan, Hertfordshire, June 16, 2020. Stylist Ben Reardon. Styling Assistant Niccolo Torelli. Hair Anthony Turner. Make-up Anne Sofie Costa. Photography assistance Lex Kembery and Simon Mackinlay. Sam wears cotton poplin tie-neck shirt by Hermes. Black wool oversized blazer and navy wool pinstripe trousers by Random Identities. Pearl drop earring; gold and emerald brooch vintage. Silver signet ring and ‘Love Goes’ identity bracelet engraved with Sam Smith’s handwriting by Bunney.

‘The truly fashionable are beyond fashion.’ So wrote Cecil Beaton, the photographer who could conjure a princess out of anybody including our own, actual, princesses. Beaton’s 1937 home-made party coat of corduroy with whipped-up roses and wool-bobbled leaves, made with the same romantic brio he used to photograph his famous sitters, is in one of many good garment groupings in Fashioning Masculinities. But, as this large well-structured exhibition proves, the truly fashionable are also slap in the middle of fashion, making it as they go along; out of it for a millisecond until spotted and copied, then sucked into the mainstream by their startle and success. For the show brilliantly emphasises, with groupings on dais and wall — good paintings, good sculpture, good film — as well as in vitrines — the coincidences, collisions, reverberations and reflections that reach so easily from the 17th century to today, in a glad-handing joyfulness of cut, colour, fabric and feeling.

Portrait of Prince Alessandro Farnese by Sofonisba Anguissola, c.1560. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland

 The V&A draws on its own unparalleled collection but has also pulled in an array of big portraits of elegant European and British sitters from elsewhere. Unusually, about 100 artefacts accompany the 100 or so garments, giving excellent balance. The many paintings, most lifesize or bigger, include pretty Prince Alessandro Farnese by Sofanisba Anguissola (1560) above and the gigantic Joshua Reynold’s 1773 portrait of Charles Coote, wearing the Order of the Bath (as well as some gold tassels that belong on a large curtain) below. These all give a wonderfully lush sense of what clothes really looked like on, and bring the exhibition to life.

Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Charles Coote, 1773-1774. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland

Here are velvets and furs, frou-frou and linens, evening coats and birthday suits, viciously narrow boots and waists, seductively emblazoned waistcoats and coats; capes; jockstraps and posing pouches, slouches, long dresses for men and evening suits for men as well as Garboesque women (including a 1932 nip-waister worn by Marlene “I am at heart a gentleman” Dietrich), plus some fine appurtenances, such as a wooden ‘travelling’ dressing case that would take two men to move safely, whose silver tools would kit out a surgery. One magnificent smaller Dutch 18th century set of tortoiseshell dressed with massy silver contains six cut-throat razors for that silken chin. Six! It shares a case with a 1683 Bernini bust of Thomas Baker and a carved wooden Gross Point de Venise neck cloth carved by Grinling Gibbons that Horace Walpole once wore for fun in 1769 (he owned it):  Joy!

 This avalanche of glamour is grounded by great understanding, resulting in an intelligent show without pedantry that opens a discussion about male attire and sows the seeds for many more focused exhibitions. Bravo. For Fashioning Masculinities was set at such a high conceptual bar that it could easily have ended up as a romp through European male clothing and fashion; a superficial skid — never done for women’s clothes, never contemplated. A real risk. But curators Claire Wilcox and Rosalind McKever sail above that potential trap. Sure, they’ve crammed stuff in (elegantly). Here and there one can almost feel the exasperation of needful selection. As with the penultimate dais of leather jackets — a rather random selection — plus a Teddy Boy suit at the end looking a bit Johnny-no-mates. But the point Is, they got it in.

Harris Reed Fluid Romanticism 001. Photographer Giovanni Corabi.

 There are rich rewards too numerous to mention. But for me, these were some of the standouts: first, the portraits. So many, all striking, handsome, lusciously dressed, many counterpointed with some great clothing nearby. Take for example naval captain Gilbert Heathcote by William Owen in about 1801. A smouldering dandy wearing his own wealthy version of naval uniform with more gold braid than a Christmas tree, groin forwards, bedroom eyes; a come-hither look if one ever saw it. While in a glass case nearby is the much less gilded but beautifully cut coat of Admiral Lord Nelson himself. Worn at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, its empty right arm neatly held with a button loop across the chest. Slim, poignant, elegant.

In a wonderful section on evening dress lolls another showstopper. Painted with hyper realism in 1803 by Merry-Joseph Blondel, Pierre-Jean Georges Cabanis sits cross-legged in eye-wateringly tight black satin that highlights every bulge, while neck and head above are fenced in with the highest stock and cravat possible. Curiously resembling a younger Gary Glitter, he out-Brummells Beau Brummell.

New Adventures, Spitfire - an advertisement divertissement. Director & Choreographer Matthew Bourne. Costume Designer Lez Brotherston. Associate Artistic Director Etta Murfitt. Dancers Will Bozier, Harrison Dowzell, Glenn Graham, Andrew Monaghan, Liam Mower, Dominic North. Featured in Dancing Nation by Sadler’s Wells & BBC Arts, Jan 2021. Photo: Kaasam Aziz

Anthony Patrick Manieri, Nude 1, London, England, April 2016 © Anthony Patrick Manieri

 From the first section on underwear (the films of Matthew Bourne’s dancers in white underpants above, or of naked men dancing in slow-mo above are stunning); the middle section of colour, elegance, bravura and sizzle from all periods; the third section about the suit and evening attire, to the final fun mini cat-walk through a hall of mirrors showing three gowns — including Christian Siriano’s black, rather Gone with The Wind number worn by Billy Porter in 2019, and Bimini Bon Boulash’s white nylon and rhinestone extravaganza by Ella Lynch and Misty Couture, you’re in for a complete treat.

Whether you come away knowing more about masculinity and gender boundaries, you’ll definitely come away exhilarated, not only knowing more about how beautifully beautiful men have dressed through the past few centuries whenever they got the chance and the right tailor, but also how many men absolutely gloried in their clothes. These are rich clothes; the poor and downtrodden are not here. But fashion was ever thus.

Wool coat and trousers, and silk top hat, United States, 1845-1853.   © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 19 March – 6 November 2022. In partnership with Gucci. Vam.ac.uk/masculinities

Please note: Copyright images on this blog may not be used elsewhere.

Image on blog opening page: Rahemur Rahman, Collections 3. Courtesy Rahemur Rahman. Photographer Daniele Fummo