Fashioning Men

On reading ‘Pants Man!’ a number of readers pointed out the serendipity of the Australian Prime Minister ‘launching’ this year’s Melbourne Fashion Week as an entrant in the category of ‘Current COVID Couture’.

While reflecting on ScoMo’s attire, I was reminded of the work of John Carl Flügel – the English academic psychologist, prominent member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and leading figure in the movement for liberal social reform between the two world wars.

As a member of the ‘Men’s Dress Reform Party’ (MDRP), Flügel published The Psychology of Clothes in 1930.

The MDRP, formed in 1929, was concerned with the impact of clothes on men’s health and hygiene. Arising out of the injuries and casualties of the First World War, and the increasing public interest in the capabilities and general health of the human body, it attracted several notable members including the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the senior surgeon Sir Arbuthnot Lane, the artist Richard Sickert and the actor Ernest Thesiger (best remembered for his role as Doctor Pretorius in the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein).

Considering men’s clothing to be ugly, uncomfortable, restricting, dirty (because unwashable) and therefore unhealthy, the MDRP’s solution was to get rid of pants, hats, closed-toe shoes and ties. Casual loose clothing made from linen or silk was favoured and open ‘free-the-neck’ shirts, shorts or kilts, high socks, and sandals were the recommendation.

Flügel was instrumental in providing a theoretical and psychological understanding for the importance in the changes to men’s dress. This Freudian-inspired analysis of fashion explored the idea that clothing is a ‘compromise-formation’ which mediates between the desire of children to exhibit their naked bodies and the later social prohibition that bodies be covered for the sake of modesty.

While it might be expected that Flügel would examine clothing from a psychosexual perspective, he preferred to use Freud’s notion of the id, superego and ego to develop his theory on socio-political lines. For Flügel, the id (or primitive instinct which propels us) wants us to ‘let it all hang out’ while the superego (the primitive but crude and harsh controller of desire) wants to keep it all ‘tucked nicely away’. This provides the ego with the difficult task of mediation so that we can exist as a ‘functioning social entity’.

Flügel assigns political values to each of these dimensions of the mind and concludes that clothing is a prime area of dispute between political liberals and conservatives over what sort, and how much, clothing is appropriate in a civilised society.

Looking back in time, Flügel claimed that since the end of the 18^th century, men had ignored the colourful, elaborate and varied forms of ‘masculine ornamentation’ (the Great Masculine Renunciation in his words) and had ‘abandoned the claim to be considered beautiful … [opting instead] at only being useful’. The French Revolution had led to an increasingly dull male look as people dressed as inconspicuously bourgeois as possible to escape the guillotine.

Industrialisation and mass-produced fabrics added to the uniformity of men’s clothing and this was intensified with the First World War and militarisation. Following the war, military-style uniformity created a culture of men who were happy to see others dressed like them, as opposed to seeing those who craved individuality. Flügel and his colleagues believed that the depressing ubiquity of ordinary male attire was due to ‘oppression by capitalist labour’.

Flügel also highlighted the changing role of women in the second and third decades of the 20^th century. Feminism was developing in the interwar period as women had taken over from men during World War I in jobs, education and social life. The emancipation of women reflected in their clothing could also happen for males, as it had occurred in previous centuries. Indeed, it was Flügel’s respect for what he saw as the positive mental health benefits provided by contemporary forms of female dress that led him to advocate the reform of men’s clothing.

Despite some promising early interest – there were more than 200 branches around the world, including in Australia – ultimately, the MDRP petered out in 1940 as its vision, which was perceived as both juvenile or ‘too womanly’, failed to capture the public imagination. Its eventual demise came about when a bomb destroyed its London office. For more information on the MDRP see: ‘Better and Brighter Clothes: The Men’s Dress Reform Party, 1929-1940’ by Barbara Burman in the Journal of Design History, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1995.

While it is easy to poke fun at ScoMo’s COVID costume, I am impressed that he has embraced the ‘half Flügel’ look. I wondered if this was compromise clothing, but I think it is probably the perfect political outfit – appealing to both conservatives and liberals at the same time.

However, I do hope ScoMo might embrace the ‘full Flügel’ and PAM’s Space Face outfit (with track pants) from 2008/9 could be a good step on the way …