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Mind and muscle: Deconstructing the uniform of masculinity in the time of AIDS
Abstract
Perceptions of the boundaries of masculinity have often been questioned in menswear, with the masculine ideal continually reimagined to create a balance between itself and its counterpart, femininity. During the 1980s AIDS crisis, this adopted uniform of masculinity was subverted within queer society leading to a new male identity that contested tacit knowledge of menswear design. The focus of this article is to showcase this shift in male image and to explore how gay semiotics was associated with the development of the modern gay male stance through clothing and social empowerment, opposing the negativity that surrounded the AIDS virus. This research is personally motivated by the primary author, where he seeks to delve further into the under-researched area of queer masculinity utilizing a practical, experimental methodology. Representation of what is seen as queer masculinity is often shown as biased within society, characterizing the gay man. This project presents, through the practices of menswear design, how this characterization has developed within the context of the male body. It aims to contest the boundaries of traditional men’s tailoring, its formality and the masculine ideal that it represents, by juxtaposing it with the homoerotic art of the time and the craft of AIDS sufferers of the 1980s period. Using object-study and practical methods of deconstruction and repair of case study (bespoke and non-bespoke) men’s tailored jackets, the research manifests in physical experimentation and aesthetic visualization, which is recorded in a creative process journal. The acts of physical deconstruction and the practice of repair are then analysed through the process of design development (drawing, sourcing and sampling). The synthesized findings draw parallels with deconstructed tailoring found in vintage photographs of men at work, which are further triangulated with homoerotic photographic art of the 1980s and the act of repair found in the stitch therapy of AIDS sufferers. These are embedded in the construction of the final artefact through the practice of garment design (drawing, pattern-cutting, toiling and making) and craftsmanship (stitching by hand). The processes employed and final artefact produced document and present how ideals of masculinity in the time of AIDS can be both physically and metaphorically deconstructed, then reconstructed as a garment-based outcome (men’s tailored jacket) in practice-led research. The final artefact showcases delicacy in design through the act of stitching by hand and the repair of the deconstructed robust exteriors found in tailoring and associated with the masculine ideal.
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Textile crafts have mainly been women’s work in Finland, but tailors—the makers of men’s suits and coats—have mostly been men. There were still 2,500 tailors in Finland in the 1940s, but bespoke tailors gradually lost their customers because of ready-made clothes.
However, in the countryside, bespoke tailoring lasted until the 1960s. One of those country tailors was the author’s grandfather, Einari Tiainen (1908‐76), who worked as a tailor from the 1920s to the 1960s. In this article, Finnish tailoring practice is studied from the point
of view of Einari Tiainen, but also from the point of view of trade publications. This article concentrates on the processes of designing and making clothes, and on the gendered aspects of tailoring practice. In order to define tailoring in contrast to dressmaking, this article compares the
country tailor’s practice with that of his sisters who were dressmakers. The study shows that garment making was divided between the tailor and the dressmaker according to gender, different traditions and values in the design and manufacturing of men’s and women’s clothes,
as well as the types of and structural differences in the clothing. The changes of bespoke tailoring in Finland are also explained. Bespoke tailoring declined because of industrial garment making, made-to-measure suits, and the changes in clothing and consumer habits.
It would seem that one of the intentions of the viewer of gay pornography would be to see the sexual engagement of the participants (and perhaps the “money shot”) with a focus upon the gymnastics and writhing of bodies that constitute the practice and representation of sexual activity within the film. However, before nudity or nakedness is presented the “characters” are dressed. Using the films and photography of Colt Studio and its founder Jim French from the period 1967‐81 as a focus this article explores the ways in which the “characters” are constructed through their clothing and costuming. It will address the ways in which these “icons” of masculinity that had developed in the pre-liberation physique magazines and stag films reflected the prototypes, archetypes, and stereotypes of post-liberation gay identity and dressed appearance in the fifteen years following the Stonewall riots and gay liberation. Colt Studio was famed for its particular presentation of hypermasculine images and a “stable” of masculine actors that included Clone superstar Al Parker. This article will offer an analysis of the use of particular items of clothing and the iconic styles of leatherman, motorcycle cop, and gay clone in Colt’s output of this period.