Clothing and Embodiment: Men Managing Body Image and Appearance

Abstract

Research suggests that cultural shifts in the ways men's bodies are represented lead men to feel increasingly dissatisfied with their appearance. Clothing is an ideal but underresearched mechanism for appearance management; however, little is known about men's presentation of their bodies through clothed displays. This article explores the ways in which men's subjective feelings about their bodies influence their clothing practices. Thematic analysis revealed 4 key themes: practicality of clothing choices, lack of concern about appearance, use of clothing to conceal or reveal the body, and use of clothing to fit cultural ideals. This article demonstrates the pervasive and mundane role of clothing in men's self-surveillance and self-presentation and the range and complexity of the processes involved in clothing the body. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

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Clothing and Embodiment: Men Managing Body Image
and Appearance
Hannah Frith and Kate Gleeson
University of the West of England
Research suggests that cultural shifts in the ways men’s bodies are represented lead men to feel
increasingly dissatisfied with their appearance. Clothing is an ideal but underresearched mecha-
nism for appearance management; however, little is known about men’s presentation of their
bodies through clothed displays. This article explores the ways in which men’s subjective feelings
about their bodies influence their clothing practices. Thematic analysis revealed 4 key themes:
practicality of clothing choices, lack of concern about appearance, use of clothing to conceal or
reveal the body, and use of clothing to fit cultural ideals. This article demonstrates the pervasive
and mundane role of clothing in men’s self-surveillance and self-presentation and the range and
complexity of the processes involved in clothing the body.
Although not typically addressed by psychologists,
we argue that men’s embodied clothing practices is
an interesting and important topic for several reasons.
First, research suggests that changing representations
of the male body make men increasingly aware of
and dissatisfied with bodies that do not meet this
cultural ideal. Although psychologists have looked to
extreme forms of body modification (e.g., plastic sur-
gery, excessive exercise, bodybuilding) as evidence
of men’s attempts to mold their bodies to fit the ideal,
more mundane self-presentation strategies have been
overlooked. We propose that men’s clothing prac-
tices are an important and pervasive form of appear-
ance management that reflects the continued moni-
toring of their visual selves.
Second, it is often assumed that men are uninter-
ested in fashion and clothing, and most research fo-
cuses exclusively on women. However, analyses in
sociology and cultural studies suggest that changes in
the advertising of men’s clothing lead them to de-
velop new, more narcissistic relationships to their
clothed selves. Little empirical research exploring the
possible impact of these trends on men’s clothing
practices exists. We aim to contribute to the existing
literature in these two disparate areas (clothing prac-
tices and body image) and to develop an analysis of
clothing as an embodied and situated practice (cf.
Entwistle, 2001).
Clothing Practices
Clothing and fashion are typically seen as frivo-
lous, trivial, and inconsequential and have been dis-
missed as unworthy of serious academic analysis.
Within psychology, clothing is marginalized within
the narrowly focused field of person perception,
which addresses how clothing is perceived by others
rather than how the wearer uses clothing to construct
a particular image (see Damhorst, 1990, for an over-
view). This approach is limited because it uses arti-
ficial clothing stimuli (e.g., uniformed or ritualized
dress), ignores people’s everyday clothing practices,
and overlooks the context-specific meaning of cloth-
ing (Tse¨lon, 2001). It also treats clothing as the ex-
pression of preexisting essentialized identities.
Only a handful of studies have investigated the
possible connections between body image and cloth-
ing practices, and all focus on women. These suggest
that women use clothing to manage their appearance
and camouflage their size and shape (Rudd & Len-
non, 2000). Typically, these studies attempt to estab-
lish the existence of individual differences in clothing
practices and are underpinned by the assumption of a
causal relationship between body satisfaction and
clothing practices. Women who are less satisfied with
their body apparently choose clothing to conceal the
body, whereas those who are more satisfied choose
clothing to accentuate the body (Harden, Butler, &
Scheetz, 1998). When women “feel fat,” they use
clothes for comfort and camouflage; when they “feel
slim” they use clothes to express their individuality,
to gain confidence, and to look fashionable (Kwon &
Parham, 1994). However, women with different body
builds are equally interested in, and concerned about,
clothing (L. L. Davis, 1985), and women’s generally
Hannah Frith and Kate Gleeson, Centre for Appearance
Research, Schools of Psychology, University of the West of
England.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Hannah Frith, University of the West of England,
St. Matthias Campus, Oldbury Court Road, Fishponds, Bris-
tol BS16 2JP, England.
Psychology of Men & Masculinity Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation
2004, Vol. 5, No. 1, 40–48 1524-9220/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1524-9220.5.1.40
40

high interest in clothing makes it difficult to distin-
guish between different groups of women on the ba-
sis of clothing practices (Kwon, 1992). These con-
tradictory findings suggest that our understanding of
the links between body image and clothing practices
is far from complete.
Psychological research on dress and clothing prac-
tices is concerned almost exclusively with women.
One rationale for this is that men are less interested in
clothing (Kwon, 1997; Minshall, Winakor, & Swin-
ney, 1982; Solomon & Schloper, 1982), spend less
money on clothing (Crane, 2000; Nelson, 1989), and
are less involved in shopping for clothes (Peters,
1989). It is often assumed that
Men dress for fit and comfort rather than style; that
women dress and buy clothes for men; that men who
dress up are peculiar (one way or another); that men do
not notice clothes; and that most men have not been
duped into the endless pursuit of seasonal fads. (Craik,
1994, p. 176)
However, the rapid expansion of menswear since the
1980s (Edwards, 1997; Nixon, 1996; Spencer, 1992)
and the development of specialist style magazines
(such as Gentlemen’s Quarterly and Arena) enable
men to relate to their clothed bodies in new ways.
The fusion of consumption and identity apparent in
market segmentation places a greater emphasis on
narcissistic aspects of self previously unavailable to
men and evokes a greater emphasis on appearance
and display. Despite these trends, we could find no
studies that explore the interconnection of body im-
age and clothing practices for men.
Appearance and Body Image
Most psychological research on body image fo-
cuses on women because it is assumed that they face
greater pressures than men to be a particular size and
shape. Such research adopts a causal model in which
cultural standards of beauty define unrealistic body
shapes as “ideal.”Consequently, women become dis-
satisfied with less than ideal bodies and adopt (more
or less) harmful practices to modify their bodies.
However, over the last 15 years, men have come
under increasing pressure to conform to the cultural
ideal of a lean, well-toned, muscular build, which is
reflected in cultural representations (Mishkind, Ro-
din, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1986; Mort, 1988;
Weinke, 1998). Male action toys (Pope, Olivardia,
Gruber, & Borowiecki, 1999) and male centerfolds
(Leit, Pope, & Grey, 2001) have become more mus-
cular, and the naked male body has featured more
frequently in women’s magazines (Pope, Olivardia,
Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2001). A substantial and
growing proportion of men are dissatisfied with their
bodies (Mishkind et al., 1986), and the gap between
men’s and women’s dissatisfaction is decreasing
(McCaulay, Mintz, & Glenn, 1988). Men express
particular dissatisfaction with their biceps, shoulders,
chest, and muscle tone (Cash, Winstead, & Janda,
1986; Furnham & Greaves, 1994). Men’s ideal chest
size is often significantly larger than their actual
chest size (Thompson & Tantleff, 1992), and many
say they want a larger chest (Tantleff-Dunn &
Thompson, 2000). Men and boys do not necessarily
view thinness as an advantage and are as likely to
want to be bigger or heavier as they are to want to be
thinner (C. Davis & Cowles, 1991).
Many of the recognized psychometric scales may
misrepresent men’s dissatisfaction because they are
oriented toward concerns about being overweight
when men are equally concerned about being under-
weight (Grogan, 1999). In addition, more extreme
forms of body dissatisfaction and distortion are a
growing but underrecognized problem. Pope, Gruber,
Choi, Olivardia, and Phillips (1997) coined the term
muscle dysmorphia to describe a pathological preoc-
cupation with muscularity and the perception of be-
ing small despite having a very muscular physique
(see also Olivardia, 2001). Others have proposed that
machismo nervosa, a psychological disorder mani-
fested by excessive weight training, abnormal eating
habits, and cognitive abnormalities, may be con-
nected to the hypermesomorphic ideal body image
(Connan, 1998).
Men engage in various practices to alter the shape
of their bodies and conform to the muscular ideal.
They exercise to gain weight, develop muscles, and
change their shape (C. Davis & Cowles, 1991); have
plastic surgery to swell their pectoral muscles
(Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn,
1999); and use anabolic steroids to develop muscle
more quickly than is possible by weight training
alone (Rickert, Pawlak-Morello, Sheppard, & Jay,
1992; Wroblewska, 1997). These appearance-
management techniques, ranging from the mundane
(e.g., daily grooming) to the extreme (e.g., cosmetic
surgery, self-starvation), provide further evidence of
men’s dissatisfaction. Although most psychological
research has, understandably, focused on those forms
of appearance management that directly impact on
health, this has been at the expense of theorizing the
links among body image, subjectivity, and everyday
practices. As Weinke (1998) noted,
The implication of existing research is that there are
great social-psychological costs for not fitting the cul-
MEN MANAGING BODY IMAGE AND APPEARANCE 41

tural ideal. Yet this research does not consider the ways
men engage with, and actually respond to, the muscu-
lar ideal within the context of their everyday lives; nor
does it give attention to the strategies men use to make
sense of their own bodies in relation to the cultural
ideal. (p. 259)
We focus on mundane methods of appearance man-
agement, such as clothing practices, because this
form of body management is currently underrepre-
sented in empirical research and may be more per-
vasive than other, more extreme forms of body modi-
fication. Specifically, we explore men’s subjective
understanding of the importance of their feelings
about their body in guiding their clothing practices
and whether men use clothing to alter their appear-
ance by concealing or revealing particular aspects of
their body.
Method
Participants
Using an opportunity, snowball-sampling strategy,
undergraduate psychology students recruited 2 par-
ticipants for a study on clothing and the body. A total
of 75 men participated. They ranged in age from 17
to 67 (M⳱25.79 years, SD ⳱11.01 years), al-
though the majority (74%) were in the 17- to 26-year
age group. Volunteers received no remuneration for
their participation. Most participants were White
(93.4%); 3.9% described themselves as Pakistani,
Black, and mixed race. Participants described the
main breadwinner in their household as an employer
or manager (28%), a higher professional (20%), an
intermediate professional (13%), or a lower profes-
sional (13%). Clearly, volunteer bias means that this
sample is not representative of the male population in
the United Kingdom, and the specificity of the
sample is acknowledged.
Procedure
Participants received a pack containing an infor-
mation sheet, consent form, demographic form, and
The Clothing and the Body Questionnaire to com-
plete. The information sheet outlined the purpose of
the research, the nature of their participation, how
data might be used, how to withdraw data, and, be-
cause body image is a sensitive topic, details about
relevant counseling services. The Clothing and the
Body Questionnaire contained four questions: How
much does the way you feel about your body influ-
ence the kinds of clothing you buy or wear? Do you
dress in a way that hides aspects of your body? Do
you dress in a way that emphasizes aspects of your
body? Is there anything else you think we should
know, or are there any questions we should have
asked but didn’t? Respondents were instructed to an-
swer questions fully, giving specific examples and
spending some time thinking about their answers be-
fore they started to write. Spaces for written re-
sponses were provided, and once completed the
forms were returned in sealed envelopes.
Analysis
Responses were analyzed using the inductive the-
matic analysis procedure described by Hayes (2000).
First, the data were read carefully to identify mean-
ingful units of text relevant to the research topic.
Second, units of text dealing with the same issue
were grouped together in analytic categories and
given provisional definitions. The same unit of text
could be included in more than one category. Third,
the data were systematically reviewed to ensure that
a name, definition, and exhaustive set of data to sup-
port each category were identified. The inductive the-
matic analysis resulted in 50 categories, which were
grouped into 5 key themes (see the Appendix for a
full list of themes). The analysis was exhaustive in
that 86.6% of the data were allocated to at least one
category. The coherence and replicability of the
themes were established by a second researcher who
recoded the first question (61.5% of the data) with a
high level of interrater reliability (␬⳱0.9089, SD ⳱
0.1382). Levels of agreement for individual catego-
ries are shown on Table 1.
Results
Although some men wrote at length about how
their use of clothing relates to their feelings about
their body, others wrote very little. The most verbose
responses were given to the first question, in which
men wrote an average of 68 words (SD ⳱41.48,
range ⳱3–206). In response to Questions 2 and 3,
which asked about whether clothing was used to hide
or emphasize the body, men wrote an average of
17.96 (SD ⳱13.35, range ⳱1–67) and 18.08 (SD ⳱
18.49, range ⳱1–78) words, respectively. Analysis
of these responses revealed four key themes
1
: (a)
Men value practicality, (b) men should not care about
1
To aid readability, categories of each theme are pre-
sented followed by the number of units relating to each
category in brackets.
FRITH AND GLEESON42

how they look, (c) clothes are used to conceal or
reveal, and (d) clothes fit a cultural ideal.
Men Value Practicality
Perhaps unsurprisingly, men emphasized the im-
portance of practical rather than aesthetic aspects of
clothing. Clothes should be functional [14]; they
should be fit for purpose, practical, and necessary for
everyday living: “The clothes I buy tend to have a
specific purpose and function.”The prioritization of
comfort [34] suggests that, although other factors do
affect clothing choice, for many men “comfort and
practicability comes first.”To look good and feel
comfortable clothes must fit well [13]: “I think I
spend most effort on finding the best fitting/most
comfortable clothes at a particular occasion.”There
are constraints on finding clothing to meet their
needs, which relate to the cost of clothes [5] and the
fact that physical size imposes limitations on finding
suitable clothes [12]. The frustration of trying to fit
into average-sized clothing was tangible for unusu-
ally tall, broad-shouldered, or short men: “I’m not
short but I find trousers are often too long, making
me fairly paranoid in the length of my legs.”
This approach might have been predicted by mar-
keting research literature and by gender stereotypes.
Although women see shopping as an opportunity to
“try on”new identities (and, therefore, try on a num-
ber of different outfits), men regard shopping simply
as a process of acquiring new clothes; if a gar-
ment fits correctly, then they are likely to buy it
Table 1
The Level of Agreement Between Two Analysts in Coding the Themes
Theme ␬Agreement quality
1. Comfort is my priority. 0.913 Very good
2. I like to stand out. 1 Very good
3. I like to blend in. 0.765 Good
4. I like to look masculine. 1 Very good
5. I want to look heterosexual. 1 Very good
6. I want to look muscled. 0.871 Very good
7. Continuity in appearance is valued. 1 Very good
8. Age affects choice. 0.600 Good
9. Emphasis on functionality/practicality/purpose 0.859 Very good
10. Clothes are used to communicate about roles. 0.600 Good
11. I respond to fashion. 0.818 Very good
12. I am not a fashion victim. 1 Very good
13. I don’t want to appear vain. 1 Very good
14. We shouldn’t care too much about appearance. 1 Very good
15. I like labels. 0.846 Very good
16. I hate labels. 1 Very good
17. I like my clothes to fit well. 0.789 Good
18. I use clothing to motivate weight loss. 0.429 Moderate
19. I want clothes to flatter my body. 1 Very good
20. I want to make my body attractive to women. 1 Very good
21. I want to look taller. 0.875 Very good
22. I want to appear slim. 1 Very good
23. I don’t want to appear too slim. 1 Very good
24. I want to hide my body. 0.945 Very good
25. My physical size limits what I can wear. 0.882 Very good
26. The shape of my body is irrelevant. 0.956 Very good
27. Using clothes to look attractive is not an issue for
men. 1 Very good
28. My style is important. 0.692 Good
29. I like to look tidy. 1 Very good
30. Clothing choices are linked to confidence. 1 Very good
31. There is pressure from others about appearance. 1 Very good
32. Look good 0.840 Very good
33. Cost is an issue. 1 Very good
34. Not being smart 1 Very good
35. Clothes affect people’s judgments. 1 Very good
36. I use clothes to communicate. 1 Very good
37. Acceptance! 0.857 Very good
38. It matters! 1 Very good
MEN MANAGING BODY IMAGE AND APPEARANCE 43

(Underhill, 1999). The look of the garment is appar-
ently irrelevant.
Men Should Not Care How They Look
A second theme depicts a lack of concern with, or
rejection of, the importance of appearance. Few men
argued that body shape does matter [9]; many more
argued that the shape of their body is irrelevant [30],
that it does not influence their choice of clothing, and
that they are not unduly concerned about their ap-
pearance. A typical response was: “I don’t tend to be
concerned about the way I look when I shop for
clothes.”Some men insisted that we should not care
too much about appearance [7] (e.g., “you should not
be overly concerned with your appearance as it is not
the most important thing in life”). Such responses
map onto male gender stereotypes, which suggest
that men are not supposed to be interested in shop-
ping, adornment, and appearance.
Despite this apparent lack of concern, many par-
ticipants described in detail how their clothing prac-
tices were influenced by their feelings about their
body:
I don’t really choose clothing in relation to my body.
But I guess when I try them on then I am taking into
account how they look on me and my body.
I am not very fussed about my body or the way it looks
to extremes. I am aware that clothing is able to make
the body look better and sometimes I will use this to
improve my appearance.
Men talked about wanting to look good [12] and
wanting clothes that flatter the body [16]. They dem-
onstrate expertise in self-presentation and knowledge
about which styles complement their particular body
shape. They use vertical stripes, the “shirt over the
T-shirt”trick, and dark colors to streamline their
shape and enhance their appearance. As one said, “I
do not have a complex about my body, but I do know
what type of clothing makes the most of my build.”
Men’s purported lack of interest in the body is un-
dermined by their careful attention to their clothed
appearance.
Clothes Are Used to Conceal or Reveal
Men’s concerns about their appearance were high-
lighted when they wrote about using clothing to hide
the body [64], often to conceal being overweight.
If I am feeling fat or unappealing, then the clothes I
buy will be thicker, darker, or less revealing.
I tend to wear baggy tops to hide my stomach depend-
ing on how I am feeling about myself on the day.
Clothing practices were linked to confidence with the
body [9]. As 1 participant noted, “I am not very con-
fident about my body as I am very thin and don’t
have much muscle tone. So, I tend to wear loose
fitting clothes to give the impression that I appear to
be larger than I actually am.”
Some men felt they had nothing to hide [18] and
wrote about wanting to display their bodies [15] and
to emphasize particular parts of the body [29]. One
wrote, “My bum is my best feature and it is important
to me that my trousers, including jeans, fit nicely.”
Some clearly had mixed feelings about displaying the
body [17], wanting to both display and conceal dif-
ferent aspects. Men are engaged in an ongoing nego-
tiation body display, which takes into account their
changing perceptions of their physical shape.
If I’m thinking I’m a fat git, I’ll have a tendency to
wear loose clothes and adhere to various methods em-
ployed to make a person look thinner (e.g., a shirt over
a T-shirt). However, on a day when I’m feeling good,
I’ll be thinking under that fat is a reasonable-sized pair
of pecs and I’ll wear something accordingly.
Shifts in attitudes to the body and its display occur on
a daily basis, and clothing becomes involved in an
ongoing negotiation of the body as men try literally
to get it into shape.
My wardrobe is full of a variety of different styles that
satisfy how I feel about my body at the time.
I often buy clothing that I don’t intend to wear until I
broaden (arms and upper body) like vests and tank
tops.
These men are clearly concerned with appearance
and the deliberate “performance”of appearance in-
volving revealing, concealing, and displaying the
body. Decisions about revealing and concealing the
body are not simple, one-time event choices; men
monitor a range of factors in making such decisions.
Ideas about self-presentation shift depending on
whether one is having a “fat day”ora“thin day,”
suggesting that body image is not a fixed essence for
our participants but rather a matter of negotiation.
Clothes Are Used to Fit a Cultural Ideal
The final theme highlights the pressure to conform
to an idealized male body that is tall, muscular, and
slim. Some men show an awareness of this ideal but
do not find it particularly problematic. Instead, they
express an acceptance of their body [22]: “Although
FRITH AND GLEESON44

I don’t have a particularly good body (i.e., muscles)
it has never bothered me.”For others, the cultural
ideal presents problems as they aspire to a muscular,
tall, and slim body. Men wrote about wanting to ap-
pear taller [9] and focused on wearing clothes that
increase the appearance of height (e.g., “Buying
shoes that increase my height gives me a more con-
fident feeling”). They also wrote about wanting to
look muscular [19] and focused on the importance of
having muscular arms, a toned upper body, and an
athletic-looking body.
I have started to bulk out and put on weight and gain
more confidence about my body shape and have started
buying more tight-fitting clothing.
When I was doing weights, I felt confident enough to
buy a tank top; however, since I’ve stopped I feel more
reluctant to show off my arms in public.
A muscular body is clearly one to show off to others,
whereas a less developed physique is something to be
ashamed of.
I am not one to work out and, therefore, would not
consider wearing tight T-shirts that cling to upper arm
muscles and chest as they would make my body look
inadequate.
Finally, these men wrote about wanting to appear
slim [28] but not too thin [20] and used clothing to
manage this.
I tend to wear a great deal of black, which gives the
impression of slimness along with baggy clothing (i.e.,
jumpers, jeans).
Very rarely do I wear short-sleeved shirts as I am un-
comfortable with my arms, which I believe to be too
thin.
These men use clothing to modify and manage the
appearance of their bodies depending on how well it
currently fits with the ideal. Our data suggest that
muscularity and not being over- or underweight play
an important role in men’s decisions about clothing.
Men’s clothing practices reflect their concerns and
anxieties about their appearance and how others will
evaluate their body.
Discussion
Challenging the idea that men have little invested
in their appearance, our participants deliberately and
strategically use clothing to manipulate their appear-
ance to meet cultural ideals of masculinity. They vary
the color, texture, pattern, fit, and size of garments to
appear slimmer, taller, bigger, or more muscular than
they believe their actual body shape to be. Clothing is
an everyday body-modification practice that may not
be as dramatic or permanent as plastic surgery and
exercise but requires knowledge, attention, and finan-
cial resources. Further research is needed to map
these processes in more detail. We know little about
the time and energy men spend shopping for, select-
ing, and maintaining clothes. How do men acquire
the knowledge to be able to skillfully alter their ap-
pearance using different styles of clothing, and what
role do style magazines and significant others play in
socializing men into appearance regimes? Although
our data suggest that men’s practices are flexible and
varied, we know little about how they make decisions
about how to present their bodies in different con-
texts and in relation to different audiences.
In addition, although some men express accep-
tance and admiration of their bodies, for many there
is a battle being fought with a less than acceptable
body in which clothing is a necessary armor. Our data
raise questions for psychologists interested in body
image. Body image is typically conceptualized as an
internal and enduring “essence,”but our data suggest
that it is fluid, contradictory, and constantly renego-
tiated. Men’s subjective experience of their body im-
age shifts constantly between, for example, “fat
days”and “thin days”and when different aspects of
the body may become salient. Men might emphasize
parts of the body of which they feel proud and hide
aspects of the body of which they feel ashamed.
Global measures of body satisfaction may not ad-
equately capture men’s lived experience of their bod-
ies. Our data reveal gaps in current understandings of
body image and clothing practices, but it has not
allowed us to explore these in detail. We know little
about how these processes operate or how they might
operate differently for diverse groups of men. For
example, do pressures to conform to an ideal mascu-
line body have more impact on some groups than
others? Our sample was skewed toward young men
and our findings may not apply equally to all ages,
although research on age differences in body image is
currently inconclusive (e.g., Pliner, Chaiken, & Flett,
1990; Lamb, Jackson, Cassiday, & Priest, 1993). We
have also been unable to explore the ways in which
these practices might intersect with other aspects of
identity such as race, class, or sexual orientation.
However, previous work suggests that gay men, for
example, value aspects of physical appearance highly
(Sergios & Cody, 1985–1986) and spend more
money on clothing than do heterosexual men (Rudd,
1996). We also do not know whether those who are
diagnosed as having pathological relationships to
their bodies (the anorexic, the compulsive exerciser)
MEN MANAGING BODY IMAGE AND APPEARANCE 45

share the same knowledge, expertise, and clothing
practices as average men. Clearly, there is scope for
further research exploring the appearance-manage-
ment strategies of those with and without pathologi-
cal relationships to their bodies.
Finally, it is clear from our data that men feel they
should express uninterest in their appearance. Rely-
ing on a volunteer sample might have meant that we
accessed only those men who have a specific interest
in clothing; however, when asked directly, the men in
our study often denied the importance of the body in
their clothing practices. Men’s reluctance to be too
interested in appearance and fashion may reflect at-
tempts to distance themselves from stereotypes that
position women as fashion dupes who squeeze them-
selves into ill-fitting or ridiculously uncomfortable
clothing and men who are interested in fashion as
effeminate. If “appearances have an added impor-
tance for the gay community”(cf. Edwards, 2000, p.
139), then men may need to signal not only their
masculinity but also their heterosexuality in a way
that women do not. The men in our study are aware
of the appraising audience that observes and evalu-
ates their appearance, but do men dress for a potential
sexual partner (only two units of our data referred to
dressing to be attractive to women) or the appraising
look of other men? In view of the increasing objec-
tification and sexualization of the male body, further
research is needed to explore the ways in which men
negotiate the competing demands placed on them to
be both mindful and unconcerned about their appear-
ance. Furthermore, such research should consider the
ways in which these demands might intersect with
other aspects of identity (i.e., race, class, sexual ori-
entation) and different audiences (e.g., work col-
leagues, sexual partners, friends).
Researchers who focus on clothing practices rarely
explore embodiment, and those studying body image
rarely look at clothing practices. However, our data
demonstrate that dressing is an embodied practice;
men are aware of and concerned about how their
body will appear to others, and they strategically use
clothing to alter and manipulate their appearance.
Clothing as an appearance-management technique
for men has been underresearched, and our study
demonstrates that it is an area worthy of more atten-
tion. However, men’s ambivalence about their cloth-
ing practices suggests that quantitative measures may
fail to capture their interest in and concerns about
clothing practices, and that qualitative methods may
enable the researcher to explore these contradictions
more fully. We hope that this article goes some way
toward demonstrating the pervasive yet mundane na-
ture of men’s self-surveillance and self-presentation
and the range and complexity of the processes in-
volved in clothing the body and displaying the visual
self.
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(Appendix follows)
MEN MANAGING BODY IMAGE AND APPEARANCE 47

Appendix
Complete Set of Themes Identified
Men are very practical in
choosing their clothes.
Real men shouldn’t
care about how they look.
Clothes are used to conceal
or reveal.
Clothes are used to fit a cultural
ideal. Miscellaneous
Comfort is a priority. Body shape does matter. Clothing is used to hide the Clothing reflects acceptance of Overlapping and specificity of
Clothes must fit well. We shouldn’t care too much body. the body. the questions
Clothes must be functional. about appearance. Men have nothing to hide. I want to appear taller. Shoes and accessories
Cost of clothes is important. The shape of my body is I have mixed feelings about I want to look muscular. Style and color
Physical size imposes irrelevant. displaying the body. I want to appear slim. Cross-dressing
limitations. I want to look good. I want to display the body. I am concerned with not Cultural aspects of clothing
Clothes are used to I want clothes that flatter the I use clothes to emphasize appearing too thin. Is it the body or the clothes that
communicate about roles. body. particular features of the I want to look masculine. make the difference
I respond to fashion. body. I wanting to appear Male image as
I am not a fashion victim. Clothing choices are linked to heterosexual. holistic
I don’t want to appear vain. confidence. Continuity in apppearance is
Using clothes to look attractive Age affects clothing choice valued.
is not an issue for men. Clothing is used to reflect a I like labels.
My personal style is important. desire to blend in. I hate labels.
I want to look tidy. Clothing can reflect shyness. I use smaller clothes to motivate
Clothes affect people’s weight loss.
judgments. I want to be attractive to women
I want my clothes to reflect my Clothing can reflect not being
images. smart
There is pressure from others
about appearance.
Note. The themes are grouped according to order in which they appear in text. Themes that were associated with a large number of text units are shown in bold. Themes that received
few mentions are shown in plain type.
Received April 1, 2002
Revision received April 21, 2003
Accepted June 15, 2003 䡲
FRITH AND GLEESON48