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Opening March 2022, Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear will be the first major V&A exhibition to celebrate the power, artistry and diversity of masculine attire and appearance. The show will trace how menswear has been fashioned and refashioned over the centuries, and how designers, tailors and artists – and their clients and sitters – have constructed and performed masculinity, and unpicked it at the seams.

Fashioning Masculinities will present around 100 looks and 100 artworks, displayed thematically across three galleries. Contemporary looks by legendary designers and rising stars will be displayed alongside historical treasures from the V&A’s collections and landmark loans: classical sculptures, Renaissance paintings, iconic photographs, and powerful film and performance. From looks by Harris Reed, Gucci, Grace Wales Bonner and Raf Simons, to paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola and Joshua Reynolds, contemporary artworks by Robert Longo and Omar Victor Diop, to an extract from an all-male dance performance by Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, the exhibition will showcase the variety of possible masculinities across the centuries from the Renaissance to the global contemporary.

Outfits worn by familiar faces will be interspersed throughout, from Harry Styles, Billy Porter and Sam Smith, to David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich. Innovative creations and diverse representations will highlight and celebrate the multiplicities of masculine sartorial self-expression, dressing beyond the binary.

Claire Wilcox and Rosalind McKever, co-curators of Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear, said: “Masculine fashion is enjoying a period of unprecedented creativity. It has long been a powerful mechanism for encouraging conformity or expressing individuality. Rather than a linear or definitive history, this is a journey across time and gender. The exhibition will bring together historical and contemporary looks with art that reveals how masculinity has been performed. This will be a celebration of the masculine wardrobe, and everyone is invited to join in.”

Fashioning Masculinities will open with a Craig Green SS2021 ensemble of a deconstructed suit, alluding to the construction and deconstruction of both the masculine body and conventions of masculinity, a theme that will be central throughout the show. The three main galleries – Undressed, Overdressed, and Redressed – will follow, with the exhibition design by JA Projects. Undressed will explore the male body and underwear in a utopian dreamscape, whilst Overdressed will take visitors into the elite masculine wardrobe in a sumptuous, immersive space with courtly grandeur, featuring oversized silhouettes, abundant colour, and lavish materials. The third section, Redressed, will explore the construction and dissolution of the suit, with the exhibition design conveying the idea of an urban reawakening.

Undressed will explore the male body and underwear, looking at how classical European ideals of masculinity have been perpetuated and challenged over the centuries. Plaster casts of the Apollo Belvedere and the Farnese Hermes – which highlight a tradition of depicting idealised male bodies draped in textiles that reveal more than they conceal – will be juxtaposed with modern and contemporary representations of the body, from prints and photography by David Hockney, Lionel Wendt, Zanele Muholi and Isaac Julien, to a Calvin Klein advertisement.

Also on display will be a film of Matthew Bourne’s Spitfire (1988) performed by New Adventures dancers, which takes place in the world of men’s underwear advertising and mail order catalogue photography, whilst contemporary ensembles will highlight how designers are appropriating sheer fabrics to create ensembles, alluding to a new honesty about menswear. Fashion’s fascination with the body has seen it support changing masculine ideals from evoking classical drapery, to sculpting flesh – as seen in garments by Jean-Paul Gaultier and A-COLD-WALL*– to celebrating body diversity. This will be exemplified in the exhibition by excerpts of Arrested Movement by Anthony Patrick Manieri, an inclusive portrait series and awareness initiative celebrating and promoting positive body image.

Undressed will end with Auguste Rodin’s Age of Bronze sculpture, and Tiresias, a performance by Cassils, in which the artist melts a neoclassical torso carved in ice with their body heat.

The second gallery, Overdressed, will explore the elite masculine wardrobe, epitomised by oversized silhouettes, lavish materials like silks and velvet in daring colours, and symbolic patterns to express status, wealth and individuality. Drawing synergies across the centuries, the section will feature armoured breastplates to silky smoking suits, sweeping capes to ribbons and lace, including Grinling Gibbons’ wooden carving imitating a Venetian needlepoint lace cravat, displayed alongside real lace, and a Dolce & Gabbana cape juxtaposed with a Sofonisba Anguissola painting. The section will also include grooming, with makeup and shaving equipment.

The third gallery, Redressed, will piece together the modern masculine uniform of the suit, from Beau Brummell to the contemporary runway. Redressed will open with a reflection on English country tailoring and the origins of the suit – with historic garments from the V&A collection shown alongside contemporary reimaginings, including a kilt by Nicholas Daley – before exploring how military attire influenced civilian dress.

In the twentieth century an abundance of mass-produced suits bred creativity as Mods, Teddy Boys and all manner of subcultures looked to define their styles through tailoring, explored in the exhibition through garments and photography. A section on leather will show how designers like Tom Ford for Gucci and Donatella Versace took their interest in leather to a new place, whilst a series of frock coats from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day will include examples by Prada, Alexander McQueen and Raf Simons. Redressed will also include paintings as well as extensive photography showing changing styles and attitudes, from Oscar Wilde, Claude Cahun and Cecil Beaton to The Beatles and Sam Smith.

Robert Longo’s 1981 drawing from the series Men in the Cities will introduce the final part of the section about the dissolving of the suit. A new wave of fashion designers from Rick Owens to JW Anderson to Comme des Garçons to Lesiba Mabitsela are slashing away at conventions, both for menswear, and masculinity.

For more visit: vam.ac.uk