Fashioning masculine anxieties: Clothes and style in The Bonfire of the Vanities

Abstract

This article is a broad-spectrum exploration of the reconciliations between fashion choices and masculine anxieties in Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. It traces the complex processes where the socially stratified worlds of the male characters are configured, especially through the tropes of clothes and lifestyle. The American 1980s, in times of Reaganomics, are understood as a period of excess, social mores and ‘bigness’. This is reflected in the operatic style of Bonfire, which offers a social critique of New York City in the 1980s. Wolfe’s dispassionate gaze takes in the excesses of the Reagan era, all the time exploring the relationship between men’s clothing and New York City. The central premise of the article pivots on performing masculinity through the 1980s menswear, where garments and lifestyle choices acquire specific meanings as indexes of class, vanity, individuality, identity and social mobility. The focus is on the three masculine protagonists at the forefront, but there are also glancing references to other secondary characters. Fashion, within the scope of this article, is based on the explorations of dress, clothes and style, rather than catwalk.