Undressing Masculinity: How Men Fashion Themselves Through Underwear

Abstract

<p>Underwear is a ubiquitous form of garment which is used by nearly all men on any given day. However, studies of men’s fashion and daily dress practices do not examine how these items shape men’s lives. Past research on underwear focuses on brands, advertising, and (rarely) individual identity. How groups of men engage with underwear daily as part of their identities or what implications these practices might have for wider understandings of masculinity have not been explored. How the material garment of underwear interacts with the fleshy male body is also left unexamined. This research uses wardrobe interviews with nine men, alongside object analyses of their favorite pairs of underwear, to investigate how their relationship to underwear has developed and evolved over the course of their lives, how their underwear choices change— or not change—in different contexts, and how men navigate and manage their body through their underwear. Participants included several white and Asian identifying men along with one mixed race man and a Latino man. Most identified as heterosexuals. In the course of this study three themes emerged: how underwear relates to the intimate body; what influences their decisions around underwear consumption; and how men’s underwear is disavowed as part of fashion. My research uncovered that men develop emotional bonds with their underwear—and rely upon these garments as part of their gender performance—but their engagement with these items is restricted by social boundaries which serve to reify attributes of hegemonic masculinity. Keywords: underwear, men’s fashion, masculinity, fashion, manhood acts, hegemonic masculinity </p>