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(Re)Fashioning Masculinity: Social Identity and Context

in Men’s Hybrid Masculinities through Dress

Article  in  Gender & Society · May 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0891243218774495

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research-article2018
GASXXX10.1177/0891243218774495Gender & SocietyBarry / (Re)Fashioning Masculinity

(Re)Fashioning Masculinity

Social Identity and Context in Men’s Hybrid

Masculinities through Dress

Ben Barry
Ryerson University, Canada

Modern Western society has framed fashion in opposition to hegemonic masculinity.

However, fashion functions as a principal means by which men’s visible gender identities
are established as not only different from women but also from other men. This article
draws on the concept of hybrid masculinities and on wardrobe interviews with Canadian
men across social identities to explore how men enact masculinities through dress. I illus-
trate three ways men do hybrid masculinities by selecting, styling, and wearing clothing
in their everyday lives. The differences between these three hybrid masculine configura-
tions of practice are based on the extent to which men’s personal and professional social
identities were associated with hegemonic masculine ideals as well as the extent to which
those ideals shaped the settings in which they were situated. Although participants had
different constellations of gender privilege, they all used dress to reinforce hegemonic
masculinity, gain social advantages, and subsequently preserve the gender order. Failing
to do so could put them personally and professionally at risk. My research nuances the
hybrid masculinities framework by demonstrating how its enactment is shaped by the
intersection between men’s social identities and social contexts.

Keywords: clothing; fashion; hegemonic masculinity; intersectionality; men

Author’s note: Research in this article was funded by an Insight Development Grant
from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thank you to the
participants who candidly shared their wardrobes and experiences with me. I am grateful
to Jo Reger, Tristan Bridges, and the anonymous reviewers for their generous feedback on
the manuscript as well as to Dylan Martin and Rebecca Halliday for their instrumental
research support. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Ben
Barry, School of Fashion, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3,
Canada; e-mail: bbarry@ryerson.ca.
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol XX No. X, Month, XXXX  1­–25
DOI: 10.1177/0891243218774495
© 2018 by The Author(s)
2  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

F ashion and appearance are often framed in opposition to hegemonic

masculinity—the most exalted configuration of gender practice that
legitimates patriarchy (Connell 1995; Kaiser 2012). However, fashion and
appearance are principal means by which men’s visible gender identities
are established as not only different from women but also from other men
(Edwards 1997). Multiple masculinities result from men’s various social
identities. Masculinities are marginalized by race or class and subordi-
nated by sexuality. These multiple masculinities comprise configurations
that are both fluid and conflicted (Connell 1995). For example, men who
belonged to gay fraternities did hegemonic masculinity by excluding
women from membership but also did femininity by sharing their feelings
with each other (Yeung, Stombler, and Wharton 2006). Men enact multi-
ple masculinities, in part, through their clothing (Kaiser 2012). Fashion
scholars use the term “dress” to denote the activity of clothing the body.
Dress is situated within “fashion,” a system that imbues dress with con-
text-contingent meaning based on time and place, and shapes aesthetic
ideals that structure perceptions of clothes (Entwistle 2015). This dynamic
interplay between men’s social identities and fashion helps produce differ-
ent configurations of masculinity. To date, however, research on men,
masculinity, and fashion has been limited to specific social identities and
contexts in which clothing is worn (e.g., Casanova 2015; Green and
Kaiser 2011). Missing from these studies is an understanding of how men
from a range of identities do masculinities through dress in various every-
day contexts.
Drawing on wardrobe interviews with Canadian men and the concept
of hybrid masculinities, this article analyzes how men across ages, races,
ethnicities, sexualities, social classes, and occupations make dress deci-
sions in their personal and work lives. I explore how the intersection
between fashion, social identities, and contexts produces configurations
of gender practice by introducing three ways men do hybrid masculinities
based on the extent to which they associate with hegemonic masculine
ideals and the extent to which those ideals shape their contexts. The three
hybrid masculine configurations of practice that I identify are disavowing,
reining-in, and celebrating feminine dress.
Bridges and Pascoe (2014) theorize that contemporary transforma-
tions in masculinity have resulted in the emergence of hybrid mascu-
linities, configurations of gender practice through which men
appropriate elements of marginalized or subordinated gender identities.
Researchers have primarily studied how hybrid masculinities are done
by men who embody concentrated configurations of privilege—young,
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 3

white, middle-class, straight—and underscore the “flexibility of iden-

tity” afforded to this group (Bridges and Pascoe 2014, 249). This article
demonstrates how men across social identities draw on different gender
performances through dress to do hybrid masculinities according to the
relationship between their personal and professional social identities
and activities. I build on existing scholarship by nuancing the varied
meanings and consequences that are associated with hybrid masculine
practices. My findings contribute to the hybrid masculinities frame-
work through the lens of fashion, which remains nascent in gender
studies and sociology research, by revealing aspects of the interaction
between men’s personal and professional identities and contexts.

Doing Masculinities Through Dress

Gender is an ongoing accomplishment (Garfinkel 1967; West and

Zimmerman 1987), and it is accomplished in part through the dressing of
bodies (Butler 2006). Kaiser and Green (2016) argued that men’s clothing
not only adorns men’s bodies but also works to simultaneously “unmark”
and “mark” them. Clothes unmark men’s bodies by articulating dominant
masculine performances that are uniform and understated, such as the
wearing of dark, boxy suits. In contrast, clothes mark men’s bodies by
articulating marginalized gender performances that are elaborate and
expressive, such as the wearing of colorful, fitted apparel. Kaiser (2012)
introduced the term “re-mark” to recognize that gender performances
through dress are dynamic processes. Clothes re-mark men’s bodies by
constantly articulating new masculine subjectivities. For example, before
high heels were associated with women and femininity, European men
wore them until the late seventeenth century to symbolize status, power,
and masculinity; moreover, Western men have continued to wear cowboy
boots, “Beatle Boots,” and other heeled shoes as signs of masculinity
(Semmelhack 2016). These concepts of unmarking, marking, and re-
marking illuminate how fashion works as gender practice, that is, “a ‘sys-
tem of action’ that is institutionalized and widely recognized but also is
dynamic, emergent, local, variable, and shifting” (Martin 2003, 351). The
ways in which men do masculinity by dressing their bodies are flexible
because men may choose their own clothes, yet their decisions are heavily
constrained by the gender norms (Butler 2006) and systems of accountabil-
ity and control (West and Zimmerman 1987) of their context. As Entwistle
(2015, 8) explained, “Conventions of dress attempt to transform flesh into
4  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

something recognizable and meaningful to a culture; a body . . . that trans-

gresses such cultural codes, is likely to cause offense and outrange and be
met with scorn or incredulity.” Men therefore draw upon clothing as a
cultural resource, but in doing so their gender performances often repro-
duce social structures.
Western culture has demarcated the clothing styles deemed appropriate
for men. Flügel (1930) stated that the French Revolution’s democratic
ideals suggested that men should not display their authority through
clothes because it resided inherently in them. The result was a shift in
men’s attire from the decadence of the aristocracy to the sobriety of the
working class. Flügel (1930) called this transition “The Great Masculine
Renunciation,” and it rearticulated hegemonic masculinity in opposition
to flamboyance and fashion (Kaiser and Green 2016). While scholars
debate whether this transition occurred in the seventeenth or eighteenth
centuries, modern men’s dress norms have been defined by what styles to
avoid and repress (Entwistle 2015). These styles have manifested through
different masculine archetypes, including “the cowboy” (i.e., denim
jacket, snap-front shirt, paisley bandana) and the “Ivy Leaguer” (i.e., var-
sity jacket, button-down shirt, and khaki pants) (Matthews, Hancock, and
Gu 2013). Rinallo (2007) argued that men navigate masculine dress
norms across three zones. Men are in the safety zone when their appear-
ance is unmarked because it conforms to normative masculine perfor-
mances, while they edge into danger zones when they mark their bodies
by either devoting too little or too much attention to their looks. In sum,
fashion presents an ambivalent space for men as they struggle to stay in
the safety zone and protect their gender privilege (Kaiser and Green
2016).

Dressing Social Identities and Contexts

Men have historically shifted between marking, unmarking, and re-
marking their bodies with clothes based on the interplay between their
social identities and settings. Privileged men have enacted feminine per-
formances though dress but have concealed or re-marked these perfor-
mances based on context, and thus they maintained their associations with
hegemonic masculinity. For example, upper-class New York businessmen
in the 1920s substituted somber suits at work for colorful swimsuits on
holidays in Florida (Maglio 2014). During the 1960s “Peacock Revolution,”
middle-class men wore colorful, fitted clothing in their professional and
personal lives because it was associated with economic status (Kutulas
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 5

2012). In contrast, the histories of gay and Black cultures have celebrated
men for wearing flashy clothing. Black men walked the streets of Harlem
“showing their sartorial stuff” in the 1920s (Miller 2009, 1), and gay men
combined masculine and feminine signifiers during protests for US gay
liberation in the 1970s (Cole 2000). While these men marked their bodies
in their own communities, they often unmarked their bodies outside of
them to avoid discrimination (Cole 2000; Miller 2009).
Contemporary research suggests that men continue to shift their gender
performances through dress according to their social identities and con-
texts because fashion still creates an ambiguous space for them. Green
and Kaiser (2011, 8) observed that both gay and straight men experi-
mented with feminine dress styles at Burning Man because the festival
environment acted as an “enlarged safety zone.” After the festival, how-
ever, these men limited the extent to which they crossed gender dress
norms because they felt restricted by their everyday locations. Casanova
(2015) found that men of color and gay men had more positive views
about fashion than did white and straight men but nevertheless conformed
to gender dress norms in their white-collar offices. Men of color felt that
their bodies already stood out from the white norm, and gay men felt their
feminized embodiments disrupted normative masculinity. In this way,
men whose configurations of masculinities are typically oppressed also do
hegemonic masculinity in certain contexts because unmarking their bod-
ies with clothes helps them to access gender privilege.

Hybrid Masculinities, Privilege, and Fashion

Hybrid masculinities provide a useful framework to illuminate how
men negotiate marking, unmarking, and re-marking their bodies with
clothing to create their gender performance. Bridges and Pascoe (2014)
defined hybrid masculinities as men’s selective and dynamic incorpora-
tion into their gender performances of identity elements associated with
subordinated and marginalized masculinities, as well as with femininities.
Men combine “bits and pieces” of different gender performances into
their own performance of masculinity (Demetriou 2001, 350). Some
scholars argue that hybrid masculinities can lead to the decline of patriar-
chal norms and heterosexism in specific contexts (Anderson 2009;
McCormack 2011). Analysis of broader motivations and consequences
indicate that hybrid masculine projects often obscure the nuances of
privilege and reinforce hegemonic masculine dominance (Bridges and
Pascoe 2014). Most research on hybrid masculinities has examined men
6  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

with extremely privileged social identities who, due to their status, can
easily appropriate marginalized identity elements (e.g., McDowell 2017;
Pfaffendorf 2017). White, middle-class, straight men also face less risk
when they take on feminine performances because they are protected by
their combined race, class, and heterosexual privileges (Barber 2016;
Barber and Bridges 2017).
Men with less social status, however, also do hybrid masculinities in
specific contexts to access gender privilege. For instance, Young (2017)
found that Hawaiian cock-fighters enact gender dominance in the ring
while they carry out feminine behaviors in other areas of their lives.
Bridges’s (2009) study of a men’s bodybuilding community illustrates
that contexts change the values associated with specific configurations of
masculinity—what qualifies as hegemonic in one setting does not in
another. Bridges’s work reveals that the meanings of hegemonic mascu-
linity change as a result of the ways social actors, gendered meanings, and
other elements interact within a specific context and within the gender
order (also see Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Intersectionality fur-
ther explains that people’s gender identities are inflected by their various
other social identities—such as race, class, and occupation—which over-
lap through context-specific and structural privileges and oppressions, and
influence their everyday experiences (Crenshaw 1991; Schilt 2006).
While all men are granted privilege as a result of being men—what
Connell (1995) calls the “patriarchal dividend”—their other social identi-
ties posit their status as men differently in distinct contexts. The ways men
do hybrid masculinities are therefore based on an interplay between their
identities, settings, and patriarchal structures.
While research on men and fashion reveals that men with different
constellations of privilege merge hegemonic and marginalized gender
identity elements through dress, these studies still focus on a narrow range
of contexts and intersectional gender identities. For example, Casanova
(2015) explored how middle-to-upper-class Black and gay men do hybrid
masculinities through dress but only examined white-collar offices.
Similarly, Green and Kaiser (2011) studied gay and straight men who
wore more expressive feminine dress but focused on the non-quotidian
context of the Burning Man festival and ignored social identities beyond
sexuality. Therefore, studies to date do not capture the nuances of how
men do hybrid masculinities according to their complex social identities
and throughout all facets of their lives.
To further the study of fashion and masculinity, I ask the question: How
do men with different social identities enact hybrid masculinities through
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 7

dress in their everyday lives? I illustrate three ways men of diverse ages,
races, ethnicities, sexualities, classes, and jobs do hybrid masculinities by
shifting their gender performances to unmark, mark, and re-mark their
bodies—and consequently, reinforce hegemonic masculinity—depending
on their context.

Methods

This study is based on wardrobe interviews with 35 men in Toronto,

Canada, between September 2014 and December 2015. Wardrobe inter-
views combine life histories and object interviews to investigate how
clothing materializes identity (Woodward 2016). I recruited participants
through a snowball method by sending requests to community and profes-
sional groups (i.e., LGBTQ+ centers, sports leagues, entrepreneurship
networks) as well as to personal and professional contacts. The recruit-
ment request invited self-identified men from diverse ages, races, ethnici-
ties, sexualities, classes, and occupations to participate. The request
encouraged men who wore a range of clothing styles to contact me, but it
also stated that they did not need to have an interest in fashion. The final
sample selection was based on the inclusion of men from a range of social
identities and varied contexts. While not representative, my intentionally
diverse sample of ages, races, ethnicities, sexualities, classes, and occupa-
tions addressed the lack of research on how differences in privilege and
social setting influence men’s hybrid masculinities. Table 1 shows par-
ticipants’ demographics. In the table and the following analysis of find-
ings, I have given pseudonyms to all participants to protect their privacy.
Following the wardrobe interview method, I interviewed participants in
their homes—specifically in the rooms where their clothing was stored—
for between two and four hours. I first asked about their dress histories
and influences, and then about the clothes and accessories in their ward-
robes; I prompted them to discuss how they acquired each item, the
memories of wearing it and when they wore it last. Exploring what men
said as they touched their clothing allowed for “an understanding of how
particular garments materially evoke the sensory experiences of wearing”
(Woodward 2016, 366). Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.
I also photographed each man’s clothing and made notes about each piece.
Each participant completed a demographic questionnaire following their
interview.
Interview transcripts, field notes, and images of men’s wardrobes were
analyzed using the approach that Rice (2009) employed in her research on
8
Table 1:  Participant Demographic Data

Configurations of Hybrid
Pseudonym Age Race/Ethnicity Sexuality Social Class Occupation Masculinity

Jacob 41 Caucasian Straight Upper-middle Senior VP Disavowing

Hudson 71 Caucasian Straight Upper-middle Chief city planner Disavowing
Tristan 27 Caucasian Straight Middle CEO/entrepreneur Disavowing
Dev 35 South Asian Straight Upper-middle Elected official Disavowing
Austin 32 Caucasian Gay Upper-middle Wealth manager Disavowing
Shawn 29 Black Straight Upper-middle Strategy consultant Disavowing
Anthony 42 Caucasian Gay Upper-middle VP, finance Disavowing
Nick 52 East Asian Gay Upper-middle Senior VP Disavowing
Michael 63 East Asian Straight Upper-middle Law partner Disavowing
Rocco 37 Caucasian Gay Middle Copywriter Reining-in
John 41 Caucasian Straight Middle Public servant Reining-in
Peter 32 Caucasian Gay Working Bartender/server Reining-in
Victor 48 Caucasian Straight Middle Design professor Reining-in
Desmond 46 Black Straight Middle Museum archivist Reining-in
Vivek 34 South Asian Gay Working Community outreach Reining-in
Rinaldo 27 Black Gay Middle Product designer Reining-in
Syed 23 Middle Eastern Bisexual Middle School teacher Reining-in
Joseph 44 Caucasian Straight Upper-middle Physician Reining-in
Omid 57 Middle Eastern Straight Upper-middle Architect Reining-in
Kevin 22 East Asian Straight Working Factory worker Reining-in
Travis 53 Caucasian Gay Middle History professor Reining-in
(continued)
 Table 1: (continued)
Configurations of Hybrid
Pseudonym Age Race/Ethnicity Sexuality Social Class Occupation Masculinity

Drake 65 Caucasian Straight Middle Realtor Reining-in

Randy 28 Caucasian Straight Middle Construction Reining-in
Kartick 35 South Asian Straight Upper-middle Physician Reining-in
Louis 41 Latino Gay Working Hair stylist Celebrating
Nathan 58 Black Gay Working Fashion stylist Celebrating
Daniel 24 Caucasian Queer Working Photographer Celebrating
Macro 23 Latino Gay Working Makeup artist Celebrating
Riley 53 Caucasian Straight Working Photographer Celebrating
Kenny 25 East Asian Gay Working Art/design student Celebrating
Kamal 35 Black Gay Working Performer/actor Celebrating
Clinton 31 Caucasian Straight Working Actor Celebrating
Yuvraj 33 South Asian Queer Working Poet/musician Celebrating
Stephan 45 Caucasian Queer Working Writer Celebrating
Lamar 37 Black Straight Working Dancer Celebrating

9
10  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

women’s experiences of bodily difference. I first analyzed the data

through the grounded theory method (Corbin and Strauss 2008). The data
were coded to describe how men did masculinities through dress. I devel-
oped different levels of codes by using the constant comparison strategy
and then refined the codes into what Bowen (2006) termed sensitizing
concepts. These concepts—disavowing, reining-in, and celebrating femi-
nine dress—explained three ways men do hybrid masculinities through
dress. I then used narrative analysis to capture the complexities of par-
ticipants’ accounts (Clandinin and Connelly 2000). I performed a close
reading of each transcript and mapped key narratives and garments onto
the three hybrid masculine configurations of practice. This process helped
me uncover how men’s personal and professional identities and contexts
influenced their dress and subsequently their hybrid masculinities.
Combining grounded theory and narrative inquiry approaches “shed light
on social processes underpinning personal accounts, while illuminating
[participants’] abilities to craft and maintain a sense of self” through dress
(Rice 2009, 248).

Hybrid Masculinities Through Dress

The differences between the three configurations of practice are based

on the extent to which men identified with hegemonic masculine ideals
and the extent to which those ideals shaped their contexts. Men in the
disavowing group (n=9) unmarked their bodies by dressing in clothing
associated with dominant masculine performances, because they belonged
to social identities and engaged in contexts defined by masculine power.
While they believed that they had a lot to lose—status, power, and mas-
culine identity—by engaging in fashion, they still enacted feminine per-
formances but re-marked them as masculine. Participants in the reining-in
group (n=15) carefully integrated feminine dress styles into masculine
outfits to create an overall unmarked appearance. Their social identities
and contexts appeared open to men’s feminine performances, yet they
were situated within larger social structures governed by hegemonic mas-
culine ideals. The last group of men, celebrating feminine dress (n=11),
openly marked their bodies by wearing feminine clothing styles because
their identities and settings were not rooted in hegemonic masculine ide-
als. However, there were certain situations in which even they felt com-
pelled to mark their bodies. In sum, all participants in this research—despite
their different degrees of gender privilege—moved between doing these
different masculine configurations of practice. They shifted their gender
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 11

performances to unmark, mark, or re-mark their bodies and fortify hegem-

onic masculine dominance based on the interplay between their social
identities and context-specific activities. To illustrate these findings, I next
present the sartorial stories of participants who primarily enacted each of
the three hybrid masculine configurations of practice. These narratives
illustrate how and why men shift their dress according to their personal
and professional identities and contexts.

Disavowing Feminine Dress

The men who disavowed feminine dress held rigid views of masculin-
ity and enacted them by unmarking their bodies with understated clothes—
mostly dark blazers, pants, and button-down shirts. Their professional
identities as leaders and contexts in white-collar organizations were
grounded in hegemonic masculine ideals (Casanova 2015). Nick, a
52-year-old, gay East Asian man, is an executive for a pharmaceutical
company. He framed fashion as the antithesis of experimentation and
playfulness. He stated, “I am not a fashion hobbyist. You want to put
yourself together in a proper and polished way. That’s nothing to do with
creativity.” By explaining his dress practice as counter to imagination,
Nick instead connects his dress to masculine discourses of discipline and
rationality. He uses dress to cultivate a “professional look” and believes
that suits are the best means to convey power in his white-collar office.
He said, “A well-cut suit and well-kept appearance is all part of the show
and show that you’re in charge.” While the meanings of suits have varied
over history, the suit is most commonly associated with rationality,
authority, and the renunciation of femininity (Edwards 2011). Nick draws
on clothing to affirm the hegemonic masculinity associated with his job
and workplace.
Although Nick publicly rejects fashion, he does feminine performances
in specific contexts. Nick engages in time-intensive and costly fashion
shopping: practices that have been associated with beauty and vanity and
consequently with women and femininity (Edwards 1997). He regularly
devotes three hours on Friday evenings to selecting new suits, being meas-
ured for alterations and finding complementary button-down shirts at a
luxury menswear store. The suits that hung in Nick’s wardrobe came from
high-end brands, including Ralph Lauren Purple Label and Armani. Bridges
(2009) found that men’s bodybuilding is associated with body display, van-
ity, and other feminine ideals in society-at-large but strength, power, and
masculinity within the gym. Similarly, Nick’s gender performance is linked
to masculinity at the luxury menswear store, because it is predicated on his
12  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

upper-middle-class income and therefore highlights his class status and

social power.
Nick’s hybrid masculinity shores up hegemonic masculinity that under-
pins his class status, management position, and white-collar office. Nick
notes that the details on his suits—such as the precise way in which his
blazers line up with his shoulders—show that these garments are “bespoke”
rather than “off-the-rack.” Nick not only connected his suits with class
position but also uses these garments to signal his dominant position at
work. He explained, “When I walk into a meeting [in a suit], people
immediately know I am in charge. . . . I am dressed better than most of the
people there.” As a result of declining formality in office dress codes, suits
have become associated with corporate power because managers are still
required to wear them (Janus, Kaiser, and Gray 1999). While some offices
mandate that all staff wear suits, the ubiquity of these garments as white-
collar workwear has led them to symbolize mass conformity (Casanova
2015). Nick spends time and money on his suits to maintain his place in
a corporate hierarchy and distinguish himself as the boss from his more
casually clad and cheaply suited subordinate workers. Unmarking his
body in an expensive suit, Nick exemplifies a consequence of hybrid mas-
culinities: “fortifying boundaries” between privileged and marginalized
gender identities (Bridges and Pascoe 2014).
While some participants in the disavowing group had an interest in
fashion, they re-marked their performances as masculine. Dev, a 35-year-
old, straight South Asian man, is an elected official who openly discussed
the importance of fashion in his life but stated that he only engaged with
it as a means to succeed at work. Grounding his work in hegemonic mas-
culine ideals, he explained that “courts, parliaments, business rooms” are
“modern day battlefields” and that well-tailored suits feel like “suits of
armor . . . putting the armor on, I’m ready for the fight.” Dev recoded his
interest in fashion as masculine by using the metaphor of war to describe
his suits, his job, and the contexts in which he worked. Dev also wears a
tuxedo to galas related to his job. Describing his tuxedo, he further dis-
tances his engagement with fashion from its feminine associations by
drawing on the film character James Bond: “I love having my James Bond
moment, where I can just break out my tux and go to an event. For me,
wearing a tux is the ultimate power.” While 007’s appearance has changed
throughout the franchise, his representation has remained consistent as an
exemplar of hegemonic masculinity (Cox 2014).
Dev is mindful that wearing a tuxedo has different gendered mean-
ings in different contexts, and he works to protect his gender privilege
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 13

in contexts where it might be jeopardized. Inside a gala event, Dev’s

body is unmarked. His tuxedo is associated with class status and mascu-
linity because it conforms to the gala’s expensive gendered dress code.
However, Dev risks marking his body in a tuxedo on the street because
he believes it is linked to vanity and pretention. To distance himself
from these associations, Dev re-marks his performance by riding a bicy-
cle while wearing a tuxedo: “I put my tux on, jumped on my bike and
biked to a gala . . . I think it looked extra classy rather than glamorous.”
Dev associates his gender performance with the masculine ideals of
athleticism and refinement rather than the feminine ideals of opulence
and showiness. Dev also explained that he is superior to the other men
at galas because he arrives on a bicycle rather than in a car: “Guys were
pulling up in fancy cars; I pulled up on my bike, parked it, jumped off,
and looked better than them.” Biking in a tuxedo implies that Dev is
suave and strong versus dull and docile. He therefore draws on hegem-
onic masculine ideals to position himself above masculinities that are
weaker and less powerful.
The few times participants clearly marked their bodies by wearing
clothes that articulated marginalized gender performances, they then
worked to re-mark these same styles as masculine. Although Dev’s ward-
robe did not stray from solid, dark colors, he regularly wears a pink tur-
ban—wearing a turban is part of his Sikh faith. Donning pink in a Western
context suggests that Dev enacts femininity because, in the West, the color
is associated with weakness, sensitivity, and girlishness (Vanska 2017).
However, Dev explained that pink is a display of Punjabi masculinity: “In
Punjabi tradition, a very manly man will wear a pink turban. It’s not asso-
ciated with femininity but with power.” Dev illustrates that his feminine
performance could undermine his masculine status within his white-collar
work context and broader patriarchal society. However, by drawing on
Punjabi tradition, he re-marks pink as masculine and upholds the gender
order at work and in society-at-large. While Dev has class and career
privilege within Canada, he does not have white or Christian privilege. As
Dev explained during his interview, he experiences discrimination based
on race and religion at work and in society. Wearing a dark business suit
with his interpretation of the pink turban acts as “armor” by allowing him
to both assert and protect his masculine dominance in a context of racism.
It is therefore also because of the intersection between his class and career
status and marginalized race and religious social identities that he is com-
pelled to re-mark the color pink: without doing so he could undermine his
masculine identity and dominance in his white-collar workplace and the
public sphere.
14  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

Some men occasionally marked their appearance outside of work.

Jacob, a 41-year-old straight, Caucasian man, wears black polos and blue
jeans to his job as a vice president of a shipping company. However, he
sometimes wears colorful and boldly patterned shirts when he goes out
socially with his wife: “If we’re going out, she likes to dress up . . . she is
quite outrageous, so I have to keep up to make her happy.” Wearing this
clothing to please his wife rather than of his own volition, Jacob fortifies
the connection between fashion, femininity, and women while linking his
own social identity to the heterosexual masculine ideal. By calling his
wife “outrageous,” he also fosters the stereotype that women who collect
and wear extravagant attire are irrational (Semmelhack 2017). Although
Jacob wears bold colors and prints, he makes it clear that his clothes are
bland compared to those of his wife, therefore re-marking them. He said,
“I’m the light post, and I let her be the light.” Masculinity is done by
wearing clothes that “fit-in,” while femininity is done by wearing clothes
that “stand out” (Edwards 1997). Jacob only wears his bold clothing when
out socially and not to his white-collar office. By not donning these outfits
at work, he safeguards his gender privilege in this context.

Reining-in Feminine Dress

Men who reined-in feminine dress embraced current trends toward
vivid colors, lavish materials, and opulent accessories traditionally worn
by women. However, they safely styled feminine pieces alongside mascu-
line ones to display a more subtly marked appearance. Product designer
Rinaldo, a 27-year-old gay, Black man, said, “I’ll go into the women’s
section and pick out accessories because I think there are ways to incor-
porate that in my style as a man and still look masculine.” To “still look
masculine,” Rinaldo will pair women’s jewelry with sportswear or with
military-inspired, camouflage apparel. Other men altered their dress to
minimize feminine associations. Design professor Victor, a 48-year-old
straight, Caucasian man, painted a pair of shoes to alter the color from
“disco-ball silver” to “pewter.” He liked “the style” of the shoes but he
“would never have worn them so silver because they would feel like cos-
tume.” By calling the shoes “costume,” Victor distances his masculinity
from flamboyance and showiness.
Some participants derived their social identities from professional
fields that embraced men’s feminine performances, such as architectural
firms and museums, but their jobs were located in settings that valorized
hegemonic masculine ideals. Both Rinaldo and Victor did creative work
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 15

within white-collar organizations. While their jobs as designers were asso-

ciated with experimentation, they faced pressure to comply with the over-
arching masculine culture that structured their respective organizations.
For example, Victor had worn outfits with contrasting textures and colors
in his previous freelance work as a graphic designer and said, “I would put
paint down with the intent of covering it up to create these lush, textured,
layered surfaces. . . . How I dressed was an extension of that.” When he
became a university professor, he discovered that he had to convey a more
unmarked appearance. He recalled one of his first classes when a student
critiqued his colorful clothing: “One student said, ‘You’ve critiqued my
work, now let’s talk about this,’ and gestured toward my outfit. . . . What
I realized was that where I was working, my clothing related to my cred-
ibility and authority.” Victor’s story reveals that men who do creative
work within white-collar organizations downplay feminine dress elements
because hegemonic masculine expectations dominate their workplaces
and also allow them to dominate within their workplaces. While their
professional identities value creative aesthetics, their institutions value
narrow masculine norms. They are aware that failing to meet these norms
could result in skepticism about their professional abilities and authority.
Rinaldo and Victor wore feminine dress elements “within moderation”
at work but sometimes completely unmarked their bodies in the same
context. For example, Rinaldo removed his jewelry when he met with
management or delivered a presentation where management would be
present. He was cautious that any signs of femininity might detract from
his expertise and abandoned feminine dress to comply with management’s
perceived hegemonic masculine ideals. Rinaldo demonstrates that man-
agement and designers in the same company associate different values
with masculinity but reveals the men with more power in the setting win
the “masculinity challenge” (Messerschmidt 2000).
For some of these men, social identities primarily came from their per-
sonal lives. Kartick, a 35-year-old straight, South Asian man, is a physician
who wears dark slacks and button-downs to work. He finds his job “fulfill-
ing in one respect, but stifling in another” because it does not offer him an
opportunity for creative play: “Someone comes in with pneumonia, you’re
not going to be thinking, I will try a bit of this med and a bit of that one.”
To express his creativity, Kartick attends art galleries, the orchestra, and
fashion events—social scenes that can value men’s feminine performances.
He views his clothing outside of work as “an opportunity for me to play
with color, silhouette, pattern,” and his wardrobe consists of neoprene
tunics and gold trousers from avant-garde designers, including Christopher
16  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

Kane and Damir Doma. By understanding his personal life as a safety zone
where he can “play,” in contrast to his work life, Kartick creates a division
between the contexts where he marks and unmarks his body. Moreover,
Kartick’s feminine dress would be stigmatized at his job, yet these same
clothes meet expectations of how a man at an art or fashion event should
look. Kartick therefore illustrates how men can mobilize femininity in
creative social spaces without risking their gender privilege.
However, Kartick’s outfits still fortify the gender order because his
creativity valorizes hegemonic masculine ideals. He is often photographed
at art galleries and fashion events for newspapers and other media because
of his trendy outfits. During our interview he showed me dozens of pub-
lished images with captions that describe him as “a dapper emergency-
room MD” and that note “he spends his days in scrubs, then goes bold
when he’s off the clock.” The text includes the designers of his outfits and
the upscale retailers where he bought them. Kartick’s marked body allows
him to garner cachet within creative settings because of his financial sta-
tus and career. His upper-middle-class position enables him to buy fash-
ionable clothes, and his occupation as a doctor enables him to
counterbalance his feminine dress by associating himself with the ideals
of heroism and rationality that characterize his job. These creative spaces
therefore operate within the gender order in which hegemonic masculinity
continues to dominate and confer privileges to those who best meet its
ideals. Bridges and Pascoe (2014) suggested that one consequence of
hybrid masculinities is that it fortifies inequalities in new ways. While
Kartick embraces feminine performances, these enactments are only
available to men with class status and careers associated with masculine
ideals. Kartick’s hybrid masculinity thus entrenches new forms of gender
inequality between men based on combined class and career identities.
While other participants derived their identities from their personal
lives, they all did not have career and class status. Kevin is a 22-year-old
straight, East Asian man who works in a toothpick production facility. A
working-class man, he enjoys masculine dress styles combined with
feminine details, such as work boots with pink soles, which he buys at
discount retailers. Kevin’s identity comes from his hobby—fashion—and
its shared enjoyment among his friendship group. He talks about fashion
with friends, reads menswear blogs, and looks at other men’s clothes on
the street: “I pay more attention to what guys are wearing compared to
what girls are wearing.” However, Kevin creates distance between him-
self and marginalized gender identities, such as gay men, by using his
clothes to assert dominance over his friends: “I dress for the guys I am
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 17

around because I know they’re into this stuff . . . I want to bury them when
I show up.” Kevin seeks to outdo his friends by wearing outfits that con-
vey his fashion expertise. By doing so, he fortifies his masculine domi-
nance over his fashion-loving friendship group.
Nevertheless, Kevin changes his clothes and unmarks his body based
on location. Living in a suburb, Kevin explained: “People downtown are
more interested in fashion. They’re ahead of the game compared to people
in suburbia. . . . Seeing something new isn’t so shocking to them.” Kevin
assumed that city living would encourage him to mark his body: “If I lived
downtown, I’d dress crazier but I live uptown so I play it according to my
surroundings.” He pointed to kilt-wearing hip-hop star Kayne West as his
fashion icon but feared harassment for disrupting suburban dress norms.
Kevin reveals that some men are more confident marking their appearance
in cities than in suburbs because they have less fear about risking their
masculinity. Moreover, although Kevin’s micro-level friendship group
appreciated his feminine dress style, his macro-level context—his geo-
graphic location—policed it. Men’s hybrid masculinities therefore have to
navigate the broader patriarchal culture that bounds their subcultures.

Celebrating Feminine Dress

Participants who celebrated feminine dress wore overtly feminine and/
or women’s garments to mark their appearance. While these men were
predominantly gay and queer, a few identified as straight; however, they
all identified as “gender nonconforming” and rejected heteronormative
models of masculinity. Daniel, a 24-year-old queer, Caucasian man, mixes
men and women’s clothing into single outfits to “push boundaries and
create new spaces for gender expression,” such as pairing a sequined hal-
ter top with hiking boots. Participants in the preceding groups practiced
“the strategic embrace of conformity” (Casanova 2015, 3), such as Nick
who wore bespoke but understated suits and Rinaldo who carefully
assembled women’s jewelry with athletic attire. Conversely, men in this
category aligned with Moore’s (2018) concept of “fabulousness.” Moore
(2018, 18) argued that marginalized people use dress as resilience and
resistance against mainstream culture: “As a confrontational form of self-
presentation, fabulousness is a practice of everyday life that black, queer,
and other people forced to the margins have used to protect some form of
autonomy in their day-to-day experience.” Participants in this group saw
their clothing as a retaliation against the hegemonic masculine culture that
ostracized them.
18  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

These men participated in queer nightlife scenes that celebrated their

marked bodies. Daniel wore subversive outfits to alternative bars and
clubs where “queer kids, drag queens, trans people” congregated and
gender-nonconforming dress styles flourished. He explained, “I think it’s
easier for queer people to express themselves through fashion because
they have slipped through the cracks of normativity. . . . They are wearing
weird and wacky things because they don’t feel like they have to fit in.”
Within these safety zones, Daniel felt confident marking his body because
unconventional gender performances were deemed admirable and aspira-
tional. As Moore (2018) argued, nightclubs act as creative incubators for
marginalized people to try out new looks because the darkness of these
spaces provides anonymity. Daniel contrasted alterative queer clubs from
those in Toronto’s mainstream gay neighborhood: “When you go to a
Church Street bar, you are seeing a limited kind of fashion. Men are all
wearing mall clothes. . . . You’re completely ignored or mocked if your
appearance is too femme.” While Daniel felt that hegemonic masculine
appearance ideals policed broader gay nightlife, he felt free to abandon
gender norms in alternative queer spaces. He therefore demonstrates that
“masculinity challenges” exist between groups of men within mainstream
gay nightlife (Bridges 2009). Men who unmarked their bodies with “mall
clothes” dominated the mainstream gay nightlife scene and forced femi-
nine-dressed queer men like Daniel to party in other spaces.
Participants in this group worked in jobs that lacked financial stability
but valued men’s marked bodies. They were employed as freelance artists,
performers, and makeup artists—earning under $49,000 annually. Cabaret
artist Kamal is a 35-year-old gay, Black man who wore “fabulous” clothes
that marked his body but also signaled his on-stage persona: “I wear strong
silhouettes and bolder colors and shiny stuff. . . . As a performer, your job
is to get people to clap and respond to what you’re doing. Clothes like this
. . . get them revved up.” Kamal was immersed in the arts community that
legitimatized his use of feminine clothing. He said casting directors appre-
ciated his transgressive aesthetic because it followed a lineage of male
artists, such as Prince and David Bowie. These artists have used “the radi-
cal potential of self-presentational strategies” to situate themselves in
opposition to hegemonic masculinity (Jones 1995, 22). While Kamal’s
dress challenged societal gender norms, mobilizing feminine performances
earned him cultural capital within his niche creative field. Stokes (2015)
found that gay male fashion designers receive advantages in the industry
because they access the male artist archetype. Kamal garnered gender
privilege in the performance community because the interplay between his
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 19

marked body and his identification as a man enabled him to access this
same archetype.
Men in this group unmarked their bodies, but also in a subtle manner,
when they entered contexts policed by hegemonic masculine norms.
Kamal donned dark blazers over leopard-print tops and tights when
attending investment meetings: “If I am going to have a meeting with
business people who want to fund my show, they are going to be at the
meeting in three-piece suits. That’s not me and that’s not what I’m going
show up in. I will wear something more muted but still on the fabulous
side of things.” Kamal believed that investors “might not be as comfort-
able with something feminine” and that his outfits could have “negative
effects” on the outcome of his meeting: “My clothes can disrupt them
from their thoughts of why they are there.” Bridges and Pascoe (2014)
argued that, through a process of “strategic borrowing,” hybrid mascu-
linities appropriate marginalized identity elements in ways that shape
gender performances but do not alter the gender order. Kamal did a style
of hybrid masculinity akin to reverse strategic borrowing or “compensa-
tory manhood acts” (Ezzell 2012): he selectively incorporated masculine
dress into his gender performances to curtail discrimination at his meet-
ing. Kamal’s subtle shift from marking to unmarking his body conceals
the ways hegemonic masculinity continues to oppress marginalized gen-
der performances. His hybrid masculinity is therefore underpinned by a
desire to achieve credibility by picking clothing that meets the setting’s
hegemonic gender ideals. This practice is different from the men in the
group above who reined in feminine dress. While the men in the above
group subtly marked their bodies, men in this final category subtly
unmarked their bodies in certain contexts. As Kamal explained, the cloth-
ing he wears for meetings with investors “does disrupt them a little bit and
force them to take in everything that fabulousness implies.” His feminine
dress, while muted, is still noticeable to the viewer rather than disguised
or downplayed, as was the case for the men in the reining-in the feminine
category described above.
In addition to business or professional situations, men unmarked their
bodies to navigate family situations. Art student Kenny, a 25-year-old, gay,
East Asian man, unmarked his appearance when he visited his extended
family at their home because they held conservative views. He did not want
to upset them because his wealthy family funded his education and living
expenses. Kenny would replace his skirts and wedges with trousers and
flats, but he continued to wear jewelry to maintain some semblance of his
own gender performance: “I’ll wear one unique piece—it’s enough to sus-
20  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

tain me.” While Kenny did not fully unmark his body, he still drew on some
dominant masculine dress norms to meet the expectations of his family and
their context. By doing so, he concealed the most feminine aspects of his
performance—his skirts and heels—since failing to do so could jeopardize
his livelihood.
Some participants also unmarked their bodies during romantic encoun-
ters. Clinton is a 31-year-old straight, Caucasian man who regularly marked
his body by wearing women’s skirts. The actor mixed women’s skirts with
conventional men’s attire, such as a pencil skirt paired with a button-down
shirt and oxford shoes. While Clinton felt “liberated” in skirts, he was
uncertain about wearing skirts on dates with women. Pondering what to
wear for an upcoming date, he said, “I’m going on a date on Wednesday
with this girl. . . . If I wear this skirt, it’s showing that I have a lot of feminin-
ity. . . . Is she going to be turned off by that? Is she going to want to come
home with me?” Despite his love of skirts, Clinton decided to wear pants
and comply with the gender expectations of his heterosexual date because
this context values men’s conformity to masculine ideals (Eaton and Rose
2011). Failing to meet these ideals meant that Clinton might sacrifice the
potential outcome of his date: having his female companion come home
with him.
Men who celebrated and wore feminine dress faced disapproving
glances, hostile pejoratives and violent threats when they marked their
bodies outside of safety zones. The public thus regulated hegemonic mas-
culinity by demeaning men who defied gender dress norms. Makeup artist
Marco, a 23-year-old gay Latino, had a preference for skin-bearing
“androgynous” looks but restricted what he wore in certain spaces. He
recalled the only time when he wore a pair of high-heeled boots on the
subway: “It’s a very enclosed space . . . I could see people looking at my
shoes, I could feel the eyes on my shoes.” A “rowdy bunch of guys”
passed him and called him homophobic slurs. To protect himself, Marco
wears flat shoes on the subway and carries his high-heeled boots in a bag.
The fact that Marco does not feel safe marking his body in certain urban
spaces nuances the metrosexual discourse that has associated men and
masculinity with fashion in urban spaces (Casanova 2015). Marco dem-
onstrates that men who wear overtly feminine clothing are not protected
in the urban utopia. According to inclusive masculinity theory, straight
and gay men’s openly feminine performances signal a shift away from
misogyny and homophobia in cultural constructions of masculinity
(Anderson 2009). However, the continued oppression of participants in
this category reveals that these theorists have overlooked more feminine-
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 21

performing queer and gender-nonconforming men. While some spaces

welcome men’s feminine performances, Marco’s experience illustrates
that these settings are located within the patriarchal gender order that
polices men’s feminine dress.

Conclusion

This article articulates three ways men do masculinity and femininity

through dress based on the extent to which they identified with hegemonic
masculine ideals as well as the degree to which those ideals shaped their
contexts. Irrespective of their various constellations of privilege, men con-
cealed feminine performances because failing to do so could put them per-
sonally and professionally at risk. However, the extent to which they
deviated from masculine dress depended on their social locations and social
contexts. Men who disavowed feminine dress belonged to the most privi-
leged social classes and professions, and did not want to relinquish their
power by openly marking their bodies. In contrast, men who reined-in
feminine dress accessed privilege because they primarily worked or played
in contexts associated with status and in which moderate expressions of
men’s femininity could be valued. However, these participants also down-
played or removed feminine dress whenever it would jeopardize their
opportunities and well-being. The final group of men, who celebrated
feminine dress, belonged to identities and engaged in contexts with the least
social power, but there were nonetheless certain situations in which they too
unmarked their bodies to mitigate the consequences of further discrimina-
tion. While scholars have found that privileged men face less risk when
engaging in feminine appearance performances (e.g., Barber 2016; Casanova
2015), I build on this work by showing that all men are mindful of jeopard-
izing their gender dominance when making dress decisions.
My findings also extend hybrid masculinities research from primarily
examining exceptional contexts—such as Christian hardcore punk scenes
(McDowell 2017) and therapeutic boarding schools (Pfaffendorf 2017)—
to everyday settings. While these past studies focused on how men enact
hybrid masculinities within isolated environments that tend to shelter
men’s feminine performances, I demonstrate how men shift their hybrid
masculine configurations of practice as they move through personal and
professional situations. Men strategically draw on different gender perfor-
mances to different degrees depending on the extent to which their interac-
tions, activities, and locations valued or disparaged men’s feminine
performances. My study confirms that the qualities associated with hegem-
22  GENDER & SOCIETY/Month XXXX

onic masculinity change according to context, as Bridges (2009) found, but

also reveals that men change how they do masculinity to conform to these
situation-specific gender ideals. In the context of research on men and
fashion, my work adds nuance to the conclusion that men engage in “bal-
ancing acts” between marking and unmarking their bodies in quotidian
settings but prioritize appearing unmarked (Casanova, Wetzel, and Speice
2016; Green and Kaiser 2011). I find that men evaluate their schedule for
the day ahead and decide what combinations of marking and unmarking
their appearance best conform to the gender expectations of their contexts.
Here, Rinallo’s (2007) safety and danger zones are defined not merely by
an unmarked or marked appearance but also by the dress aesthetics associ-
ated with gender hegemony within their settings and encounters.
Adding fashion and dress to the study of masculinities expands under-
standings about how men do gender through the body and material cul-
ture. While past research explored weight training (Bridges 2009) and hair
care (Barber 2016), I center men’s bodies as dressed bodies to illuminate
the significance of their routine dress practices. As I demonstrate, doing
masculinity is made visible through men’s choosing, styling, and wearing
of clothing because its forms, shapes, and materials have shifting gen-
dered associations based on context and identity. Future research on mas-
culinity and fashion should study how other social identities, including
disabilities and body types, impact men’s dress decisions. This work
would also benefit from an exploration of how women enact hybrid mas-
culinities through dress because “masculinity cannot be fully understood
unless female masculinity is taken into account” (Halberstam 1998, 3).
My research concludes that men across identities and contexts use dress
to secure social domination and support an unequal gender system. Despite
different constellations of privilege, all of the participants enacted practices
which shored up hegemonic masculinity when they adopted or rejected
dominant masculine dress ideals because doing so would personally and/
or professionally benefit them by securing their gender privilege. As such,
scholars should be cautious not to overstate the significance of men in
feminine clothes. Edwards (1997) identified that the history of menswear
swings between marked and unmarked appearances: An oscillation between
“the playboy” and “the puritan” has defined men’s dress over centuries.
Current shifts in men’s dress that deviate from masculine archetypes there-
fore do not necessarily denote gender equality but underscore “the power
of hegemony” to constantly transform (Bridges 2009). However, as
Bridges and Pascoe (2014) argued, “Hybridization is a cultural process
with incredible potential for change” (256). Just as the men in this study
 Barry/ (Re)Fashioning Masculinity 23

leveraged their gender privilege to access power through dress, they can
also leverage it to challenge the roots of misogyny. The latter practice is
still to be realized, yet researchers should continue to interrogate whether
and how men can enact hybrid masculinities in ways that authentically
destabilize patriarchy through their clothing choices because fashion and
dress hold potential to help transform the gender order.

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Ben Barry is an associate professor of equity, diversity and inclusion and

Director of the Centre for Fashion Diversity and Social Change in the
School of Fashion at Ryerson University. His research explores gender
inequalities and transformations through fashion.

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