The three-piece suit and modern masculinity : England, 1550-1850 / David Kuchta.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kuchta, David, 1960-

Series:

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 47.

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 47

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Men's clothing--England--History.

Men's clothing.

Masculinity--History.

Masculinity.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (314 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1666, King Charles II felt it necessary to reform Englishmen's dress by introducing a fashion that developed into the three-piece suit. We learn what inspired this royal revolution in masculine attire--and the reasons for its remarkable longevity--in David Kuchta's engaging and handsomely illustrated account. Between 1550 and 1850, Kuchta says, English upper- and middle-class men understood their authority to be based in part upon the display of masculine character: how they presented themselves in public and demonstrated their masculinity helped define their political legitimacy, moral authority, and economic utility. Much has been written about the ways political culture, religion, and economic theory helped shape ideals and practices of masculinity. Kuchta allows us to see the process working in reverse, in that masculine manners and habits of consumption in a patriarchal society contributed actively to people's understanding of what held England together.Kuchta shows not only how the ideology of modern English masculinity was a self-consciously political and public creation but also how such explicitly political decisions and values became internalized, personalized, and naturalized into everyday manners and habits.

Contents:

Conspicuous constructions

The old sartorial regime, 1550-1688

"Apparel oft proclaims the man"

The crown proclaims the apparel

Court capitalism

Religious conformity to fashion

The seventeenth-century fashion crisis

"The mode is a tyrant"

"A tailor made thee"

"Popery and foppery"

The moral economy of mercantilism

The three-piece suit

Masculinity in the "Age of Chivalry," 1688-1832

"the manners of a republic"

Gentlemanly capitalism

Sublime masculinity

The feminization of fashion

The making of the self-made man, 1750-1850

"Character is power"

The language of capital

"The great masculine renunciation."

Notes:

Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-293) and index.

ISBN:

9786612758720

9781282758728

1282758721

9780520921399

0520921399

9781597349543

1597349542

OCLC:

475927926