Manly Modes: Artistic Dress and the Styling of Masculine Identity

From roughly the mid-nineteenth century, Artistic Dress was an alternative sartorial style adopted by both men and women who wished to communicate their identification with artistic practices and philosophies that often ran counter to the status quo. For women, this style was expressed through a less structured look and cut of garment, resulting in a radical departure from the mainstream Victorian silhouette. For men, however, Artistic Dress usually took a subtler form. Looking at specific examples, this article examines the ways in which male artists managed to walk the margins of masculine sartorial conformity by wearing mainstream clothing with styling techniques that suggested hints of ‘artisticness’