Recent debates in the field of men’s fashion studies, in line with the critical scholarship on multiple and hybrid masculinities in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities and queer studies, have optimistically welcomed the gradual disintegration of the visual and sartorial conventions attached to the gender binary and its effects on men’s fashion.

However, the promotion of gender-fluid aesthetics and the disruption of gender norms seem to be optimistically fostered and researched mainly in the context of high-end fashion and the creative avant-garde, therefore giving precedence to the purely visual interpretation of dressed appearances, rather than the wearer’s perspective and experience.

This seminar wants to address and explore some of the challenges and possibilities of moving the study of queer embodiments from the analysis of high fashion critical practices to everyday dress practices, and thus, methodologically, from the widespread archival and visual approaches to an ethnographic understanding of the dressed body. I will do so by reflecting on my own research experience and the shift from my PhD project on the queering of masculinities in the Antwerp fashion scene to my current postdoc research The Biopolitics of the Dressed Male Body, focusing on non-conforming men’s everyday dress practices.

Bio
Dr. Nicola Brajato (he/him) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), and a visiting scholar at Winchester School of Art with Prof. Shaun Cole. His work focuses on the relationship between fashion and masculinities at the intersection of fashion studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, and queer studies. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Nicola has published articles on the relationship between fashion, identity, and the body in different academic journals, and he has recently guest-edited a special issue of the fashion studies journal ZoneModa Journal on the topic of fashion and gender. He is currently working on his first academic book titled Queering Masculinities in Antwerp Fashion: Menswear, Bodies and Sexuality (Bloomsbury).

Meeting ID: 391 764 477 038
Passcode: LjUPtp