A comparative historical study of English and French men's self-fashioning, with reference to gender, sexual and national identity, c1740-90

Funding: 2003: $35,771
2004: $20,000

Project Member(s): McNeil, P.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2003

Summary: The project analyses the transformation of Anglo-French social attitudes towards aristocratic male dress c1740-90. In so doing, it offers a new explanation for the demise of court dress in Enlightenment Europe and the rise of that sober protestant and bourgeois style which now dominates the appearance of western male elites. It will produce the first comprehensive comparative study of two courtier figures, the French petit-maitre and the English macaroni, in order to advance the hypothesis that these interdependent national and masculine identities played a significant role in the reformulation of modern notions of gender, sexuality, health and consumerism.

Publications:

McNeil, PK 2018, 'A fold of clothing is a trace of passion ​' in Hug, C & Becker, C (eds), Fashion Drive: Extreme Clothing in the Visual Arts, Kerber Culture/Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, pp. 40-49.

McNeil, PK 2017, '‘Beauty in Search of Knowledge’: from fashion doll to the world of print' in Welch, E (ed), Fashioning the Early Modern Dress, Textiles, and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

McNeil, PK 2017, 'Introduction' in A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment, Bloomsbury, UK, pp. 1-22.

McNeil, PK 2017, '‘Drawing with Light’: male photography and the queer trace', The Unflinching Gaze: photomedia and the male figure, Barthurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst, pp. 29-62.

McNeil, PK & Riello, G 2016, Luxury: A Rich History, 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York.

McNeil, PK 2016, '‘Despots of Elegance’: Men’s Fashion 1715-1910' in Takeda, SS, Spilker, KD & Esguerra, C (eds), Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015, Prestel Publishing, Germany, pp. 235-248.

McNeil, PK 2016, ''Everything degenerates’: The Queer Buttonhole’' in Kranz, I, Schwan, A & Wittrock, E (eds), Floriographie: Die Sprachen der Blumen/The Languages of Flowers: Media of Floral Communication, Wilhelm Fink, Berlin, pp. 389-408.

McNeil, PK 2016, 'Georg Simmel: The ‘Philosophical Monet’' in Rocamora, A & Smelik, A (eds), Thinking Through Fashion A Guide to the Key Theorists [trans. into Japanese Tokyo: Film Art Inc., 2019, 466 pp. ISBN 978-4-8459-1716-7; Chinese and Russian scheduled 2020], I.B.Tauris Publishers, London, New York, pp. 63-80.

Borkopp-Restle, B, Martinetti, S, Riello, G & Miller, L 2016, 'Museums and the Making of Textile Histories: Past, Present, and Future', Perspective: actualité en histoire de l’art, vol. 1, pp. 43-60.

McNeil, PK 2015, 'Mode, Blumen und botanisches Wissen (Fashion, flowers and botanical knowledge)' in Furor Floralis Textildesign und Landschaftsarchitektur, Textilmuseum, St Gallen Switzerland, pp. 1-2.

McNeil, PK & Riello, G 2015, 'Luxury and Fashion in the Long Eighteenth Century' in Avery, V, Calaresu, M & Laven, M (eds), Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, pp. 153-160.

FOR Codes: Other Arts