Queering Masculinities in Antwerp Fashion

Drawing new lines between the creative practices of influential Antwerp designers from the 1980s to the 2020s, this vibrant study dissects how menswear, male bodies, and male sexuality have been radically queered through the lens of a crucial epicentre of avant-garde fashion.
Retracing and updating historical narratives of the Antwerp fashion scene, Queering Masculinities in Antwerp Fashion expands the focus from the 'Antwerp Six' to a new generation of radical designers. From Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Bikkembergs to Raf Simons, Bernhard Willhelm, and Glenn Martens, these designers variously use disruptive fashion practices to move beyond gender binaries, affirm non-normative bodies, and embody queer sexual politics through coded and explicit sexual references. Through archival material from Belgian and international fashion museums - from fashion show and campaign photographs to invitations and look-books - and interviews with key figures from the scene, Antwerp emerges as a major, vibrant context for questioning and queering masculinities through vanguardist fashion practice.
Integrating rich case studies with key theoretical perspectives, Nicola Brajato offers a conceptual framework for engaging critically with cultural shifts in masculinities, men's fashion, and identity.

Nicola Brajato is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He works in the field of fashion and gender studies and is funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). His work focuses on the relationship between fashion and non-conforming masculinities at the intersection of fashion studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, and queer studies.

List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
a. An interdisciplinary lens on fashion and masculinities
b. On the meanings of queering
c. Case studies
d. Avant-garde fashion and critical fashion practices
e. Book architecture
f. Methodological reflections
1. The Antwerp Fashion Scene: History, Pedagogy, and Avant-Garde Fashion Practices
a. The changing geographies of fashion cities: The case of Antwerp
b. The evolution of Belgian fashion and the rise of the Antwerp fashion scene
c. The role of the fashion department at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts
d. Situating gender and sexuality in the discourses on Antwerp fashion
Part One: Queering Menswear

2. Stitching and Unstitching the Norm: Understanding Normative and Queer Masculinities in Dress and Fashion
a. Aristocratic fashion and conspicuous masculinity
b. The modern masculine stereotype: Retracing the roots of normative masculinity
c. What have men renounced? Masculinity, the suit, and the ground zero of menswear
d. The anti-feminine performativity of the dressed male body
e. Hybrid masculinities in fashion: From orthodox revivals to genderfluid fashion
3. Queering Menswear in Antwerp Fashion
a. Queer(ing) tailoring: Walter Van Beirendonck
b. Menswear in the interzone: Raf Simons
c. Designing in the gender spectrum: Glenn Martens
Part Two: Queering the Body

4. What Are You Looking At? Men's Bodies, the Gaze, and Masculinity as an Embodied Practice
a. A non-foundational approach to men's bodies
b. The male gaze and the disembodied modern male body
c. Intervisuality, homoeroticism, and the instabilities of the male gaze
d. Consumer culture, advertising images, and fashion photography
e. Challenging the hegemonic male physique: Non-conforming embodiments and representations

5. Queering the Body in Antwerp Fashion
a. The muscular and athletic body through the ambiguous gaze: Dirk Bikkembergs
b. The male body in the interzone: Raf Simons's skinny silhouette
c. Stocky, heavy, and bearded: Walter Van Beirendonck's bear physique
Part Three: Queering Sexuality

6. Enclothed Sexuality: the Dressed Male Body at the Intersection of Heteronormativity and Queer Critical Discourses
a. Sexuality as a modern dispositive of power
b. Who is afraid of sex? Rethinking sexuality through queer theories
c. Dressing heteronormativity, queer sexualities, and desire

7. Queering Sexuality in Antwerp Fashion
a. 'Designing with a hard-on': Bernhard Willhelm
b. 'There's sex in everything I do!': Walter Van Beirendonck, fetishism, and BDSM
c. For Sucsexful Living: Glenn Martens's sex-positive ethos
Conclusion

Notes
References
Index