Dressing Masculinity in the Nineteenth-Century, or Feeling Tight Around the Collar

By examining a cache of mid-nineteenth-century daguerreotypes, it becomes evident that, for the middle-class young men who sat for these portraits, masculine vestimentary self-representation was not a simple task. This article sheds light on the crisis in the regime of masculine domination and white supremacy, twin forces deployed in France with and for the development of the modern capitalist system. Stemming from a perceived physical degeneracy in men's bodies, this feeling of crisis was alleviated by scaffolding these bodies with normative and pseudo-scientific tailoring practices. In these daguerreotypes, the young men photographed used various accessories and embellishments to push against the dark uniformity of men's clothing and demonstrate their own idiosyncratic singularity. By reading this vestimentary play alongside Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, the true decentering power of fashion accessories, particularly in men's fashion in the nineteenth century, is revealed.