a personal chronology of men’s wardrobe • through a few milestones, a very subjective and partial history of men’s clothing and identities
THE GREAT MALE RENUNCIATION
“Hitherto man had vied with woman in the splendour of his garments, woman’s only prerogative lying in décolleté and other forms of erotic display of the actual body; henceforward, to the present day, woman was to enjoy the privilege of being the only possessor of beauty and magnificence, even in the purely sartorial sense.“
The Psychology of Clothes by John Carl Flügel, 1930
THE DEATH OF GEORGE BRUMMELL
“The Prince, leaning on Lord Moira’s arm, met Brummell and Lord Alvanley, coming in the opposite direction, and, probably with the intention of making the cut more evident, His Royal Highness stopped and spoke to his Lordship, without noticing the Beau – little thinking that he would resent it; great therefore must have been his surprise and annoyance, as each party turned to continue their promenade, to hear him say in a distinct tone, expressive of complete ignorance of his person, ‘Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?’ “
The life of Beau Brummell par William Jesse, 1844
SWANN’S WAY, MARCEL PROUST
to compose one’s life like a classical work of art
“Swann had always had this particular taste for finding in the paintings of the masters not only the general characters of the reality that surrounds us, but what seems on the contrary the least susceptible to generality, the individual features of the faces that we know (…). He looked at her; a fragment of the fresco appeared in her face and in her body, which from then on he always tried to find again, whether he was with Odette or just thinking of her, and although he probably only cared about the Florentine masterpiece because he found it in her, yet this resemblance gave her a beauty too, made her more precious. Swann (…) welcomed the fact that the pleasure he had in seeing Odette found a justification in his own aesthetic culture. “
Swann WAY by Marcel Proust, 1913
MANHOOD, MICHEL LEIRIS
“My head is rather large for my body; my legs are a little short for my torso, my shoulders are too narrow for my hips.
I walk with my upper body bent forward; I tend to sit with my back arched; my chest is not very broad and I have little muscle.”
NORTH BY NORTHWEST, ALFRED HITCHCOCK
men of the 50s : stereotypes and grey suits
MEN’S CLUB MAGAZINE
one of the first men magazine to focus only on clothes – no naked girls for a change
BLOW UP, MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
Rolls Silver Cloud III convertible
David Hemmings’ white jeans and black boots
Vanessa Redgrave in an inevitable skirt
Jane Birkin’s debut
Verushka
the sound of the wind
London’s empty streets
Carlo Di Palma’s photography
Herbie Hanckock’s jazz
Yardbirds’ broken guitar
the green of London’s grass
TOMMY NUTTER ON THE COVER OF ABBEY ROAD
John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney wear Tommy Nutter suits on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album
RALPH LAUREN AT BLOOMINGDALE’S
Ralph Lauren becomes the first designer to get an in-store boutique at Bloomingdale’s for his own line “Polo“
BADLANDS, TERRENCE MALICK
a white T-shirt and blue jeans: american tailoring
THE "COUTURIER" AND HIS "SIGNATURE": CONTRIBUTION TO A THEORY OF MAGIC, PIERRE BOURDIEU
fashion designers don’t sell clothes, they sell symbols
“The disappearance of haute-couture and the development of ready-to-wear clothing appear to be the retranslation into the relatively autonomous field of fashion of the transformations of the bourgeois lifestyle that are correlative to a transformation of the mode of appropriation of capital’s profits (naively described by one informant as a ‘democratisation of fortunes’).”
FACTORY RECORDS
“I found a corridor of books that were the canon of graphic history. It made me realize that this graphic history, which is predominantly a 20th century phenomenon, came straight out of the significant art movements of the late 19th and early 20th century. If you go on a contemporary graphic expedition, you get to Malevich’s Black Square. It’s like Indiana Jones meets 2001. And you have to sit down. I sat down in late November 1977, around about this time, 3 o’clock in the afternoon—exactly 40 years ago. And I realized, in that moment, that I knew nothing. I really knew nothing of cultural history. And I’d better start to learn.”
Peter Saville Wrote the Source Code – How the English graphic designer set the course for contemporary visual culture by Adam Wray
AMERICAN GIGOLO, PAUL SCHRADER
starring Richard Gere as a gigolo and Armani as the first couturier for men
THE WORLD WON’T LISTEN, THE SMITHS
anonymous style icons
photo: « The Style and Spirit of the Early Beatles and Their First Fans » par Jürgen Vollmer
TWIN PEAKS, DAVID LYNCH AND CO.
Lynch enters the world of TV: it will never be the same
“It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it.” – Georg Hegel
AGNÈS B. BLACK SUITS IN RESERVOIR DOGS, QUENTIN TARANTINO
the revenge of the (black) suit by agnès b. and Tarantino in a distinct opening scene
A HISTORY OF MEN’S FASHION, FARID CHENOUNE
Farid Chenoune tells the long history of men’s clothing since the 17th century: everything makes sense, nothing is meaningless
DIFFERENT CLASS, PULP
Jarvis Cocker is the Grace Kelly of music
GILLES DELEUZE’S ALPHABET BOOK
not sure we should have to put this here
KINETIC YOUTH, RAF SIMONS
A Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist
IS THIS IT, THE STROKES
too much is never enough
AUTUMN/WINTER 2004, HEDI SLIMANE
stars aligned – perfect music, silhouettes, clothes and set design
“It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it.” – Georg Hegel (fashion edit)
HUSBANDS LAUNCH
8 rue Manuel, 75009 Paris
pop-up stores in Paris: Châteaubriand ; Ofr. ; Entrée des Artistes
first trunk shows and collaborations: Mr. Porter ; Isetan
THE BEGINNING OF INSTAGRAM
laying the foundations of a moodboard and gather husbands cultural inspirations
OPENING OF HUSBANDS RIVE DROITE
57 rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris
FIRST COLLECTION
7 years of learning made possible the beginnings of e-commerce and with it the first collection: HUSBANDS 01
the team is growing and its members are specialising
OPENING OF HUSBANDS RIVE GAUCHE
1 rue de l’Abbaye, 75006 Paris