Male fashion in the media discourse

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Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University

MALE FASHION IN THE MEDIA DISCOURSE

Tsapro G.Yu., Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

Associate Professor at the Department of English Language and Communication

Smirnykh V.R., Master of Philological Sciences at the

Department of English Language and Communication

Annotation

fashion discourse male article

The study is devoted to the research of fashion discourse concentrating mostly on male fashion and its discourse representation in Gentlemen's Quarterly and Esquire fashion articles published in 2017-2021. The gender factor seems to be crucial in the field of fashion, which is reflected through verbal masculine portrayals illustrated with photos in fashion magazines, which, on the one hand, can impose some particular looks a modern man should have, and on the other, promoting designers, fashion houses and underlying the importance of fashion and trends in people's life. The objectives of the research are to single out and classify male clothing items, cuts and colours, as well as to interpret non-verbal means, which are all together suggested for men interested in latest trends. The corpus of the most fashionable male items of clothes consists of 56 pieces, all of them being divided into basics (10 items equaling to 17,9 %) and their variants (46 items reaching 82,1 %). The research proves that some clothing pieces are more popular than others: coat and its different variants greatcoat, overcoat, pea coat, raincoat, topcoat, trench coat, waistcoat amounting to 16,1 % of all the clothing items, trousers with their variants chinos, corduroys, slacks making 17,9 %, and jacket with its variants blazer, blouson, bomber jacket, fur blouson, hooded parka, parka jacket, racer jacket, track jacket, trucker jacket, tuxedo jacket, zipper jacket comprising 25 % of the items of clothes that are advertised and recommended in male magazines. The corpus of cuts of male clothing (e.g., asymmetric (coat), banded (collar), button-down (shirt), button-front (t-shirt), cable-knit (sweater), cargo (pants), flared (trousers), high-waisted (denim trousers), longline (hoodie), natural fit (suit), oversized (cardigan/coat), pleated (pants), quilted (parka), relaxed (shorts), zip-up (jacket)) consists of 49 different lexical items describing all the complexity of designers' creativity. The male colour palette is presented by 9 basic colours (black, green, grey, red, white, yellow, brown, purple, blue), the number of their hues differs much, with blue, grey and red having most hues indigo, light-blue, navy, pale-blue; dark-grey, light-grey, metallic and burgundy, maroon, russet. The image of masculinity is supported with the help of photos of strong men in men's conventional environment, though there are very few deviations published in years 2020-2021.

Key words: gender, fashion discourse, media discourse, masculinity, male clothing item.

Анотація

ЧОЛОВІЧА МОДА В МЕДІЙНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

Розвідку присвячено дослідженню дискурсу моди, в основному увагу зосереджено на чоловічій моді, та дискурсивній репрезентації моди у статтях журналів “Gentlemen's Quarterly” та “Esquire”, опублікованих у 2017-2021 роках. Ґендерний чинник, здається, є вирішальним у сфері моди, що відображається через вербальні чоловічі зображення, проілюстровані фотографіями в модних журналах, які, з одного боку, можуть нав'язувати особливий модний образ, який повинен мати сучасний чоловік, а з іншого - просування дизайнерів, будинків моди та підкреслення важливості моди та модних трендів у житті людей. Завдання дослідження - виокремити та класифікувати предмети чоловічого одягу, їх крої та кольори, а також проінтерпретувати невербальні засоби, що пропонуються чоловікам, які цікавляться останніми тенденціями моди. Корпус наймодніших чоловічих предметів одягу складається з 56 предметів, усі вони поділені на основи (10 предметів, що дорівнює 17,9 %) та їхні варіанти (46 предметів (82,1 %)). Дослідження доводить, що деякі предмети одягу мають більшу популярність, ніж інші: coat та варіанти (greatcoat, overcoat, pea coat, raincoat, topcoat, trench coat, waistcoat) становлять 1б,1 % з усіх предметів одягу, trousers із варіантами (chinos, corduroys, slacks) - 17,9 %, а jacket із варіантами (blazer, blouson, bomber jacket, fur blouson, hooded parka, parka jacket, racer jacket, track jacket, trucker jacket, tuxedo jacket, zipper jacket) становлять 25 % предметів одягу, які рекламуються та рекомендуються в чоловічих журналах. Корпус кроїв чоловічого одягу (asymmetric (coat), banded (collar), button-down (shirt), button-front (t-shirt), cable-knit (sweater), cargo (pants), flared (trousers), high-waisted (denim trousers), longline (hoodie), natural fit (suit), oversized (cardigan/coat), pleated (pants), quilted (parka), relaxed (shorts), zip-up (jacket)) складається із 49 різних лексичних одиниць, що описують усю складність творчості дизайнерів. Палітра чоловічих кольорів представлена 9 основними кольорами (black, green, grey, red, white, yellow, brown, purple, blue), кількість їх відтінків дуже відрізняється, водночас кольори blue, grey та red мають більшість відтінків (indigo, light-blue, navy, pale-blue; dark-grey, light-grey, metallic та burgundy, maroon, russet). Образ маскулінності підтримується за допомогою фотографій сильних чоловіків у звичайному чоловічому середовищі, хоча у 2020-2021 роках з'являється невелика кількість фотографій, що відхиляється від традиційних образів.

Ключові слова: ґендер, дискурс моди, медійний дискурс, маскулінність, предмет чоловічого одягу.

Introduction

The research aims at analyzing fashion discourse representing fashion trends for men concentrating on the specific male clothing items, cuts, colours and images offered. The material of the study comprises 50 Gentlemen's Quarterly and Esquire magazine articles published in 2017-2021. Discourse and context analyses have been used to single out text passages and lexemes which describe or represent male clothing items, colours and cuts, comparative analysis as well as quantitative one enable to systemize and interpret obtained results.

Literature Overview. Fashion presents trends, imposes what is popular at some specific time offering clothing, footwear, hairstyle, accessories, jewelry, even style of living, on the one hand, while on the other, fashion can be seen as a field that involves industries and media to produce and advertise what is popular and to make people believe these ideas. In this way fashion influences people's choices about what to buy and what to wear. M. Jansen [1] describes fashion as desirable dress at a given moment andplace whereby its desirability can be based on a wide range of values, be it social, political, nostalgic, exclusivity, modernity, innovation, nationalism, youth, etc.

According to Tjдder [2, p. 34], fashion is socially biased, as it is created for the upper class in order to unite their social group and distinguish themselves from other social groups of lower rank, the moment when the lower social classes imitate popular trends, they go out of fashion and the elite initiates a new fashion.

Fashion discourse is realized through communication, where the media actually tell all the news in the sphere of fashion. Thus, fashion discourse does not consist only of clothes and producing process, but it also includes the language that describes it, as well as visual means, which are of great importance in the whole system. R. Barthes [3] makes a distinction between the written system of fashion and the visual system of fashion stating that the visual system mostly refers to the clothing garments itself or their pictures and photographs, while the written system deals with lexis or texts which describe these clothing items and he also says [3, p. 3-4] that fashion reminds a triangle as it consists of three interdependent shifters: technological, iconic and verbal, which is respectively represented as real clothing, images and language. Fashion discourse is a complex phenomenon which is influenced by many social factors, which limit and control people's choices in clothing, thus just a little bit more than 100 years ago the situation in fashion discourse was very different compared to modern time, for example, in the 1900s men were prescribed to wear three-piece suits - jacket, vest and trousers, - complimented by a hat; in 50 years' time female style changed dramatically, while the male style mostly remained the same with very few inventions such as single-breasted jacket and tapered trousers and young people wearing more eccentric garments [4, p. 6-8, 28-31].

“The big shift' of fashion happened in the middle of the last century and now it is hard to believe that only during the period of time of about 50 years the fashion changed completely and instead of the clothes that cover the whole body we started to wear more opened, short and way-out clothing. Although men are still seen wearing suits almost on any occasion, formal or informal: <...> wear suits to summit meetings, male job applicants wear them to interviews, and men accused of rape and murder wear them in courts <... > [5].

Gender aspect is strong in fashion industry. Fashion helps to reproduce gender as a form of body style, producing a complex interplay between sexed bodies and gendered identities” [6, p. 2].

Male clothing items

Male clothing is under constant changes nowadays. The recent crucial changes are reflected in current fashion discourse and numerous peculiarities of new male clothing items that are offered for men to wear. Although the main pieces of male clothes have remained the same for some centuries, some of them have been modified greatly and have acquired new variations.

The corpus of 56 male clothing items, which were singled out from male fashion articles, has been divided into basics (shirt, trousers, sweater, etc.) and their variations which have distinctive features expressing the modification of the male basics (shirt and tuxedo shirt), which is presented in the following table (see Table 1).

Table 1

Male basic clothing and its varieties