Table Of Content‘Don We Now Our
Gay Apparel’
Dress, Body, Culture
Series Editor Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota
Advisory Board:
Ruth Barnes,Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Helen Callaway,CCCRW, University of Oxford
James Hall,University of Illinois at Chicago
Beatrice Medicine,California State University, Northridge
Ted Polhemus,Curator, “Street Style” Exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum
Griselda Pollock,University of Leeds
Valerie Steele,The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
Lou Taylor,University of Brighton
John Wright,University of Minnesota
Books in this provocative series seek to articulate the connections between culture
and dress which is defined here in its broadest possible sense as any modification
or supplement to the body. Interdisciplinary in approach, the series highlights the
dialogue between identity and dress, cosmetics, coiffure, and body alterations as
manifested in practices as varied as plastic surgery, tattooing, and ritual
scarification. The series aims, in particular, to analyze the meaning of dress in
relation to popular culture and gender issues and will include works grounded in
anthropology, sociology, history, art history, literature, and folklore.
ISSN: 1360-466X
Previously published titles in the Series
Helen Bradley Foster,“New Raiments of Self”: African American Clothing in the
Antebellum South
Claudine Griggs,S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes
Michaele Thurgood Haynes,Dressing Up Debutantes: Pageantry and Glitz in
Texas
Anne Brydon and Sandra Niesson,Consuming Fashion: Adorning the
Transnational Body
Dani Cavallaro and Alexandra Warwick,Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress
and the Body
Judith Perani and Norma H. Wolff,Cloth, Dress and Art Patronage in Africa
Linda B. Arthur,Religion, Dress and the Body
Paul Jobling,Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography
Fadwa El-Guindi,Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance
Thomas S. Abler,Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress: European Empires and
Exotic Uniforms
Linda Welters,Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and
Fertility
Kim K.P. Johnson and Sharron J. Lennon,Appearance and Power
Barbara Burman,The Culture of Sewing
Annette Lynch,Dress, Gender and Cultural Change
Antonia Young,Women Who Become Men
David Muggleton, Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style
Brian J. McVeigh,Wearing Ideology: The Uniformity of Self-Presentation in Japan
DRESS, BODY, CULTURE
‘Don We Now Our
Gay Apparel’
Gay Men’s Dress in the
Twentieth Century
Shaun Cole
Oxford•New York
First published in 2000 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
150 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JJ, UK
838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812, USA
© Shaun Cole 2000
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1859734154(Cloth)
1859734200(Paper)
Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn.
For Andrew
Falala Lalala La La La
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xi
Introduction 1
11111
Homosexuality, Class and Dress 15
22222
Fairies and Queens: The Role of Effeminate
Stereotypes 31
33333
You’re Born Naked and the Rest is Drag! 45
44444
Invisible Men? 59
55555
Tight Trousers: Italian Styling in the 1960s 71
66666
Counterculture and Liberation: Gay Men,
Beats and Hippies 83
77777
‘Macho Man’: Clones and the Development of a
Masculine Stereotype 93
88888
Hell for Leather: Bikers, S&M and Fetishisation 107
99999
Body Talk 119
1111100000
Down to Basics: Swimwear and Underwear 131
1111111111
Trash, Glamour, Punk 141
1111122222
Express Yourself: Clubbing at the Blitz, the
Batcave, and Beyond 157
1111133333
Hard Boys: Masculine Appropriations in
the 1980s 169
1111144444
Are You a Fag? ’Cos You Look Like a Fag! 183
Bibliography 193
Index 205
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Acknowledgements
I would firstly like to thank all the men that I interviewed (and this includes
those who may not have been aware that I was gleaning information from
them as we chatted). Without their time and memories this book could never
have been written. Even where I have not directly quoted from our conver-
sations I am grateful for the thoughts, ideas and further leads that they offered.
Particular thanks go to John Hardy, Jonathan Jackson, Joe Pop and Ray
Weller. I am also grateful to those who have allowed me to publish their
photographs.
I am indebted to the staff of the libraries that hold archives that I have
used in the course of my research: the National Art Library, the New York
Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, the Hall Carpenter Archive,
the Mass-Observation Archive, The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of
Northern California Archive (especially Willie Walker), The Lesbian and Gay
Community Services Center, the National Archive of Lesbian and Gay History
in New York (Rich Wandell), the National Sound Archive (Rob Perks) and
the BBC Sound Archive.
Quotations from the Mass-Observation archive are reproduced with the
permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London, Copyright the Trustees of the Mass-
Observation Archive at the University of Sussex. The Tom of Finland drawing
is reproduced with the permission of the Tom of Finland Foundation, Los
Angeles.
I would like to acknowledge the work others before me have done into
the recording of gay history, particularly George Chauncey and the Brighton
Ourstory Project, whose research and publications have been of great
importance and guidance to me and I’m sure to many others working in this
field.
I am extremely grateful to Amy de la Haye and Andrew Tomlin for taking
the time to read drafts of this book in its various forms. Their comments,
thoughts and suggestions were invaluable.
I would like to thank all my friends (especially John), family and colleagues
(notably Cath and Katie) who have supported me through this project,
listening and offering encouragement and advice, tea and cake when they
were needed.
ix
Description:"Gay style actually sets trends. It’s what straight people take fashion from."--Tony WoodcockFrom the New Edwardians and muscle boys to Radical Drag and Genderfuck, gay men’s dress has had a profound impact on fashion. However, it is easy to forget that, with few exceptions, gay men earlier in t
