Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015

With the strongest European and American menswear collection in the western United States, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is presenting the evolving nature of men's fashion from 1715 to 2015.

Drawn mostly by LACMA's permanent collection, the 200 featured items illuminate connections between history and culture in high fashion.

Debuting highlights are several rare surviving ensembles from the collection including fashions worn by men from different socio-economic levels during the French Revolution, such as an aristocrat's at home robe (banyan) and a revolutionary's sans-culottes pants and carmagnole jacket. An authentic 1940s zoot suit, that took over a decade to locate, is also on display.

The survey re-examines the frequent association between fashion and femininity in five themes: Revolution/Evolution, East/West, Uniformity, Body Consciousness, and The Splendid Man.

In the Revolution/Evolution section, anti-authoritarian currents surrounding the French Revolution, new styles, textiles and colors with exaggerated shapes and dramatic accessories were used to express political sentiment such as the English Macaroni of the 1770, and the French Incroyable of the 1790s.

Similarly, 200 years later, the punk movement embraced bricolage and do-it yourself personalization. Men's elegant clothing was also redefined from the Romantic Dandies of the early 1900, to the bespoke of the 1900s, to the power suits of the 1980s, and the form fitting suits of the early 2000s.

The East/West  section reflects cultural exchanges between the East and the West in the 17^th and 18^th centuries that led to banyans inspired by kimonos from Japan or the Middle Eastern caftan. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, clothing designs from India, China, and Japan were re-interpreted for Western Fashions. 
 
During the mid-20^th century immigrants transferred their indigenous styles to their adopted countries. For instance, Japanese settlers in Hawaii repurposed traditional kimonos and imported printed silks to create shirts now called Aloha or Hawaiian shirts.

Featured in the Uniformity section are military and working uniforms of the late and 18^th through the 21^st centuries inspired motifs, protective outerwear and camouflage seen in fashion today.

Body Consciousness covers the evolution of historically men's clothing devices such as stockings with padded calves, waist-clinching underpants, and body shaping tailored jackets or corsets to achieve an ideal male silhouette. 

The growing acceptance of exposed skin can be traced through the evolution of swimwear from the 1900 bathing suit that covered the entire body, to the 1935 Jantzen swimsuit with a detachable top, to Rudi Gernreich's 1974 thong swimsuit, only to revert back to a 2008 full-body competition swimsuit made by Speedo in collaboration with designer Rei Kawakubo.

The Splendid Man section 

considers how superfluities that were once commonplace in men's dress, such as sparkling paste (glass) stones and sequined embellishments, animal furs, floral patterns and vividly colored textiles, are resurrected and reinterpreted in contemporary clothes.

The exhibit runs from April 10, 2016, through August 21, 2016, at BCAM, Level 2, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/