Gender, Culture, and Consumer Behavior

Cele C. Otnes, Linda Tuncay Zayer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781848729469
• eBook ISBN: 9781136463488
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Comportamiento del consumidor

This book covers the gamut of topics related to gender and consumer culture. Changing gender roles have forced scholars and practitioners to re-examine some of the fundamental assumptions and theories in this area. Gender is a core component of identity and thus holds significant implications for how consumers behave in the marketplace. This book offers innovative research in gender and consumer behavior with topics relevant to psychology, marketing, advertising, sociology, women's studies and cultural studies. It offers 16 chapters of cutting-edge research on gender, international culture and consumption. Unique to this volume is its emphasis on consumption and masculinity and inclusion of topics on a rapidly changing world of issues related to culture and gender in advertising, communications, psychology and consumer behavior.

Section IV

Masculine Discourses

10

Masculinity and Fashion

Jacob Ostberg

INTRODUCTION

Wearing the right socks used to be easy—at least for the average Joe in the Western world during the last couple of decades. The selection of socks was essentially a nonissue. This was not always the case: Throughout history the male fashion dictates surrounding socks have varied considerably. Just consider the sixteenth century, when brightly colored hose were in vogue to emphasize the sexiness of the male leg (Laver, 1995) or the end of the 1940s when “fancy hose” accounted for 60% of all men’s sock purchases (Flusser, 2002). But from the 1950s onward, “the synthetic onesize-fits-all sock engaged the practical side of the American man’s brain, and soon everyone’s plat du jour was a choice between black, navy, and brown stretch socks” (Flusser, 2002, p. 181).

American men were not the only ones faced with the monochrome sock selection because stores across the Western world offered little else than a range of ankle socks in subdued colors, from dark gray to black, and the only choices to be made had to do with finding the correct size and the appropriate quality. Tricky enough, for sure, but still relatively easy compared to the cacophony of colors, models, and materials available in the women’s section. Things became slightly more complicated when white sport socks were introduced. All of a sudden these nice, comfortable socks were available at a good price but still, according to the style police, one was not supposed to wear them at any occasion.

This is when things started to get complicated, but also interesting. The white-sport-sock/subdued-color-formal-sock duality opened up a simplistic space for playing games of distinction. The dichotomous sock universe became a safe playground for men wanting to show their distinction. “Everyone” with the slightest interest in sartorial matters—that is, matters relating to clothes, especially the finer types of tailored clothes—knew that wearing white sport socks with a suit or formal slacks was in bad taste. Pointing fingers to the ones who did was an easy way for men to bond over their common sartorial fingerspitzengefühl. Mythical figures—such as men wearing white sport socks with sandals—representing archetypal bad taste were also invented to reinforce this simple sartorial principle. The traditional heuristic was thus the following: dark socks = good; white socks = bad.

Nothing lasts forever, however, and even this beautiful, simple world of unambiguous sock categories had to come to an end. As so often is the case in sartorial matters, it appears, when something takes on the character of dogma, merely following conventions holds little meaning. Basic semiotic theory informs us that meaning is created by difference (see, for example, Hall, 1997), and in their quest to create meaning, men aspiring to stand out started to challenge the convention of dark and white socks. Quite simply, they started to behave differently. When “the new man” saw the light of day in the 1980s (Mort, 1996), the simple dichotomous world of socks started to vanish.

These tendencies became even more accentuated around the turn of the century as the so-called metrosexual man made his way into the public consciousness (Simpson, 2002). Suddenly even Average Joes were supposed to be comfortable playing around with colors, thus supposedly connecting with their feminine side (yes, this is indeed a problematic notion; I return to it later). As time moved on, merely choosing dark socks to stick to conventions was no longer a sign of refinement, but a sign of insecurity. Sophistication had turned to anxiousness in a heartbeat. The new maninfluenced heuristic that substituted for the old one looked something like this: dark socks = boring; colored socks = fresh; white socks = not even on the map.

At this time, men started playing around with colored socks and the creativity of matching was abundant. Initially, suggestions for the insecure ranged from picking up on colors that were otherwise represented in the clothes, such as this advice from a style guide book: “If colored socks make you insecure you should quite simply stick to the monochromatic. Otherwise one adjusts the socks’ dominant color to the color of the t-shirt, the shirt or the pullover” (Engel, 2004, p. 79). But soon the advice turned bolder and bolder. One of Sweden’s most popular fashion bloggers even suggested that one could (and perhaps should—style advice has a way of working like that) match one’s socks with the color of one’s bike (Enckell, May 11, 2009). Everyone was indeed going bananas. A veritable sock anarchy was in place; anything but white or dark socks was fine and the only rule to follow was to follow no rules.

Again, by the simple semiotic process of differentiation, wearing wildly colored socks suddenly became a less meaningful activity. Because style and fashion is a game of distinctions, those aspiring to carve out their own stylistic niche had to come up with something new. Perhaps the time was ripe for the renaissance of the white sock? Well, there was still a great deal of hesitancy as illustrated by the reaction to influential fashion blogger Scott Schuman’s (aka the sartorialist) blog post (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com, March 11, 2009). It featured a picture of a stylish gentleman in his late 50s to early 60s sitting at a café table in Paris looking dapper in a dark suit, light blue shirt, dark bow tie, and—here is the big surprise—casual footwear influenced by tennis shoes and WHITE SOCKS. The sartorially inclined readers of the blog reacted the way they had been trained: white socks = bad taste. The commentator field was rapidly filled with statements about this man not possibly being stylish because he was wearing white socks. The fact that he was wearing tennis shoes with his dark suit seemed less problematic; the socks caught the attention.

A bold few, however, had spotted this possibility to carve out a unique identity space by advocating or using white socks. An example occurred when an influential fashion blogger in Stockholm (Herrbloggen, February 28, 2008) posted an old picture taken in 1946 featuring Robert F. Kennedy and a group of his Harvard friends sitting on a set of stairs casually sporting grey flannel suits, black leather shoes, and beautiful, thick, white sport socks. The blogger made a snide remark about all the people out there being afraid to wear white socks. According to the blogger, shying away from white socks was a sign of insecurity because men of real confidence can handle the white sock—that is, the new white sock, not any old sport sock. Sure enough, it was not long before one of the more influential Stockholm socialites was photographed at a restaurant sporting—what else—a nice pair of thick, white sport socks (Stureplan.se, May 12, 2008).

We see here a sudden shift in the semiotic landscape of socks. Wearing white sport socks starts having the same connotations that colored socks used to have: that is, breaking conventions and signaling that the wearer is a man with panache. Sure enough, the mainstream publications followed suit and declared colored socks to be so-last-year. For example, King, Sweden’s largest men’s fashion magazine, placed colored socks on its list of the 10 worst fashion faux pas in the spring of 2009. What we witness here is a veritable sock semiotic meltdown: The new white socks are the new colored socks; the dark socks are also the new colored socks; the colored socks are the new (old) white socks; the old white socks are still the old white socks.

So why should we care about socks, you might rightfully ask? The sock example is intended to introduce the types of discourses and the underlying status games that are constantly at play in the area of masculinity and fashion. While socks might seem trivial, verging on the silly, they offer the potential to illustrate how the norms of male fashion are socially and culturally constructed. The sock example, on a very basic level, illustrates how the available choices at each point in time and in each location present themselves as self-evident. Our freedom to choose is thus always circumscribed by the available discourses of how to consume (Murray, 2002; Thompson & Haytko, 1997). The sock example illustrates how these discourses are made available and negotiated in the public sphere.

One of the purposes of this chapter is to look at the discursive strategies utilized by the traditional elite to strengthen their sense of masculinity in light of a new and allegedly feminized mainstream consumption ethos. The way that changing gender ideologies in our consumer society ripple through the social classes and affect the groups that, according to their own mythology, are not easily influenced by consumer fads and fashions is thereby put in focus. Throughout this chapter, I will suggest that seemingly trivial activities, such as discussions of sock color, are micropolitical acts that reinforce power structures and make class and status positions visible.

I first introduce some historical and theoretical starting points to the discussion of masculinity and fashion. I then provide a discussion of relevant studies concerning masculinity and fashion within the marketing field. Next, I provide an empirical illustration of masculinity and fashion wherein I use the sock example, as well as complementary material, to show how consumers, the market system, and popular culture negotiate over fashion meanings and constantly create borders that delineate acceptable behaviors from unacceptable ones.

LITERATURE REVIEW: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MEN’S FASHION

Although sartorial customs have changed over time in Europe and elsewhere, such as the imperial courts of China and Japan, fashion as we understand it can hardly be said to have existed prior to the beginnings of mercantile capitalism in medieval Europe (Wilson, 1985/2003). It was then, during the court life in the fourteenth century, that changes in dress started showing the dynamics and the speed of change necessary to talk about fashion. At that time, clothing styles became much more elaborated and the silhouettes changed from various body parts being displayed in tightly fitting garments to others being exaggerated through creative use of fabric and other materials. Both men and women were equally engaged in following fashion, as can easily be noted for those visiting an art museum displaying historical portraits where changes in styles can be noted almost from decade to decade (for an overview of historical changes in dress, see Laver, 1995).

At first, fashion changed slowly—perhaps slowly enough for the people not to notice that they were doing anything other than dressing the only way available to them. The faster paces of change—change that was fast enough for garments that were not worn out to be disposed of—came about during the eighteenth century in what Campbell (2007, p. 23) calls “the modern Western fashion pattern.” This had to do with the developments of modernity at the time of the industrial revolution, a time characterized by such phenomena as mass production, rapid transport systems, and greater mobility. Together with the birth of mass media, these led to a speeding up of life and experience, the early signs of democracy, the rise of an organized industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and changes in the relationships between men and women (Wilson, 1985/2003). Due to these large shifts in how societies were organized, individuals came in contact with people, ideas, and styles that would never have crossed their paths of life before.

These developments eventually led to the questioning of the taken-for-granted nature of things, of whether it was indeed possible to change one’s life course through hard work and, not to be forgotten, particular detail to sartorial matters. Whereas the earliest fashion behaviors largely concerned court life across Europe, subsequently an increasing number of strata in society came to engage with and be affected by fashion developments. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, virtually all classes in society were, to varying degrees, involved in fashion. When fashion thus spread across the social classes and when class and wealth no longer necessarily coincided, it became increasingly hard to figure out where in the stratified society a particular individual belonged.

When the first traces of changes in fashion started appearing, during the Middle Ages, they created anxieties among the royalty and the aristocracy, who were afraid that people would dress above their social standing. To offset this tension, the higher strata in society installed so-called sumptuary laws that forbade the common people from wearing certain garments and colors and put limitations on the number of buttons, the amount of fabric or the type of fabric that was allowed (Laver, 1995).

These laws thus created a cat-and-mouse game where the elite tried to stay ahead of the common man—a game that we can still detect today, as I illustrate later in this chapter. During periods of time, exceptionally complicated sumptuary laws trying to control those who found loopholes and managed to display wealth and success in ways threatening to those in power were in place. For example, the fashion of slashing (i.e., having slashes in the outer fabric of a garment so that the lining becomes visible) during the Elizabethan era is sometimes attributed to rich merchants wanting to display colors that were not permitted for their outer garments.

The Emergence of Modern Men...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Section I Feminist Theory and Discourses
• Part II Media, Advertising, and Gender
• III Gender, Culture, and the Market
• IV Masculine Discourses
• V New Directions
• Glossary
• Name Index
• Subject Index