Why is men’s fashion photography redefining the image of the contemporary male and how does it use diverse male sexualities as a tool in advertising?

The works of renowned photographers such as Hedi Slimane have a heavy impact on prevailing images of male sexualities in fashion advertising, eventually affecting the image of the ideal male in fashion. Male sexualities in high fashion photography can oscillate between the homoerotic or a dominant hetero-masculinity, thus there is usually no middle ground in fashion advertising, especially where artistic direction takes over. Such advertising targets niche “high fashion” audiences and responds to the popularization of sexual themes in other forms of advertising (and indeed wider media), whilst associating diverse sexualities with artistry. Coding in high fashion advertisements affect, but also respond intuitively to, audience sexual ideologies by deconstructing the concepts of femininity and masculinity that have undergone rapid change in our self-reflective and deconstructing postmodern world.

Hedi Slimane’s penchant for androgynous men has significantly heightened popularity for thin male models in the fashion industry. His work usually incorporates explicit concepts of homo-eroticism and femininity inspiring many leading contemporary designers and photographers who saw his designs as radical and surprisingly persuasive” [1]. Indeed, Hedi’s influence on modern fashion aesthetics suggests that “designers everywhere started reducing their silhouettes"[2]. Karl Lagerfeld, who drastically lost weight in order to fit into Hedi Slimane’s clothes (designed to be “modelled by very, very slim boys”[3]) is now one of the most influential figures in the fashion world: a world that preferences feminine males and adopting an androgynous aesthetic. Androgyny is now embraced by other designers and photographers such as Stefano Pilati (for Yves Saint Laurent), Franck Boclet (for Emmanuel Ungaro) and Ricardo Tisci (for Givenchy); and as a result, the historically conventional image of ideal masculinity is featured less frequently on runway shows and editorials, suggesting that the postmodern distrust of universal, essential ‘truths’ also includes sceptical ideas about essentialism in gender and sexuality: ‘truths’ that J Lyotard termed ‘metanarratives’[4]. Gender and sexuality debates argue that these ‘truths’ are myths, and that the historic (and in fact contemporary) framework “which pre-exists the individual” is part of what creates the “rigid (structural) opposition of two biological sexes”[5]. This makes ideal masculinity is a “product of specific socio-historical "technologies,"”[6]. As male silhouettes reduce and feminise, they are arguably escaping the earlier limitations of history and even conventional society. This gives photographers and designers creative ‘new canvas’ for their art.

Particularly since Paris Fashion Week in 2008 “where men's fashion won a feminine touch”[7], the feminine-masculine image has pervaded high fashion, particularly in high art advertising that seek to challenge generic menswear advertising..
Such advertisements include those by Terry Richardson for Sisley who has been criticized for his provocative photography featuring homo-erotic themes, such as the Sisley Palm Spring 2000[8] campaign featuring two underwear clad men shown lying together in intimate and suggestive poses. This is not just a ‘new’ image of gender, but of sexuality, challenging essential ideas of both.

A recent collaboration of Hedi Slimane and stylist Nicola Formichetti for the bi-annual Vogue Hommes Japan #2[9] (released March 2009) features Slimane’s trademark thin models photographically depicting the theme of “The Americans”. This much anticipated issue highlighted avant-garde western fashion design in Slimane’s standard homoerotic style. The photography itself is impressively artistic and “bordering on surreal”[10]. With the demographic for this feature being a fashion conscious Japanese audience, Hedi’s intentions are intellectually provocative with his choice of having European models in sexually suggestive poses and clothing in order to question the deeply historical traditional western male image and underlying ideology of western men. With these potentially negative connotations of American men it redefines dominant sexuality weakening the hegemony implicit in the typical western man. One image features a model in a dog mask holding a US flag in each hand. The dog mask itself seems derogatory with a troubling symbolism, possibly portraying Americans as animalistic politically or socially to the Japanese public. This representation is similar to those during the 2nd World War between Japan and USA in which propaganda was used to invoke social hatred between the two through forms of media by representing each other as ”barbaric, sub-human, and in some cases, demonic,”[11] which is very similar to what Slimane has depicted through his photography. In addition to this symbolism, the positioning of the flags and lighting emphasises the aesthetic frailty of the model’s body, consequently depicting their feebleness. Naked models are pictured in this feature which supposedly celebrates American design, however, in the rare images where garments are apparent, fashion is not a main focus at all, insinuating that Slimane did not have a purely fashion-focused agenda. Interestingly, although his other works celebrate femininity and distinct sexualities, these series of photographs are unquestioningly political, and openly encourage negative readings that disempower, inverting the cultural hegemony of America into something potentially anti-American or even racist but deeply aware of the Japanese cultural power and integrity/security that still allows it to keep a cultural fascination with America in spite of America’s supposed cultural hegemony. Interestingly, this deconstruction of American masculinity actually powerfully asserts how inseparable gender and sexuality are from the political and historic context that ‘inscribes’ it (where masculinity is a “product of specific socio-historical "technologies,"”[12]). Not only that, it embraces the fractured idea of postmodernism, where such secure concepts as ‘Americanism’ and American hegemony are symbolically deconstructed at its historical (male) roots

A controversial Calvin Klein Teen series of images[13] published by fashion website Pony Step, and shot by Brett Lloyd, featured similar notions. Interestingly, this photo shoot was styled by Nicola Formichetti who previously collaborated with Hedi Slimane. Yet again, the images feature slim feminine boys wearing only pulled down CK underwear with words and signs drawn on bare skin such as “Fuck Me” and arrows pointing to the model’s crotch. The poses use provocative eye contact; positioning male audiences with an intimacy in men’s fashion that is usually scarce. In fact, when the subject gazes directly at the viewer, there is what Godeo describes as a “request or ‘demand’ to the viewer” which then creates a “personal social relation between represented participants and viewers” and that frontal positions (such as these two advertisements) produce “an attitude of subjectivity and involvement with the viewer.”[14]. This type of involvement establishes an emotional relationship naturalising the audiences’ positioning, and the implied narrative of the image.

Yet this is rather a deterministic reading[15], and many individuals may well be positioned in opposition (Hall 1973) [16] to this assumed role finding it threatening to their sexuality whilst women’s fashion advertisements are more commonly able to have a close psycho-sexual relationship with the viewer (through nudity and sexual connotations), “Advertisement producers are well aware that too close a contact between the men represented in these advertisements and ideal male consumers might trigger homoerotic interpretations”[17] that will alienate or even frighten their target market. Thus men’s fashion, particularly mainstream brands avoid viewer intimacy. In the powerful, economically driven world of fashion and advertising, political, social and artistic agendas can only be tolerated where there is financial gain. Therefore, the economic imperative negotiates a very fine balance between the psychological influences of sexual desire, artistic/ aesthetic appeals, the allure of ideological anarchy and of course, the safety of mass appeal.

Despite a disturbing history of sexual abuse against women that was tolerated in order to maintain political and social stability[18], masculinity as male sexual power is a powerful advertising tool. The banned ad campaign, by Dolce & Gabbana[19] (Spring/Summer 2007), featured a female model being pinned down by one of five scantily clad male models in what looks like a glorification of gang rape. In this image, the men are onlookers to this scene while the female model maintains an absent expression. On the other hand, the female model’s pelvis is thrust upwards suggesting that it may not be a submissive situation. Nevertheless, the composition of the image makes explicit the theme of male domination through the intensity and potency in the space between the models. Interestingly, the position of the models in the image is quite distant from the audience which involves less direct and intimate involvement between the viewer and the subjects: creating a fetishistic and voyeuristic positioning that distances the viewer quite deliberately to increase the pleasure of watching[20]. The controlled seriousness in the male models’ expressions is also worthy of note, increasing male power, the gaze that concentrates the ‘fetish’ nature of the watching, and also insinuating intensity in advertisements as being a masculine trait linked to power; “Stoicism and carefully considered emotional reactions are hallmarks of adult masculinity in the world of advertising”[21]. The designers defended the campaign by stating that the ad was meant to “recall an erotic dream, a sexual game”[22].Whether the campaign was meant to cause controversy or depict a sexual fantasy, it is certain that the photographic construction of masculinity is defined by violence and sexual dominance in order to increase sales figures. Although opposite to the controversially emasculated, disempowered image by Hedi Slimane, the underlying prevalence of sexuality and the psychological ‘id’ (based on Freud’s psychodynamic theory, and at the heart of Lacan’s concept of voyeurism) seems to run as a core through them all.

Whilst sexuality in fashion advertising has always been a controversial (and therefore quite marketable) theme of sexuality, the hetero-erotic, the homo-erotic and even explicit homosexuality may well reflect the values of the institutions behind the texts. The fashion houses whose designers/photographers have had a fairly strong gay sub-culture have existed in the fashion industry since the first haute couture fashion houses were established in the early 1900’s. “New magazines aimed at a wider, heterosexual male consumer were published,” following the menswear revolution in the 1960’s, although “even here a gay influence could be perceived”[23]. However, more men became concerned with clothing causing many to enter various fields in fashion whilst the renowned and trusted menswear designers still existed thus still allowing disparate sexualities to be explored and indeed debated through the extremes of sexual imagery now found in fashion.

Whilst the history of the industry, the institutional practices and even aesthetic imperatives influence fashion advertising, it is highly commercially driven and there is often a discord between the artistic visions and economics involved in major processes. Although themes of divisive sexualities may not directly increase sales, the controversiality of the advertisements often increase awareness of the brand through intentions to shock and tap into psycho-sexual human motivations. Innovation through the “sex sells” philosophy has proved to be successful in fashion, where “Sex and fashion have long been intertwined. Sex and advertising – even longer”[24]; A lot of theorists turn to Lacan’s mirror theory to explain this dynamic Viewers, it is argued, identify themselves as subject (fetishising the experience), or as voyeur (spectator that shares/imagines the experience) to “fill in the gap between our fractured identity and the ego-idea,”[25] meaning that the viewer connects with the subject psychosexually while the images “construct gender identities that reflect our sexual fantasies[26]”. So rather than imply a particular positioning of a sexual identity, there is a much more complex psycho-sexual relationship created.

Famously, Baudrillard attacked the postmodern condition vehemently for privileging image over substance, and living according to an idealised version of ourselves through commodities[27], which is arguably at the heart of fashion photography. And yet the postmodern loss of any meta-narrative to anchor sexuality or gender has made these ‘images’ fluid, and possibly contradictory. It seems sexualities in fashion are taken to an extreme; femininity and masculinity are flamboyant in order to provide a psycho-sexual relationship between the audience and the text. Such fashion photography give viewers “a sense of curiosity, wonder, envy or disgust or a combination of each”,[28] paradoxically strengthening this bond as it anchors emotion and avoids stable meaning. Hedi Slimane’s photography explored western man, sexual ambivalence and political power through femininity as a way of publicizing his artistic abilities, his intellectualism, and his cultural clout in the industry. On the other hand, The Calvin Klein advertisement explored promiscuity and sexual empowerment through intimacy between the subject and viewer, whilst the masculinity of the Dolce & Gabbana campaign broached troubling fantasies of sexual dominance and abuse which controversially foregrounds traditional hetero-centred sexual power. The psycho-sexual relationship of viewer – whether distant (Dolce & Gabbana/Slimane) or intimate (Calvin Klein) - is supported by Lacan’s earliest writings, and other writers on the role of ‘scopophilia’ in viewer pleasures and fulfilling sexual desires. This erotic photography not only engages the psycho-sexual viewer, but politicises this male sexuality thus engaging with a historical, social concept of masculinity that is inescapable.

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[1] Guy Trebay, “The Vanishing Point”, The New York Times, February 7th 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/fashion/shows/07DIARY.html [date accessed - 23/11/09]
[2] Guy Trebay, “The Vanishing Point”, The New York Times, February 7th 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/fashion/shows/07DIARY.html [date accessed - 23/11/09]
[3] Sander L.Gilman, Diets and Dieting: A Cultural Encylopedia, (2007) New York: Routledge (p.87)
[4]Martin Halbert, “Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition”, http://www.umpi.maine.edu/~ricer/research/masculinity.htm [date accessed - 30/03/10]
[5] Raymond J. Rice, "Never Lose Control": The Technology of Postmodern Masculinity, http://www.umpi.maine.edu/~ricer/research/masculinity.htm [date accessed - 30/03/10]
[6] Raymond J. Rice, "Never Lose Control": The Technology of Postmodern Masculinity, http://www.umpi.maine.edu/~ricer/research/masculinity.htm [date accessed - 30/03/10]
[7] “Men's fashion gets a feminine touch at Paris shows”, International News; Wires, FR-EN-AR, June 29th 2008, http://mobile.france24.com/en/node/4894742 [date accessed - 06/12/09]
[8]Terry Richardson, Sisley - Palm Spring 2000, http://www.coloribus.com/focus/sisley_advertising_provocation/
[9] http://popieces.blogspot.com/2009/03/vogue-hommes-japan-summer-2009-by-hedi.html The Americans - Vogue Hommes Japan #2 by Hedi Slimane
[10] http://www.hommestar.com/?q=node/1112
[11] https://www.msu.edu/~navarro6/srop.html
[12] Raymond J. Rice, "Never Lose Control": The Technology of Postmodern Masculinity, http://www.umpi.maine.edu/~ricer/research/masculinity.htm [date accessed - 31/03/10]
[13] http://homotography.blogspot.com/2009/01/brett-lloyd-ck-teen-underwear.html Calvin Klein Teen - Pony Step by Brett Lloyd

[14] http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusicb_advertising/godeo.htm Eduardo de Gregorio Godeo, ”Male-perfume advertising in men's magazines and visual discourse in contemporary Britain : a social semiotics approach” [date accessed 26/11/09]

[15] Daniel Chandler, “ Semiotics for Beginners” http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html [date accessed 26/11/09]
[16] Daniel Chandler, “ Semiotics for Beginners” http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html [date accessed 26/11/09]
[17] http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusicb_advertising/godeo.htm
[18] Sharon Block. Rape and Sexual Power in Early America. (2006). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
[19] http://www.fashionrat.com/7-eye-opening-fashion-ads/ Spring/Summer 2007 – Dolce & Gabbana

[20] Zoe Sofia 'Masculine excess and the metaphorics of vision: some problems of feminist film theory', The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, vol. 2 no 2 (1989) http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/2.2/Sofia.html [date accessed - 02/04/10]

[21] http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asr/v007/7.2unit07.html
[22] http://my.opera.com/Fashionocracy/blog/2007/03/09/gabbana-on-why-d
[23] http://www.glbtq.com/arts/fashion,3.html
[24] http://www.debonairmag.com/the-most-controversial-ads-in-fashion-history
[25] http://legacy.lclark.edu/~soan370/lacan.html
[26] http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/1021/Photography-and-Desire-Fashion-Glamour-and-Pornography.html
[27] L'Echange symbolique et la mort (Paris: Gallimard, 1976); pp. 19-29 trans. as "Symbolic Exchange and Death," in Poster, 119-149 http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/baud/index.html
[28] http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0507-tina_butler.html