The Intellect Handbook of Men's Fashion

The study of men’s fashion has evolved from an emerging subject to a dynamic and growing field, intersecting with critical conversations on gender, race, sexuality, disability, colonialism, and globalization.

The Handbook of Men’s Fashion pushes beyond conventional narratives by centering three guiding approaches: decentralizing and decolonizing men’s fashion studies, global viewpoints, and intersectionality. With 34 chapters from fashion and dress scholars, the collection offers a uniquely progressive perspective on the field’s development.

Divided into six sections―Theoretical Perspectives, People and Bodies, Places, Objects and Products, Promotions and Business, and Popular Culture―the book examines how masculinity is fashioned, contested, and expressed across time and space. Topics range from national dress and subcultural style to queer and disabled masculinities, luxury branding, and digital fashion communities. By centering histories and communities that have been marginalized in previous scholarship, the chapters collectively expand the boundaries of men’s fashion studies.

Rather than providing a definitive account, The Handbook of Men’s Fashion serves as an invitation to rethink the field, interrogate absences, and imagine new possibilities. It is an essential resource for scholars, students, and industry professionals invested in the past, present, and future of men’s fashion.

The main audience for this book is academic, but it will also appeal to fashion practitioners, curators, and cultural critics, and to general readers interested in the history, culture, and meaning of men’s fashion and dress.

Ben Barry is dean and associate professor of equity and inclusion in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design. His research explores fashion and body diversity in everyday dress and design practice, practice-based fashion research methodologies and academic leadership for cultural change in fashion education. He is the co-founder and co-convenor of the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Programme, a recruitment, scholarship and mentorship initiative for Disabled students.

Contact: Parsons School of Design, 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA.

Andrew Reilly is professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where he teaches courses related to behavioural aspects of fashion and dress. His research and books examine the intersections of gender and sexuality and post-postmodernism in dress. He is founder and editor of the journal Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, also published by Intellect.

José Blanco F. is originally from Costa Rica. He is an associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. His research focuses on dress and popular culture in the second half of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on male fashion. He is also interested in fashion and visual culture in Latin America. José has contributed chapters in readers including The Fashion Reader, The Handbook of Masculinity Studies, The Fashion Business Reader, The Meanings of Dress and Transglobal Fashion Narratives. He has published articles in journals including Fashion Theory, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Dress and The Journal of Popular Culture. José is the editor of The Meanings of Dress (5th edition, 2024), published by Fairchild. Along with Raúl J. Vázquez-López, he is the co-author of the book Dress, Fashion, and National Identity in Puerto Rico (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2024).

Contact: Fashion Institute of Technology, 227 West 27th Street New York, NY 10001, USA.