Another big part of the Great Male Renunciation is that the Enlightenment was a time of revolution and violent rejection of the nobility’s privileges. The nobility whose defining fashion traits were to wear complex, frilly, colorful dresses and heels and wigs.
Muted fashion was a way for the new ruling class of capitalist bourgeois to set themselves apart from that history and to pander to the proletariat. We still see some of that for example with the stark difference between “luxury” brands like Gucci that are considered nouveau-riche and gaudy, and the fashion of billionaires which is “clothes that look like everyday clothes (but probably cost more than some houses)”.
The Enlightenment, fall of the “Ancien Régime”, and Industrial Revolution altogether explain the Great Male Renunciation, however the reasons why flamboyant fashion was pushed on to women (to then be reclaimed by gay men) have everything to do with misogyny.
Another big part of the Great Male Renunciation is that the Enlightenment was a time of revolution and violent rejection of the nobility’s privileges. The nobility whose defining fashion traits were to wear complex, frilly, colorful dresses and heels and wigs.
Muted fashion was a way for the new ruling class of capitalist bourgeois to set themselves apart from that history and to pander to the proletariat. We still see some of that for example with the stark difference between “luxury” brands like Gucci that are considered nouveau-riche and gaudy, and the fashion of billionaires which is “clothes that look like everyday clothes (but probably cost more than some houses)”.
The Enlightenment, fall of the “Ancien Régime”, and Industrial Revolution altogether explain the Great Male Renunciation, however the reasons why flamboyant fashion was pushed on to women (to then be reclaimed by gay men) have everything to do with misogyny.