Project narrative

The research aimed to explore the thesis that central to the design, production and consumption of menswear in the UK is the reinforcement of a gendered hegemony of masculinities. Through the endless reiteration of archetypal garments and their functions, men’s dress codes and roles are prescribed and reinforced, thereby successfully enabling menswear to evade analysis and remain invisible.

Methods

The initial research in 2016 focused on the establishment of the Westminster Menswear Archive (WMA). The objective was to collect significant examples of menswear, with a focus on garments designed, produced or worn in the United Kingdom, as the basis for object-based research into this material culture and developing new knowledge. Some of the most important national dress collections within museums originated in significant donations from benefactors. For example, the Fashion Museum, Bath, was started by Doris Langley Moore, who gave her collection to the city in 1963. The Manchester Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall was based around a collection donated by Cecil Willett Cunnington and Phillis Emily Cunnington in 1947. Most museum collections of fashion and dress have been shaped by gendered ideas about clothing and fashion with significantly fewer acquisitions of menswear. 

The WMA started without a donated core collection but with a large budget for acquisitions. Groves was therefore able to design a collection development policy that would focus on the underrepresented area of men’s fashion and men’s dress with an emphasis on British produced, designed or worn garments. In doing so, the team established a new approach that acknowledges the significant differences in the design processes, functionality and purpose of menswear, distinct from that of womenswear. They used online sales and auction sites as a means of researching and acquiring objects, primarily eBay. Ninety-nine different search alerts (the maximum possible) were set up, resulting in 99 emails daily for each specific term. This methodology ensured that the acquisition of objects covered the spread of cloth-based artefacts they wished the collection to contain. 

The archive was deliberately conceived to exist between industry, the museum and the university. A purposely contested space that would enable it to examine the shifting relationship between these institutions previously highlighted by Breward in his paper ‘Between the museum and the academy: Fashion research and its constituencies’ (2008). 

This research builds on increasing interest and development within the studies of masculinities and men’s fashion, for example, the International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities (Flood, 2007), The Men’s Fashion Reader (Karaminas and McNeil, 2009) and the establishment of the journal Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion in 2014. Over three years, the team researched, sourced and accessioned more than 1,700 artefacts into the collection, which would form the basis of its exhibitions. 

The first exhibition, Archetypes (2015), identified the use of archives and pre-existing garments as a critical research and design process within contemporary menswear design. In comparison to the methods typically undertaken in the creation of womenswear, the design language of menswear predominantly focuses on the replication of functional and historical archetypal garments intended initially for specific industrial, technical or military use. 

This finding informed Groves’ decision that the WMA would, therefore, be designed to be used also as a resource for external designers to undertake research, and to inform undergraduate and postgraduate students and their current design practice. Companies that have used the archive for this purpose since 2016 include Adidas, Alexander McQueen, CP Company, Daks, Dunhill, Hunter, Jigsaw, Burberry, Margaret Howell, Pringle, Rapha, Tom Ford, Umbro and Versace. 

In summary, the method, approach and process of discovery led to:

  • Creation of a new inclusive taxonomy of dress that embraces a parity between cloth-based objects.
  • Establishment of a substantial new dress collection enabling a previously underresearched area of fashion history to be understood through object-based research.
  • Creation of a significant contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the production, consumption and design of British menswear and its historical context. 
  • Development of new understandings of the role of garment archives in the design processes of contemporary designers.
  • Broadening the understanding of menswear as a design discipline distinct from womenswear.

Testing hypotheses

Invisible Men (2019) built on the earlier exhibitions Archetypes (2015) and The Vanishing Art of Camouflage (2016); the latter included early artefacts acquired by the WMA. These smaller exhibitions allowed Groves to test the hypothesis regarding the inherent design methodology and distinctiveness within menswear: that military, industrial and ceremonial clothing informs the design language of menswear in a way that is not found within womenswear. 

Invisible Men aimed to fully explore the multiplicity of relationships and dialogues between these object categorisations, and in doing so change historic exhibition narratives of fashion and dress that present menswear as being dominated by the figure of the dandy. 

The title Invisible Men acknowledged the absence of menswear within dress collections and fashion exhibitions. It also references a distinctive method of design intrinsic to menswear and an inherent approach to male dress that is preoccupied with both unwritten rules and minor, almost unnoticeable detail. The exhibition design consciously reflected this through its regimental presentation, and the use of headless mannequins positioned all at the same height, echoing the hegemonic power of uniformed men that deliberately makes the individual invisible. 

Groves decided to show a total of 186 objects displayed on 156 mannequins, making Invisible Men the biggest exhibition of menswear to have been staged in the UK. Planning for the exhibition started in June 2018 with initial curatorial selections of garments and themes. At this point it was decided only to exhibit objects from the permanent collection of the WMA, to underpin the research principles that had been developed within the collection. As the curatorial statement developed, the team was also able to acquire additional objects to develop the exhibition thesis. At this point, further research was initiated by contacting over 57 individual menswear companies in the UK, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the United States, to research specific objects that would be displayed within the exhibition. 

The final object list for the exhibition included items from 60 designers or other organisations and was divided into 12 thematic sections highlighting different aspects of menswear. Designer garments were displayed next to industrial and functional menswear. Central to the curation of the show was its location, sited three floors below ground in a vast 14,000sq ft industrial space, a former concrete testing hall. The rawness and redundancy of this space illuminated the fetishistic appreciation of the working man in all his heroic iterations (Bell, 2020). 

The layout of the exhibition was designed through a series of plans, drawings and meetings focused on the 12 categories and the approach to collecting as developed by Groves and Sprecher. The final design was conceived to start with the simplest, least gendered garment, the cape. Then as each section progressed, the garments become more complex as their functionality increased. The final section devoted to ceremonial garments highlighted the endurance of specific types of clothing where their original functionality has become ornamental, historical and eventually redundant. 

Each section was presented on 12 identical horizontal platforms. Mannequins were aligned in military formation to create 12 rows displaying 13 torsos, implying the manifestation of a subterranean army of invisible men. Viewed individually, each thematic platform could be considered as a selfcontained miniature exhibition. However, the regimental uniformity of presentation allowed the visitor to draw additional connections across these defined sections suggesting how the perceived rigidity of boundaries within menswear could merge, dissolve and disappear. 

Through unique access to and knowledge of Alexander McQueen’s work, due to Groves’ role as his design assistant in the 1990s, the exhibition was able to present for the first time publicly significant examples of McQueen’s formative early menswear. This provided an opportunity to articulate how his approach to tailoring, learnt on Savile Row, underpinned both his menswear and womenswear collections. Central to this display was a selection of garments from his Autumn Winter 1998 collection, Joan, which explored ideas of gender identity and martyrdom, focusing on the language of tailoring and ecclesiastical garments. As it was adjacent to other sections within the exhibition, it allowed visitors to contextualise McQueen’s work with examples of early 20th-century military and religious tailoring. 

The section devoted to camouflage visually interrogated its role as the epitome of heteronormative masculinity. The strong association of camouflage with the military allows for male reinterpretation of the dandy trope — the possibility of adorning menswear with a significant expanse of colour and pattern without undermining masculinity.

Conference, talks and presentations 

Coinciding with the exhibition, Groves hosted several events for academics and wider audiences:

  • A one-day conference, with eight invited speakers drawn from leading menswear scholars in academia and industry practitioners, saw 120 delegates explore the core issues raised by the exhibition.
  • At the same time, a series of weekly In Conversation events featured a variety of prominent menswear designers being interviewed by journalists in front of an audience of 140 guests.
  • A series of special events saw delegates from organisations including the British Fashion Council, Première Vision Paris and the National Saturday Club being given private curators tours.
  • Supplementing the main exhibition at Ambika P3, a satellite exhibition featuring additional objects from the archive was shown for two weeks at 18 Montrose in Kings Cross, London

CreatorsGroves, Andrew
Description

Groves led the project to establish and launch the WMA in 2016, with the purpose of redressing the historical omission
of menswear in collections of dress, fashion research, and fashion exhibitions. As an archive, the WMA is conceived as a
distinct non-hierarchical approach to the collection and taxonomy of cloth-based objects, challenging the orthodoxy of
traditional approaches to dress history. The WMA’s collection principle and taxonomy proposes instead a parity of objects, by interspersing workwear, uniforms and designer garments. The exhibition Invisible Men explored the design language of menswear and exposed its reliance on a fundamentally unquestioning reworking of archetypal functional garments of “the working man.” The exhibition enhanced understanding of the material design language of menswear, which focused predominantly on the replication of garments intended for specific industrial, technical or military use. It also addressed how this absence denies opportunities to understand male dress and masculinities. Over a period of 18 days, Invisible Men attracted 5,692 visitors, while its press and media coverage achieved an estimated 1.12 million coverage views. The exhibition gained significant international press and media coverage, indicating that there is a significant public interest in menswear as a distinct design discipline. Garments from the WMA are scheduled to be seen at Manchester Art Gallery for Dandy Style in 2021, and the V&A and National Army Museum in 2022.

Portfolio itemsInvisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Invisible Men Conference
Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Year2019
PublisherUniversity of Westminster
Web address (URL)https://www.invisiblemenexhibition.com/
KeywordsCREAM Portfolio
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.34737/qqq4v

Portfolio items

Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2019. Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive . Ambika P3, London 24 Oct - 24 Nov 2019

Invisible Men Conference
Groves Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2019. Invisible Men Conference . Invisible Men Conference. Ambika P3 29 - 29 Oct 2019

Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2019. Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive.

Related outputs

Admiral and the Aesthetic Merit of Design
Groves, Andrew 2024. Admiral and the Aesthetic Merit of Design. in: MacDonald, R. (ed.) Admiral: 50 Years of the Replica Shirt Glasgow Halcyon Publishing.

Inside the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2024. Inside the Westminster Menswear Archive. London Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Various fanzines dedicated to the casual subculture
Groves, Andrew 2023. Various fanzines dedicated to the casual subculture. 25 Kent Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249 20 - 23 Jul 2023

BOG - Decoding the Details with the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves, Andrew and Duffy, Eilidh 2023. BOG - Decoding the Details with the Westminster Menswear Archive. London

Representing Black British Music in the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2023. Representing Black British Music in the Westminster Menswear Archive. UoW Annual Black Music Symposium at the British Library. British Library 20 Oct 2023

Representing Black British Music in the Westminster Menswear Archive
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2023. Representing Black British Music in the Westminster Menswear Archive. UoW Annual Black Music Symposium at the British Library. British Library 20 Oct 2023

Invisible Men in Black
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2023. Invisible Men in Black. ICOM Costume: International Committee for Museums and Collections of Costume, Fashion and Textiles Annual Meeting 2023. National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh 24 - 27 Sep 2023

Investigating the Value of UK Higher Education Fashion and Textile Collections
Groves, Andrew, Briggs-Goode, Amanda, Britt, Helena and Arnold, Kevin 2023. Investigating the Value of UK Higher Education Fashion and Textile Collections. Archiving Fashion Conference: Mapping Fashion Collections. Fashion Institute of Technology, 300 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001 11 - 11 Nov 2023

Tailored by Umbro: Football, fashion and the construction and reconstruction of Englishness through cut, fit, and style
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2023. Tailored by Umbro: Football, fashion and the construction and reconstruction of Englishness through cut, fit, and style. 2023 British Society of Sport History Conference. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester 24 - 25 Aug 2023

Linen in Menswear 1800 - present
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2023. Linen in Menswear 1800 - present. in: Camilleri, A. (ed.) Le Lin, fibre de civilisation(s) Paris, France Actes Sud.

Palliative Prototypes or Therapeutic Functionality? Examining C.P. Company’s Urban Protection Collection
Groves, Andrew 2023. Palliative Prototypes or Therapeutic Functionality? Examining C.P. Company’s Urban Protection Collection. in: Woolley, D., Johnstone, F., Sampson, E. and Chambers, P. (ed.) Wearable Objects and Curative Things: Materialist Approaches to the Intersections of Fashion, Art, Health and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan.

Locating Menswear – A Non-Hierarchical Exploration of Place and Community.
Groves, Andrew, Sprecher, Danielle, Jenkinson, Jo and Owen, Paul 2023. Locating Menswear – A Non-Hierarchical Exploration of Place and Community. Dress Devolution. Falmouth University 06 - 07 Jul 2023

The Repositioning of the Football Jersey from the Pitch to the Runway.
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2023. The Repositioning of the Football Jersey from the Pitch to the Runway. International Football History Conference . Hampden Park Stadium, Glasgow 30 Jun - 01 Jul 2023

Painted sheepskin coat, A/W1999
Groves, Andrew 2022. Painted sheepskin coat, A/W1999. Garden Museum 16 Mar - 19 Jun 2022

A casual obsession: Inside the British Sock Fetish Council
Groves, Andrew 2022. A casual obsession: Inside the British Sock Fetish Council. Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear Symposium. V&A Museum 13 - 14 Oct 2022 Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf_00059_1

Through a Lens – A comparison of contested masculine identities as reflected in clothing, place, and portraiture
Groves, Andrew, Jenkinson, Jo and Earnshaw, John 2022. Through a Lens – A comparison of contested masculine identities as reflected in clothing, place, and portraiture. Futurescan 5: Conscious Communities . The University of Leeds 07 - 08 Sep 2022 Association of Fashion and Textiles Courses.

A casual obsession: Inside the British Sock Fetish Council
Groves, A. 2022. A casual obsession: Inside the British Sock Fetish Council. Critical Studies in Men's Fashion. 9 (2), pp. 187-206. https://doi.org/10.1386/csmf_00059_1

Inside the Westminster Menswear Archive: A case study of garment-research as a pedagogical practice.
Groves, Andrew 2022. Inside the Westminster Menswear Archive: A case study of garment-research as a pedagogical practice. IFFTI2022. University of Nottingham 05 - 08 Apr 2022 International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institute.

Face masks from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves, Andrew 2021. Face masks from the Westminster Menswear Archive. Online Dec 2021 - Jan 2023

Clothing the Pandemic: A Virtual Exhibition of COVID-19 Face Masks from Around the World
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2021. Clothing the Pandemic: A Virtual Exhibition of COVID-19 Face Masks from Around the World. 23 Dec 2021

C.P. Library
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2021. C.P. Library. Darwen Library, Lancashire 01 - 30 Oct 2021

Undercover – From Necessity to Debris: The Pollution of Face Coverings During COVID-19
Groves, Andrew 2021. Undercover – From Necessity to Debris: The Pollution of Face Coverings During COVID-19. London Gallery West 08 - 28 Jun 2021

Undercover – From Necessity to Debris: The Pollution of Face Coverings During COVID-19
Groves Andrew 2021. Undercover – From Necessity to Debris: The Pollution of Face Coverings During COVID-19. https://opensea.io/collection/undercover-from-necessity-to-debris 11 May - 05 Jun 2021

Undercover – From Necessity to Luxury: The Evolution of Face Coverings During COVID-19
Groves Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2021. Undercover – From Necessity to Luxury: The Evolution of Face Coverings During COVID-19. Online 11 May - 05 Jun 2021

Contaminated Objects - Collecting and Exhibiting Face Masks during COVID-19
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2021. Contaminated Objects - Collecting and Exhibiting Face Masks during COVID-19. Clothing the Pandemic Conference. Online 01 Dec 2021 - 01 Mar 2022 ICOM Costume: ICOM International Committee for Museums and Collections of Costume, Fashion and Textiles.

Undercover: The Migration of Face Coverings During COVID-19
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, Danielle 2021. Undercover: The Migration of Face Coverings During COVID-19. The Many Faces of Migration: An Interdisciplinary Unconference. online 29 - 30 Apr 2021

In and Out of Fashion - Aligning Education with the International Fashion Calendar
Groves, Andrew 2021. In and Out of Fashion - Aligning Education with the International Fashion Calendar. The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education. American University of Paris 01 - 02 Oct 2021

Introduction
Groves, Andrew 2021. Introduction. in: C.P. Company 971-021: An Informal History of Italian Sportswear Italy Tristate International SA. pp. 13-15

Undercover
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2021. Undercover.

Palliative Prototypes or Therapeutic Functionality? Examining C.P. Company’s Urban Protection Collection
Groves, Andrew 2021. Palliative Prototypes or Therapeutic Functionality? Examining C.P. Company’s Urban Protection Collection. Curative Things: Medicine/Fashion/Art. Leeds Arts University - Online 12 Feb 2021 Leeds Arts University.

Masking Masculinity – An overview of the mask in menswear before and after COVID-19
Groves, Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2021. Masking Masculinity – An overview of the mask in menswear before and after COVID-19. Face Off: The Provocation and Possibilities of Face Masks and Head Coverings. Manchester Metropolitan University 13 - 14 Jan 2021 Manchester Metropolitan University.

Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Sprecher, Danielle and Groves, Andrew 2019. Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive . Ambika P3, London 24 Oct - 24 Nov 2019

Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive
Groves Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2019. Invisible Men: An Anthology from the Westminster Menswear Archive.

Invisible Men Conference
Groves Andrew and Sprecher, D. 2019. Invisible Men Conference . Invisible Men Conference. Ambika P3 29 - 29 Oct 2019

The Overworked Body: An Anthology of 2000s Dress Curated by Matthew Linde
Linde, Matthew and Groves, Andrew 2017. The Overworked Body: An Anthology of 2000s Dress Curated by Matthew Linde. Goethe Institut, 38 Ludlow Street New York, NY 10002 10 Sep - 15 Oct 2017

Symposium: The Vanishing Art of Camouflage
Groves, Andrew 2016. Symposium: The Vanishing Art of Camouflage .

The Vanishing Art of Camouflage
Groves, Andrew and Leach, Robert 2016. The Vanishing Art of Camouflage.

ARCHETYPES
Leach, Robert and Groves, Andrew 2015. ARCHETYPES . London Gallery West, The Forum, University of Westminster Watford Road, Northwick Park, Middlesex HA1 3TP 15 May 2015

Permalink - https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/portfolio/qqq4v/invisible-men-an-anthology-from-the-westminster-menswear-archive


The online catalogue for the Westminster Menswear Archive, which now has 2,360 entries; London, 2020
The online catalogue for the Westminster Menswear Archive, which now has 2,360 entries; London, 2020
Documenting and photographing each of the artefacts in the collection using the team’s StyleShoots machine, London, 2018
Documenting and photographing each of the artefacts in the collection using the team’s StyleShoots machine, London, 2018

Image credit: Adam Thorpe

The archive now has the capacity to house more than 2,000 artefacts
The archive now has the capacity to house more than 2,000 artefacts
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: GPO duffle coat (1960s)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: GPO duffle coat (1960s)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Taser training jacket (2004)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Taser training jacket (2004)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Nicholas Yip greatcoat (2017)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Nicholas Yip greatcoat (2017)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Stone Island zeltbahn cape (1982)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: Stone Island zeltbahn cape (1982)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: tailored jacket, Alexander McQueen, 1998
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: tailored jacket, Alexander McQueen, 1998
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: A-Cold-Wall* Academia Correction Workshop Coat (2017)
Garments accessioned into the Westminster Menswear Archive: A-Cold-Wall* Academia Correction Workshop Coat (2017)
Images of the collection captured digitally being used to plan the layout of the Invisible Men exhibition, London, 2019
Images of the collection captured digitally being used to plan the layout of the Invisible Men exhibition, London, 2019
Installing and dressing the 156 mannequins that were used in the Invisible Men exhibition, Ambika P3, London, 2019
Installing and dressing the 156 mannequins that were used in the Invisible Men exhibition, Ambika P3, London, 2019
Installation view of sections of the exhibition, Ambika P3, London
Installation view of sections of the exhibition, Ambika P3, London