🕴️ What was the Great Male Renunciation?

Today’s newsletter is about a major turning point in the history of men’s fashion called The Great Male Renunciation.

Just 250 years ago, it was common to see upper-class men wearing:

• high heels

• colorful frilly blouses

• tight stockings

For much of the last 1,000 years, men in the Western world aspired to dress like the nobility.

And, as European fashion developed throughout the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, kings & aristocrats adopted clothing styles that would strike many today as ostentatious.

Fancy clothes were a way of showing off wealth & status, and many kings (like France’s Louis XIV, pictured below) were trendsetters who influenced fashion across the European continent.

Louis XIV (who reigned as king of France from 1643-1715) was known for wearing:

Things changed around the year 1800. 

After centuries of increasingly flashy clothing, European men abandoned the ornate, colorful, and traditionally “feminine” aspects of their wardrobes in favor of dark, simple, and practical clothing. (see below for comparison)

This wasn't merely about changing tastes in clothes.

The “Great Male Renunciation” reflected more profound societal changes, particularly the rise of industrial capitalism and middle-class values.

The American Revolution and the French Revolution, which took place in the late 1700s, were part of a broader cultural backlash against aristocracy and the values it represented.

Take a look at how America’s Founding Fathers dressed.

They still had wigs, but they generally wore practical suits instead of gaudy aristocratic garb. (see below)

Men of the time came to define themselves as social equals distinguished by their powers of rational thinking.

This was a rejection of the aristocratic system that granted wealth and status based on one’s family name.

Self-expression through fancy clothes was now seen as a feminine behavior unfitting of serious men.

British psychologist John Flügel, who coined the term “Great Masculine Renunciation” in 1930, explained that men had :

Additionally, the rise of industrial capitalism changed the norms around the social status of work.

Men's identities were increasingly tied to their professional identity rather than their social status.

In previous centuries, aristocratic men would wear colorful clothes and impractical high heels to show that they didn’t need to work.

By the mid-1800s, wearing a dark suit signaled that a man was serious about his work.

As the 1800s went on, the spread of industrial clothing manufacturing allowed lower-class individuals to wear suits as well.

Until the 1950s, it was standard for men to wear suits and hats when presenting themselves in public.

Fashion standards have changed since then, but we can still see the legacy of the Great Male Renunciation today.

Men’s fashion today isn’t as much about expressing yourself as it is about looking the part.

Something I find interesting is that many men only allow themselves to dress creatively through their socks. (see below)

In some ways, even suits have become passé in contemporary fashion culture.

Bankers and lawyers still wear them, but prominent CEOs of technology companies like Mark Zuckerberg and the late Steve Jobs are known for wearing casual clothing. (L to R: Amazon founder & executive chairman Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs)

The strange thing about this more recent fashion shift is that these tech titans aren’t trying to look beautiful.

They’re eschewing the formality of the dark suit in favor of a style that is purposefully functional and unstylish.

Sound familiar?

Of course, Mark Zuckerberg’s recent fashion journey from slacker to show-off has been well-documented in the media:

For some reason, artists, actors, musicians, and other creatives are the only men allowed to express themselves through their clothing today.

Check out some examples from Harry Styles of One Direction, who has been praised and criticized for his sartorial choices.

Some people may criticize him for his stylistic choices because they are too feminine.

It is worth reminding those people that many of the things we associate with feminine style — makeup, jewelry, high heels, & flowing blouses — were actually popularized by men hundreds of years ago.

If we’re on the cusp of reversing the Great Male Renunciation, it’s safe to say that the late musician Prince was ahead of his time.