ZMJ Call For Papers: Fashioning Masculinities. The Art of Cinematic Menswear

“Menswear is a performative place, in which dressing is the element of both conformism and subversion.” This is how the reasons for the important exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum Fashioning Masculinities are told to us. Nowadays we live in a moment of great creative freedom, designers are breaking down and questioning the stereotypes linked to male dressing, fashion becomes a tool of expression on gender and society (See Brajato, Fashion and Gender, 2023). Does the same happen in the audiovisual landscape? What paths does gender fluidity take in the world of cinema, television series, and the celebrity system in general?

ZoneModa Journal invites you to present proposal for a monographic issue on Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Cinematic Menswear, which aims to answer some of these questions. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the issue intends to explore the dialogue between fashion and audiovisual with respect to the two gender hemispheres, male and female, their identity and needs, but also their interaction and hybridization. If the "feminine" has always been the object of great attention, both from the point of view of celebrity studies and from that of cinematographic costume and its impact on the universe of fashion, the "masculine" is (or has been) less so. Fashion and "dressing" within an audiovisual narrative are agents of redefinition. In this context, the aim is to observe fashion and "dressing" as agents of redefinition of gender narratives in cinematographic and media contexts, paying close attention to the production context, to the professional figures of the audiovisual industry (costume designers, art directors) which play a crucial role in the creation of a narrative universe that makes clothing an essential means of expression for the character, contributing substantially to the definition of the aesthetics and visual message of the film. From a critical-theoretical point of view, the volume goes beyond the analysis of professional roles and encourages us to explore gender dynamics and distributions within the audiovisual industry, in sectors that converge cinema and fashion.

We therefore welcome submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following:

- Male costume in cinema and television

- The definition of male celebrity through clothing

- The profession of the costume designer in "dressing" the male character

- Costume designers and art directors: production perspectives

- Male icons/gender fluid icons beyond the cinema screens

- Fashion/cinema/genre in the audiovisual universe: historical paths and new trajectories

- Power dressing between male and female in cinema and serials

- Processes of masculinization and de-masculinization through the dress of the male character in contemporary audiovisual media

Submissions

Abstracts of no more than 1000 words + 5 bibliographical references (word*.docx format), written either in Italian or English, must be sent to: zmj@unibo.it

Abstract acceptance does not guarantee publication of the article, which will be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process.

Key deadlines

• abstract submission: November 13, 2023.
• notification of acceptance/rejection: December 10, 2023 (notice of acceptance might include comments and requests for explanations).
• full-length paper (6000/7000 words) submission: February 21, 2024.
• comments of the reviewers will be conveyed together with the editor’s decision (approval with no changes, approval with major/minor changes and/or rejection): April 5, 2024.
• authors shall send the reviewed article to the editorial staff by May 2, 2024.

ZMJ Vol. 14 N.1 is scheduled to be published by July 2024.

References

Brajato, Nicola (edited by). “Fashion and Gender.” ZoneModa Journal, Vol. 13(1) (Luglio 2023).  https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/17161.

Wilcox, Claire and Rosalind McKeve (edited by). Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear, exhibition catalogue. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2022.