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It Suits You: Fashioning masculinity in Disney animation with Dr. Chloe Chapin
47 Plays2 months ago
"Silk suit, black tie..." you don't need a reason why! Not when it comes to joining me for another episode of Disney Undressed! This time I'm chatting with fashion historian Dr. Chloe Chapin about suits and the real historical references and social commentary behind some of Disney's "manly men." Find out why EVERYONE "is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man" and join us as we get into Prince Eric's pantaloons, George Washington's pant problems, and talk about her new book Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men.
Dr. Chloe Chapin is a costume designer, artist, and fashion historian. She has a MFA in costume design from the Yale School of Drama, an MA in fashion and textile studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and a PhD in American Studies from Harvard University. As a costume designer for over twenty years, Chloe worked on Broadway musicals, opera, Shakespeare, contemporary plays, and downtown experimental dance theater. She has taught at FIT, Parsons, Reed College, and Harvard. Chloe has been a Fulbright Scholar and has held research fellowships at the Smithsonian, Mount Vernon, Monticello, the Huntington, and the American Antiquarian Society. She works at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, MA. Her first book, Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men, comes out with Oxford University Press on June 1, 2026. Her book investigates the materiality, manufacture, and meaning behind men’s suits between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and examines the impact of the symbolism of suits on the modern world.
Copies of Chloe's book Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Refashioning of Modern Men is published by oxford University Press and are available June 1, 2026.
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Transcript
Introduction to Disney Undressed Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello there, welcome to Disney Undressed, a show where we explore the magic of costuming in Disney films, parks, and everything in between. I'm your host Marley, fashion scholar, curator, and examiner of almost all things Disney, specifically when it comes to fashion.
00:00:25
Speaker
The suit has emerged triumphantly as the last word in luxury across centuries of design evolution and social revolution in menswear.
00:00:36
Speaker
From military regimentals to corporate uniform, the sphere of influence seems to know no bounds when it comes to the source of of inspiration in the styling and structuring of men's suits.
00:00:48
Speaker
Costume designers in film have also taken advantage of the suit for its malleability in form and function also recognizing its potential in characters overall design and development.
00:01:00
Speaker
Characters like James Bond, Jay Gatsby, Thomas Crown, Annie Hall are inextricably linked to their sartorial style and the common denominator amongst these individuals is their preference and propensity for suits and the garments constitutive importance to their character?
00:01:20
Speaker
And while perhaps real life characters like James Bond may immediately come to mind when you picture suits on screen, the influence of suits and character costume can be very clearly observed in animation where clothing is an inseparable part of the character's composition.
00:01:38
Speaker
But what does a suit tell us about the person wearing it? Is the suit inherently gendered? How has such a straightforward garment become so saturated in symbolism and connotations while evolving through centuries of menswear and social change.
00:01:54
Speaker
And while I seriously doubt we will definitively answer any of these questions, I do think that my special guest today is going to give you a ton to think about.
Introducing Dr. Chloe Chapin and Her Work
00:02:03
Speaker
Dr. Chloe Chapin is a costume designer, artist, and fashion historian.
00:02:09
Speaker
She has an MFA in costume design from the Yale School of Drama, an MA in fashion and textile studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and a PhD in American Studies from Harvard University.
00:02:21
Speaker
As a costume designer for over 20 years, Chloe worked on Broadway musicals, opera, Shakespeare, contemporary plays, and downtown experimental dance theater. She's taught at FIT, Parsons, Reed College, and Harvard,
00:02:36
Speaker
Chloe has been a Fulbright Scholar and has held research fellowships at the Smithsonian, Mount Vernon, Monticello, the Huntington, and the American Antiquarian Society. She works at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And her first book, Suitable, The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men, comes out with Oxford University Press on June 1, 2026.
00:03:01
Speaker
Her book investigates the materiality, manufacture, and meaning behind men's suits between the American Revolution and the Civil War and examines the impact of the symbolism of suits on the modern world.
00:03:14
Speaker
I think you are gonna be absolutely perfect for this conversation, Chloe. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for inviting me, Marley. Now, I've heard you present your research before at the Costume Society of America conference in the past on the Dressed podcast, and you've written quite a lot about menswear. So I think it's going to be great to really have you get into this topic with me because I can't think of anybody who's a better expert you know off the top of my head right now. So to kind of start out, what I would really love is for you to share just a little bit about your research and kind of what draws you to it.
00:03:50
Speaker
Great. So as you said, i used to be a costume designer and as a costume designer, you know, one is always researching a wide variety of different occasions and time periods and locations. And I just always got frustrated that there were so few books about menswear.
00:04:10
Speaker
You know, there's like countless books about women's dresses and any time period for any occasion. And so few about menswear. There's like four. and they don't really go into the details about different time periods. And they kind of say things like, you know, the suit changed so slowly that it was the details that were really important. And then you're like, what were the details? Yeah. So when I started um getting interested in doing my own research, it just was sort of an obvious hole to fill in the, in the literature.
00:04:43
Speaker
and when i i first started researching and When I first started writing, I just was writing about suits in general. And then i was doing research for a production of La Traviata, of the opera, and the show starts with a fancy dress ball. And so the question was, what should the male chorus be wearing? You know, really that's like, are they wearing black tie or white tie? Cause that's what you have in stock, you know, as an opera house, are we going to build stuff? And I was like, well, if the production is set in the end of the 19th century, it's clear they're allll be they they would all be wearing white tie
00:05:22
Speaker
But I was like scrolling through my mental Rolodex of images to the more like 1850s, 1860s when they were setting this production And I was like weren't they weren't like, weren't they wearing black vests then? And I couldn't really like in my mind distinguish in the sources that I was imagining the difference between daytime dress and evening dress. And i thought that was a little bit weird. And then I sort of scrolled backwards in my mind and I got to the 18th century and I was like, wait a minute.
00:05:49
Speaker
Nobody is wearing black and white for evening dress in the 18th century. But by 1850, everybody is. That is super weird. Like, why did that happen? And it really made me realize that that is a huge part of this, you know, really important shift for menswear at the end of the 18th century, where all of a sudden,
00:06:11
Speaker
it's so important for men to all be wearing something uniform. It's not just that it's plain and black and white and no decoration, but it's all the same, which is so different than the kind of ideal for women's dress. And I just thought that that was really interesting and needed to be investigated. So that's ah so the the book itself is not just about formal wear, but that was sort of the spark that started the the my research.
00:06:40
Speaker
I think that's really cool. And it's such a good point that, you know, there are this handful of books about menswear, but there are significant gaps and a pretty noticeable lack of those details. Like, well well, why did it change? And what do those details mean, you know, from decade to decade? And who were the main players as far as you know, a designer or a tailor and things like that. So that's going to really, really great to have on the shelf. So did you think, you know, in this kind of wide career that you've had, you know, touching, you know, opera, theater, writing, all of these things, did you ever think you'd kind of find yourself applying all of this knowledge and research to assessing a Disney character?
00:07:28
Speaker
Well, funny
Analyzing Disney Princess Fashion
00:07:29
Speaker
you should ask. So I taught fashion history to fashion designers at FIT for about a decade. and um i ended up coming up with this lecture that I would do on the last day of class to help encourage students to show up. And I called it um Disney princesses teach you bad fashion history. And it was a way for them to use all the knowledge that they had gained over the semester and doing really close visual analysis of historical periods.
00:07:59
Speaker
And we would, we would, deconstruct, it was mostly we're just looking at sort of the main Disney princesses because that was what they cared about. But we would we would deconstruct two different things. One is we would try to place them in a historic time period, which is much more difficult than it might seem. And then we would try to figure out how you would construct one of those dresses. And one of the things that's so amazing about teaching at FIT is that they all have amazing construction skills. They know how to pattern, they had to drape. like They know they're sewing.
00:08:33
Speaker
And so they were a great audience to be like, where's the side seam on that? Where's the closures? how How would she put that on? It's like all of a sudden, especially the early ones, you know the pre-digital ones like Cinderella, you know like no one can get in. No one has to get into any of those garments. They're all like stretch jersey, knit in a circle.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, imagine of throwing that over your head. Yeah, totally. And it makes sense, right? Because at the time they were hand drawing each frame. And so any lines that they could get rid of, including ah an arm side, a ah side seam, you know, it made their job easier. So again, like I'm not throwing shade on people for doing it wrong, but it's just a fun way of for students of practicing this, you know, visual analysis and close reading skills that they've gained by learning about fashion history and applying it to something they've probably seen a lot of times and care a lot about, but have never really applied their, you know, new knowledge to. So that's how I have looked at Disney in the past when when it comes to fashion history.
00:09:44
Speaker
Well, having done that class, I'm curious, do you have a favorite Disney fashion moment? um This is such a great question. and this is going to be so obvious. But ah I loved the scene in Cinderella when the mice and the birds made her dress. I know you're supposed to love the one that the fairy godmother makes, but I loved the making scene, of course. Like I was a maker. I liked the behind the scenes stuff. I loved how they, you know, the tiny little mice like together putting a needle through yes something to make a ruffle. um i really liked the the making part of that.
00:10:27
Speaker
But yeah, that's a, that's a great scene. That's really fun. And the way they're like, marking out with chalk on the, ah yeah, the whole fabrics on the floor. And they're just like, how can they see far enough out to get like, I mean, if you actually look at what that pattern piece is, though, like, it's like a weird rectangle. I was like, what is this? that They're cutting out. I am. I'm not sure. It's very geometric.
00:10:50
Speaker
Well, this is the point, you know, I think part of reason why I got into turning a very academic eye to Disney is there are so many ways you can interpret what you're seeing as an adult with more life experience or you know, whatever your discipline is kind of looking at it from that perspective. And it makes it a lot more interesting. And I feel like, you know, as an adult, I can engage with something that my kids are watching in maybe a different way. So yeah, yeah.
00:11:16
Speaker
It's a little bit more palatable to watch. I mean, this is not a brilliant analysis that no one else has ever made, but there are so many stereotypes that have been invented and perpetuated through Disney movies sure about race, about gender, about fat people, about makers, about anything. As I was going through some of the movies to prepare for this, I was seeing so many of those things. um And yeah, so I think it really, again, ah not to criticize their existence necessarily, but just having that that cultural critique to say, like, what have we um inherited from these movies culturally?
00:12:00
Speaker
On that note, let's let's get into some of these. so we're going to pull a handful of male suit wearing characters and do some analysis that invokes the real historical references that are alluded to and the social commentary I think that the animators are trying to take advantage of in order to guide the audience's perception of the character. So, Chloe, what I'll kind of ask you to do is maybe just comment on maybe the accuracy and the effectiveness of the costuming choices in these garments, as well as giving you know some historical context for the contemporary fashions and maybe even like the prescribed gender norms. at the time alongside those. And I think it's unreasonable to assume we'll get to every corner of menswear history or like the full history of the suit itself. But it might be kind of fun to take a step back and look at the suit as like a conduit of masculinity and costuming for Disney. And like I had mentioned this before, there are some pretty famous suits and suit wearers in film history. For you, like as a costume designer from that part of your brain, you know what makes the suit such a malleable garment as far as costuming?
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think one thing that I was really struck just by doing a sort of overview of some of the movies that you suggested was the the range of time periods that all Disney movies seem to to span in terms of the fashion history. Yeah.
00:13:28
Speaker
For women, it seems like there's, it's kind of a mashup between eighteen twenty s eighteen thirty s and like the
00:13:42
Speaker
for the like cute, young, the pretty girl characters, basically. For the men, it's much wider, the the history. There's all these references to 18th century dress, some to 17th century dress, and then there's more contemporary references, but mostly 19th century. So just as a, for instance, in in The Little Mermaid, the sailor or the Whoever the main, the older character is that Prince Eric is on the ship with.
00:14:18
Speaker
Oh yes, Grimsby. Yeah, Grimsby. He's wearing like a frock coat and a cravat and has breeches and stockings with shoes. um and has his hair back in a queue.
00:14:30
Speaker
And in Beauty and the Beast, that was also the case. So most, even though they're, you know, provincial and so they're working class, there still are these clear 18th century references.
00:14:42
Speaker
um Gaston is interesting because he has almost 17th century references with his like, built in tunic with like fold over top boots and this weird like contrasting collar that doesn't really exist in any period in history. um and And it's clear that it's the first half of the 18th century because they're wearing because their vests are long. They haven't shortened like they do in the second half of the 18th century.
00:15:11
Speaker
And they're wearing tricorns. ah Anyway, so so that's like the the older characters, the background characters, the lower class characters. But then the heroes are always in...
00:15:26
Speaker
like modern dress of of some kind. And so that's what I think is really interesting is that the the way that this suit, the modern suit is deployed as a kind of representation of ideal masculinity, modern masculinity, hero masculinity, maybe. And it's really obvious Every time there's a scene in court dress, you know, anytime there's a ball or a wedding, um the sort of military inspired princely suit that always looks very, again, early, early 19th century.
00:16:06
Speaker
Speaking of early 19th century, I feel like it would be hard to kind of talk about suits without discussing Bo Brummel because so much of his sort of social history has influenced that social history of menswear, specifically the suit.
00:16:24
Speaker
So without turning this into an episode about Bo Brummel, without talking about it for like 20 minutes, who was Bo Brummel? Like what is the Clip Notes version of this? because i feel like this this is just an important context to have in the back of your head, I think. Totally. So I have three things to say.
Beau Brummel's Influence on Menswear
00:16:40
Speaker
There's the story, the cultural story of Beau Brummel. Yeah. There's the reality that most of that story is made up. And then there's what he represents and why that story is actually still important. So I'll briefly gloss over all three. So the first is like, you know if you were to Google Bob Rommel, you would see that he was the father of modern menswear, that he invented the suit, he invented the necktie, like he invented all of these things and that he established sort of modern contemporary dressing.
00:17:16
Speaker
And that that dress, but one of the things that's tricky about the word dandy is that depending on the time period, it either means, what it usually means someone who pays attention to their, a man who pays an excess of attention to their dress. For Beau Brummel, it was plainness. That was his, you know, it was elegance. It was not nothing over the top. It was in reaction to the earlier 18th century aristocratic kind of overdressing.
00:17:46
Speaker
Now, dandies in other periods often are sort of the opposite. They're not dressing plainer. They're dressing more extravagantly than other people. So it turns out that most of that is not true.
00:17:59
Speaker
Brummel didn't really invent much. um And the things that he wore, he wo there there were a lot more... um even though menswear in his time, the you know first decade and a half of the 19th century, um even though it looked different than contemporary suits, it actually was ah a look that stayed the same for about a generation, 30 or 40 that was a navy or black tailcoat and buff buckskin breeches, a white waistcoat and a cravat.
00:18:37
Speaker
And that look was very fashionable for almost his entire lifetime. So there's only one image of him in his fashionable time period. that we have from 1805 where he's wearing that. And then someone who goes to visit him in France at the sort towards the end of his life in the 1830s describes his outfit as being exactly the same thing 30 years later. But he didn't actually invent that thing. It was, I suggest, actually inspired by George Washington and his uniform that he wore during the American Revolutionary War. And that was how it transferred to England.
00:19:14
Speaker
you can quibble about that if you would like, but basically, and even in his, his day, um he had people saying, why do we call, why does anyone call Brummel a dandy? Like, if this is what a dandy is, you know, listing all these like too high collars and, you know, things, there's no way that he would be known as a dandy. So even the myth of Brummel was, was sort of prevalent, even, and the the annoyance about it was prevalent even in his lifetime.
00:19:43
Speaker
So anyway, that's a little bit of the complicated history of who Brummel was and actually who he wasn't. But the thing that I think is important about Brummel what Brummel actually represents is that he lived at a really important moment in fashion history for men. And ah he sort of typifies this idea of, it's called the great masculine renunciation.
00:20:07
Speaker
This is an idea coined by a British psychologist, J.C. Flugel, in 1930. he is super interesting. He ah was a psychologist. He really cared about men's psyche.
00:20:21
Speaker
And he was really worried that the drabness of modern menswear in the nineteen thirty s um was really affecting men's soul, essentially, um which is so beautiful and poignant, I think. um And so what he did was he traced this back to the what he called the French Revolution. I mean, he traced it to what he thought was the time period of this change, which was around the French Revolution. And he's not wrong, although one of the things that I do in my book is suggest that actually maybe some of the
00:20:56
Speaker
principles of these ideas were started with the American Revolution a generation earlier. But the changes were really happening, you know, around 15 years after the American Revolution, which happens to be around the time of the French Revolution. Anyway, so what he says is that in this period, menswear goes from being, you know, colorful, very varied, beautiful, decorative, ornamental to this plain and uniform costume, which is the modern suit. And there's a couple different sort of phases to that shift. And that's basically what i look at in my book. And I'm looking at it from the American perspective between the American Revolution and the Civil War.
00:21:37
Speaker
but other people have looked at it from more of a European perspective. And so the this period 1820, so I call this, twenty so i call this shift the ah the shift from peacocks to penguins, where they're like colorful to black and white. But there's this middle period in the sort of 1805 to 1835, maybe. That's actually it's sort of like the pigeons. It's like in between where they're not quite flashy, but they're still decorative in a way. Sure. um And that, you know, there's it's not quite the like boxy black uniformity of the modern suit.
00:22:19
Speaker
And so it's really interesting that Disney is looking at that period as a model of masculinity. um and suggesting that the heroes have evolved and they have made this shift to contemporary fashion, whereas all of the older men and the villains have not yet. They are still in old fashioned dress.
00:22:45
Speaker
It's so interesting and point, you know, what is a dandy and then, a you know, versus a fop, you know, dandyism, it starts as one thing and then it kind of morphs into something else. You know, when we think of a dandy, you think of someone's a little bit more extravagant. That's not what it was. But I would say the way that Disney uses those words is, or concepts, whatever, is pretty interchangeable, right? Like I was really struck with in Beauty and the Beast, there's a moment where,
00:23:15
Speaker
um the beast is getting dressed up for dinner and his his valet, who's like a hat stand or something, like curls his beard and puts a bow on him or whatever. and it's like, you know, it's it's meant to be ah a comedic moment of like how ridiculous that he would even do this. It's so effeminate and aristocratic or whatever the commentary is.
00:23:42
Speaker
It reminds me so much of the fashion plates of at that time, they're making fun of, you know, the macaronis who have come back from the continent and they have these outrageous wigs and curls. That's right But for Belle, it's totally normal and acceptable that she would have her hair curled and wear bows and ruffles. So it's not that bows and ruffles are the problem. It's that a man, like a real man would never, never,
00:24:09
Speaker
And there's another moment that struck me in that too, when the villagers are attacking the castle, there's a villager that's attacking the dresser. i don't know if the dresser has a name.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so she like grabs him and spits him back out again. And he's dressed in women's clothing. And obviously the women's clothing is ludicrous. It's like this Marge Simpson, like tall red
Gender Roles in Disney Costuming
00:24:34
Speaker
wig. It's contemporary. all I say to like the 90s.
00:24:41
Speaker
But I clocked it because I was I was like, Oh, here's just another lesson, right? That Disney is teaching you, which is that men in women's clothing is something to be laughed at.
00:24:52
Speaker
And that I think that's really fair. And I think there's there's plenty of these like foppish characters across Disney. And many of them tend to be villains or like sidekick characters who wear these like really eccentric styles or accessories. And I feel like they tend to be, like these characters tend to be very aspirational because they're either chasing like fortune and power or they're really just trying to emulate their employers who are kind of already awash in such things. And it's just, it's really weird. like And to be very cognizant of it now because it's so clearly shown, you know, between Belle and the Beast, what's acceptable for her but not for him. Like that's a really good comparison. And that his, you know, glow up basically is to cut his hair short. I mean, even when he's still the beast is to cut his hair short and to get rid of all this nonsense. You know, again, that is, it was teaching a generation of,
00:25:48
Speaker
Young boys, men, you know, that you shouldn't be decorative. I had pulled, you know, a few animated Disney films that showcase a few different archetypes of the Disney male we're going to talk through. You know, these gentlemen wear some form of suit with kind of respect to a loose time period that the film represents.
00:26:07
Speaker
But what the intention of the styling is, is kind of the question. Are these guys reluctant royals who want to shirk their royal responsibilities? Are they untamed wild men who need to be molded in the image of proper society? Are they villains hiding amongst the honorable disguised by innocuous clothing? But overall sort of bringing it back to this idea of representing masculinity and how Disney artists are costuming to support the element of their character that's kind of the masculine.
00:26:38
Speaker
So I think let's start with some of Disney's royals. Disney kind of has this way about princes where they're either like complete shirkers of responsibility or they're like super uptight.
00:26:49
Speaker
um That might just be Disney men in general. i I guess I'd have to think about that a little bit more. But like one of the tropes that Disney leans into for character development is the reluctant royal who maybe doesn't want to be pushed into an advantageous marriage or who would rather engage in another career or hobby rather than fulfill the duties that are expected of him at that time. And, you know, wouldn't you know that the first thing that these men abandon in their quest for freedom or autonomy is their suit, you know, whatever their official trappings are that indicate that they are royalty. So I think of characters who consciously choose more casual ensembles like The Beast or Prince Naveen in Princess and the Frog or Prince Eric from nineteen eighty nine s The Little Mermaid. so Prince eric
00:27:37
Speaker
He was voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes, who you may know as Greg Brady from the Brady Bunch movies. And guy's also done a ton of voice work on animated shows like Spider-Man. um So learned some interesting trivia that I did not know before.
00:27:53
Speaker
What we learn is that Eric is the prince of a seaside kingdom. He's a sailor at heart and the sea is his mistress, but everyone wants him to get married and settle down. And he has this sort of like What it seems like a typical daily outfit of blue pants, maybe it's like a red cummerbund type thing, black boots and a white shirt, which is very provocatively unbuttoned.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I can't say this in all certainty, but let's sort of accept for this conversation. And the reason I picked this one first is because I knew you kind of had this proclivity for the early eighteen hundreds Yeah. I'm going to say that this is loosely taking place around that time. Maybe it's the Romantic period, kind of until like the 1840s.
00:28:37
Speaker
And I'm kind of making that decision to base this on my interpretation of like an amalgamation of costume details from human characters in the movie, like Grimsby. ah these The other sailors that you see on Eric's ship and Ariel's pink dress that she wears later on in the movie with the giant sort of like, gigo sleeves there's some very clear historical reference points but of course that's never really the point here so eventually one day i'm going to do an episode on the little mermaid because i like that movie as a case study for contemporary influence in vaguely period films but i think like the animators would be looking to create the atmosphere of a seaside kingdom and a seafaring prince so i can very easily see a clear line from you know those images of like
00:29:24
Speaker
the Nathaniel Currier prints. I think I sent a couple of those over from the 40s of like the bosun and you know these various sailors. I mean assuming that we're in the sort of early mid 19th century what is going on in menswear that would be a typical silhouette and do we so do we actually see that in this movie?
00:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the biggest clue is that he's wearing breeches instead of trousers. And that is true for a lot of Disney men, right, is that they're wearing, they're at least wearing high boots. We're not sure if they're wearing breeches or maybe pantaloons, which would be the case for, again this shift from eighteenth century to 19th century menswear, which just has such a big impact impact on masculinity. And you can see it in, again, in the older characters like Grimsby,
Prince Eric's Fashion in The Little Mermaid
00:30:20
Speaker
that he's wearing obviously breeches with stockings and buckled shoes, whereas Prince Eric is wearing, maybe let's call them pantaloons, which are fit like breeches, but go all the way down the leg. They're sort of like jiggings, 18th century jiggings.
00:30:37
Speaker
and And high boots or, you know, knee high boots with this fold over top, which is not totally historically accurate, but it's it's a little bit more 17th century, really, this sort of cavalier kind of boot. And then this shirt, which...
00:30:54
Speaker
you know, men's shirts didn't button down the front until the mid 19th century. So, so this would be sort of historically accurate in terms of the fact that it would go on over your head and it would have this open placket, we would call it. It's not that it's unbuttoned, but it's just actually a opening there. And then that would be where you would wear a, you know, a cravat or have a shirt ruffle that would poke out even of your waistcoat button. But, but in that period, like if it was truly period accurate, the sleeves would be very voluminous. it'd be very blousey and he's rolled up like kind of conspicuously you can see like the yeah it looks much more like a modern collared shirt with that's unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up so again they're doing this sort of like creative mash-up between a contemporary shirt and something that looks vaguely 18th century and we do eventually see him wearing a full suit kind of towards the end of the film he's got two different ones there's a dark blue jacket with these mirroring like rows of buttons down the front and a dark red stripe detailing on the shoulder and around the collar. And then he's got a different suit for the wedding at the end that I think are pants. He's got blue pant, like, or pantaloons, I guess.
00:32:17
Speaker
I'm trying to pull the picture and double check. And a white jacket with a lot of gold detailing like epaulets and buttons. yeah and Do you kind of recognize any particular features from either of these jackets that represent men's fashion at that point?
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, so the the thing he wears at the end that has the epaulettes on it, that's standard formal dress, but aristocratic, right? So you wouldn't see that in the United States. But if you look at the most recent royal weddings, that's what they wear to the ceremony. And then they get dressed up in their mourning suit afterwards for the reception. But anything that's like, you know, if you're if you're representing the state...
00:33:02
Speaker
you are there as your military rank in addition to being the prince, right? So um so that would be why, anytime you see epaulettes, that's military. And if you see military and they're not fighting, that means it's essentially court dress or or royalty, that they have some sort of honorary um you know ranking.
00:33:24
Speaker
And so epaulettes is military. they Again, this tailcoat shape is, classic um turn of the century-ish, right? Like it's double-breasted it's cut straight across at the waist, which is happening around 1800.
00:33:46
Speaker
um But it has only just like ah a small collar and not the big fold-down collar. it's There might be some references here to George Washington. i mean, I think it is definitely looking at European royalty, but I noticed that there were a lot just across Disney movies, a lot of blue jackets with white thing. And that is very much a part of that American, you know, American aristocracy looking back to if you look at those, you know,
00:34:19
Speaker
portraits, military portraits by John Trumbull of George Washington. Those are also not very historically accurate because he's costuming Washington in 1790s military styles, even though he's they're commemorating battles that took place in 1776. But anyway, I had never asked that question before when thinking about Disney. It's just that I've been you know thinking a lot about George Washington recently. So that was one of my questions. Also, anytime you have that, it's like a belt, but it goes over one shoulder and then connects to the waist. So that's often called a bandolier.
00:34:54
Speaker
And you see them, you really ah early on and in military dress because what it does is it helps hold up the side of your belt that has a sword on it.
00:35:08
Speaker
So it almost always goes from the right shoulder over to the left hip and then at the left hip is where your sword is hanging. So initially they were just that and then they got added to the you know belt that goes around your waist. Now he's not wearing a sword so that's one thing that's different about It not being really accurate in terms of this sort of fancy court dress, because they would usually wear a dress sword with this kind of ensemble.
00:35:37
Speaker
That I find interesting, you know, is, oh, well, can he be carrying a weapon? Like, is that a specific choice that, you know, the animators were like, oh, wait, we don't want him carrying a sword. Is that too violent? Well, dress sword isn't really a weapon. Right. Because it's so light and decorative, you don't actually, that's, it's just vestigial, right? Right.
00:35:55
Speaker
So that's another question altogether. But, but swords do get in the way when you're dancing and... I mean, I can't imagine there isn't a Disney movie where they're making fun of a sword getting stuck on somebody's dress or something. I can't think of any off the top of my head.
00:36:10
Speaker
Well, i thought it was an interesting thing that clearly they had these animators, they had been looking at some very specific art historical references to actually include that piece and then to make the choice to not include a sword with it is very interesting because it is that very cherry picking. Well, we don't want him to have a sword in this. Why would he have a sword at a wedding? Well, it isn't part of it. It's a ceremonial thing. yeah so But all of this is kind of like exercise to get in a roundabout way of getting to the impact of military dress as inspiration for men's fashion. So what I kind of love to hear from you is that influence of military uniforms in men's kind of everyday suits and what the greater implication of you know masculinity that exists there. you know yeah You don't have to be in the military
00:36:57
Speaker
to style yourself as somebody, you know, in those fashions. What I found really interesting when I was doing research on military dress for working about on my research on suits and thinking about uniformity more broadly is that, know,
00:37:15
Speaker
Regular fashion historians tend to say that um military styles were hugely influential in men's fashion, but military historians say that they were following regular fashion. And it's true, it is sort of a loop, right? um There are some differences And a lot of those differences are also interesting, really established in this period.
00:37:43
Speaker
But essentially, you know, military dress prioritizes practicality in really obvious ways. So practicality means in in more contemporary dress, it means things like patch pockets or, you know, like sword belts, things like that, that then show up in menswear.
00:38:05
Speaker
But there are some things in military dress that don't ever show up in civilian dress, like epaulettes, which is, epi i mean, just the history of epaulettes, like, what is that, right? It is a form of only masculine decoration and ornamentation. They are hugely expensive. They are made out of actual metal. They're so heavy if you get a really good, a well-made pair of epaulettes. They're super heavy. They're insanely expensive. They're like such bling that you wear on your shoulders yes as a marker of your rank.
00:38:41
Speaker
which is something that Americans, which again, since Disney is American, is really interesting. you know And this was something, again, I'm just going to bring things back to Washington. He initially wore a blue sash, which was very standard in aristocratic dress, both civilian and military, that there would be, you know in in France, it was like only, it was a you know, or the order of the something, right? That only 12 people would be allowed to wear this sash. And it was like to show the cool kids club, you know, based on how close you were to the king. um
00:39:16
Speaker
And so initially he wore this blue mare sash and he eventually got rid of it because he thought it did not seem Republican. There was this real anti-aristocratic movement in America at the time, but he didn't get rid of his epaulets. And I think that that is a very interesting choice.
00:39:35
Speaker
And so much of that, I think, really comes from those decisions, right? Our ideas now about what is acceptable decoration ornamentation for menswear.
00:39:45
Speaker
You know, one of the things, speaking of the epaulettes, that seems to be emphasized in military costume that underscores an idea of manliness. The feature that kind of sticks out the most to me is an extreme broadness of shoulder that you see in a lot of Disney male characters.
Disney's Portrayal of Masculinity
00:40:01
Speaker
So seeing like the epaulettes or like sashes that go from you know the shoulder to hip, emphasizing a kind of very broad chest. And you see that on these military characters in different Disney films. and Also the huge emphasis of upright carriage, like how these men are, you know, very stick straight and shoulders back, chest out, very as tall as they could possibly be. I mean, you could just do a whole analysis just on the bodies of men's characters. And it's really interesting to me that Disney is starting in the, or at least the Disney like princess movies are starting in the nineteen fifty s when that broad chest was very popular almost for the first time in modern menswear, right? So I think that we can trace a lot of these ideas about modern masculinity to this to this origin story of the 1950s. And you can see all of the Disney princesses, all of their waists are very 1950s, that little like dip in the front sort of sweetheart waistline. Which they're then mashing up with, like you talked about the Little Mermaid pink dress. I mean, what an absolute made up imaginary period. Those sleeves are very 1820s, which itself was doing a like neo-Cavalier revival-ish, like with all the slashing.
00:41:31
Speaker
That dress is such an inception of like time periods and places. And it blows my mind every time I look at because I'm so confused. Because it's doing this mashup of these 1820 sleeves with a 1820 slash 19 or 1850 slash 1950s waistline with a kind of 1790s bustly, spooky decoration of that dress shape. And that the skirt shape itself is kind of eighteen forty s
00:42:02
Speaker
Back to the suits. Something that you notice so easily in fashion history, I think, is the shifting paradigm of the feminine ideal in women's fashion and and beauty. And it doesn't always seem as obvious or extreme to most people when it comes to men's fashion. But it's kind of interesting to think... about what it means to be masculine in a Disney film. And what does that look like? Because it runs the gamut with some exceptions. ah Like Disney tends to have this pretty heteronormative point of view for male characters when it comes to dressing them, especially in some of these older films. So I guess, you know, what what makes a manly man from century to century as far as dress goes? So like, for example, what would have been considered, you know, very manly in the 16th century versus the eighteenth um like body parts in their kind of emphasis coming in and out of Vogue and the suit kind of reframing itself around those shifts in important parts of the body to emphasize. That I think is very interesting and it's hard to get a real sense of the actual history of that looking at, you know, menswear and Disney films that are produced in the 50s and 60s because it's such a a wide array of historical references that are being pulled from. So something yeah that we would think of manly in the fifties certainly would not be the same as, you know, in the sixteenth century.
00:43:21
Speaker
You know, if you look at masculinity in the eighteenth century, again, it was, it was about showcasing totally different parts of the body. So it was not fashionable to have very broad shoulders. So it's, it's, um you know, it's it's clear that epaulettes would not have been invented in the eighteenth century because that wasn't a goal in showcasing that part of the body. um But it was much more, you know, more sloping shoulders that kind of fiddle back construction um that you get later in the century that like pulls the shoulders back and gives you that upright posture.
00:43:59
Speaker
um The waistline also changes throughout the 18th century. And what I think is interesting also in terms of the showcasing the musculature of the legs, that's one of the things that you get in these, you know, sort of hero princes that even if they're not wearing breeches, they're not wearing trousers most of the time, except for their, you know, military wedding suits, because trousers yeah don't show the muscles of the leg. That's one of their features, right? Is that they're wool and they hang straight from the hip-ish.
00:44:34
Speaker
But if you were wearing trousers, then you wouldn't be able to show off your like muscular manly thighs. And so put those men in some pantaloons so that we can see those gym legs, right? And that was brand new in this period around the nineteen the seventeen ninety s because coats had had gone fall into the knee for the last almost 100 years. so you have this confluence of different things happening. The coats start cutting away more. And then right around the 1790s, they cut straight across at the waist. So you have this kind of frame.
00:45:08
Speaker
The waistcoats also have risen from the knee to the waist and are cutting straight across, also ah coming from the military. And then right at that same time, you have a fashion for light colored breeches and pantaloons. So all of a sudden, men's thighs are on display for the first time in 200 years since the end of the 1500s, when you have those like really short pumpkin breeches with the long like white hose. um But you know, in the 1950s, it's not fashionable for men to show off their legs. So I think you know, that might be one of the reasons why they chose this period is it was a way to, you know, emphasize the sort of musculature manliness, ah ah which I think really did have a lot to do with this sort of, you know, cultural concept of an ideal man, which in the 18th century would have been showcasing. It was all about the turnout of your calf, you know, calf muscles were really fashionable then, but you only see that, know,
00:46:11
Speaker
in Disney movies with the the older men characters who are wearing, you know, breeches and stockings, not the heroes who are always wearing boots. Right. Well, I can't coming back though, to that idea strapping jacket lists, open shirted Eric. I think I also put in those images, the picture of the beast when he turns back into the human, they're wearing the same shirt.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. Um, And yet it's in contrast with Gaston in Beauty the Beast, where he is too manly. he is aggressively manly. He's yes, it's gone overboard. Right.
00:46:48
Speaker
So there's clearly some sort of balance and restraint suggested. Well, I think that carries over into this maybe like not so distantly related Disney trope of the rugged man whose manliness is very conspicuously keeps him away from donning suits or more formal attire. So something that i I kind of think that Disney artists tend to do really well is this other type of man, a sort of rough around the edges in more ways than one most of the time, ah who's more of a prince in nature rather than profession.
00:47:27
Speaker
I think of characters like Tarzan or Kristoff from Frozen or the Beast who kind of demonstrate perhaps a more physical version of manliness that plays off a very palpable discomfort that you can observe when you see these men wearing buttoned up suits or like special occasion finery.
00:47:47
Speaker
And this is, it's shown in a variety of ways, including like various states of them in undress or ill fit, or just being in complete embarrassment at being perceived in a full suit. So like, I think about how uncomfortable the beast is when he's being put back into the evening dress to go to, you know, the ball with bell. Um, after so many years of running around basically in his fur and like a pair of breeches, ah Or like when Christoph wears what might be a sort of like traditional court suits for the coronation at the end of Frozen 2, he's pulling at the collar. He tells her, oh, you only get this for one hour before he goes to a normal ice harvester clothes, whatever he wears for that.
00:48:31
Speaker
And I mean, like Frozen 2, that could maybe take place in the mid 19th century, again, which we kind of have to surmise from a very dated map that we see in the movie, as well as some of the garments that may kind of, have a vibe of like 1860s stuff going on i think tarzan is ah another interesting one because it it also falls in that window of you know the 1800s so ah the disney wiki it says that tarzan's family gets marooned in the 1860s that's at the very beginning so if that's accurate
00:49:07
Speaker
Again, I'll surmise that maybe the rest of the film takes place in the 1880s. So assuming he's in the That would make sense with the bustly skirt that Jane wears. Yeah. The sort of shape of her bodice. I feel very 1880s to So I'm curious kind of what your thoughts on the period appropriateness of his suit style. Well, he's because he's wearing... The suit that Tarzan is wearing that we see him in is his father's suit that...
00:49:36
Speaker
was at least 20 years old, I'm i'm guessing. Yeah. so Again, the physics of that all happening. It also like, you know, they got shipwrecked, right? And so they escaped, but how did they, did they they didn't have all their belongings with them in that little rowboat, but maybe they found them shipwrecked. So maybe it was somebody else's suit.
00:49:57
Speaker
but Because they build the and they build this entire tree house thing. So there must be debris, there must be stuff. So maybe it was somebody else's suit from that same voyage. Who knows knows? It's really difficult to see that suit because it's all kind of in darkness.
00:50:12
Speaker
And then you see him kind of from yeah far away, like when he's getting into the rowboat or whatever. um But does it look 19th century? I mean, I sort of, my take on it was like, yeah, this is a suit that could be from any time between 1840 1950.
00:50:31
Speaker
It has a high, a little bit of a high buttoning waistcoat. Yes. Okay. You know, it clearly wasn't, 1850s or 1860s in that it doesn't have that like larger sleeve shape um and actually now that I'm thinking about it it did have ah a sack jacket right like a shorter suit jacket it wasn't like a longer frock coat right which would have been possible in the 18 after the eighteen forty s and it really seemed more century to me I mean twentieth century to me
00:51:06
Speaker
that's kind of what I was getting, but I was, I was a little hung up on like the, um the waistcoat and like, I don't know, but it's the first time he wears any clothing and it's a really impactful scene in the movie. Like he's kind of adopting these trappings of societal repression against the backdrop of the wild jungle. And he's trying on what it might be like to act as a man in the context of society where there's so many rules about your appearance.
00:51:34
Speaker
And I mean, this, suit does not fit him honestly like he is busting out of this uh a little bit and so there's um a guy named jeff curdie who's a really prolific disney focused writer he writes a lot of like disney themed books for the company and he he did this book called disney dossiers number of years ago kind of hones in and like focuses on different characters and he says this that Tarzan is quote lean muscled graceful and athletic unquote and this is the most uncomfortable looking man I've ever seen again it goes to that idea of like you know what is kind of the epitome of masculinity at the time of the movie's development and there's
00:52:21
Speaker
There was this great video promo that I remember for Tarzan when I was a kid. It was on a VHS for another Disney movie, but it was like, oh, this movie's coming out. And Glen Keane, the animator, talks about how his son's skateboarding inspired the vision for Tarzan in this movie. So a lot of that character is kind of designed around these like really super athletic extreme sports guys. Like Tony Hawk in particular, I think, was the name that kept getting dropped. Interesting.
00:52:48
Speaker
So I think that's kind of a fun and interesting take on this character, you know, again, in the context of an animated Disney film, but that same idea of like extremely athletic build and this guy literally cannot be constrained and fit into a suit. And like, what does that say about masculinity?
00:53:04
Speaker
I'm curious just what your thoughts were like seeing that suit on him, if you had anything in particular besides the confusion about where did this suit come from time period wise? Yeah.
00:53:15
Speaker
I mean, one thing that is interesting is it's ill fit only serves to make him look better right like he might look uncomfortable but it's like the his pants are so tight yes but they're so tight that it makes them look like the pantalons that the print prince eric is wearing right like they're tight in a way that shows off his muscles not tight in a way that makes it
00:53:46
Speaker
look like he has a wedgie, which is right actually what would happen if you were wearing pants that were too tight or you couldn't get them buttoned or something. Right. um And same way with the sleeves of the coat, like his arms are just bulging out. It looks almost, it's interesting, the skateboard reference because skateboarders aren't known for having big muscles.
00:54:05
Speaker
Right. But to me, it sort of conjured up like when, um, and NBA player show up to games dressed in suits, right? Where they, you can see a lot of their, you know, biceps are bulging at the seams. That was sort of the reference that that I got. And again, like he buttoned his pants up. He buttoned his waistcoat up. Like the first thing that happens when something doesn't fit you is that you can't button it. And so it clearly fits him enough that he can button it. And really it's just, I think in the, like the the shirt and the tie and the waistcoat all seem to fit him fine.
00:54:43
Speaker
It's just that the legs of the, and the waist of his pants and the shoulders of the coat, it's just the legs of the pants on the arms of the jacket that just show off his muscles.
00:54:56
Speaker
I think that it's just, it's so funny to look at him. I mean, you could I could run like a whole bracket, like who is the most physically uncomfortable Disney man across any of these movies because of what they're wearing. like yeah And it's just, it's an interesting trope that they play with this, you know you know, not a royal who is accustomed to this kind of suiting or being buttoned up. You know, these outdoorsy men, these really athletic men who don't really know how to handle themselves and are very embarrassed and extremely awkward. And and that that is ah an ah one of the ideal aspects of masculinity is not caring about clothes. um
00:55:35
Speaker
It's not being, you know, foppish or dandyish that you want. You know, that again, that the ideal masculinity is um muscled.
00:55:47
Speaker
tall ah and dashing, but in a rugged way. yeah But who can clean up good usually. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned the promo that you remember. One of the like earliest memories I have of suits is there was an advert. There were, it was a commercial for Nordstrom suit section, whatever. And it was,
00:56:16
Speaker
All of these like really hunky guys who were, there was like a firefighter and I can't remember what the other ones were, but they were all like, you know, dirty smeared with soot and glistening their muscles with like tank tops and, you know, hoses or whatever.
00:56:35
Speaker
And it would this the camera would come in on them, this like piercing, like blue steel gaze, and then it would rotate around them and then they would be dressed in a suit. And it was like, I think the campaign was what a difference a day makes.
00:56:50
Speaker
But again, it was straight up coming out of this kind of Disney ideal masculinity, which is that men should be rugged and practical and know how to use power tools. but then also be able to clean up good in the way that the beast does. Not too good, you don't wanna be too fancy, but that any man should also be a gentleman a gentleman knows how to dress properly for a ball.
00:57:19
Speaker
That is wild. I have to look up this commercial. It's for Nordstrom. I'm gonna have to go find this. That sounds incredible, truly. um But yeah, so like putting a suit on these men, it kind of like implicitly restricts a natural ruggedness or like an inherent kind of prescribed manliness. So I wonder if, I don't know, maybe you can comment on if there's like a moment in particular where that specifically the American perception of men changes and that idea of ruggedness and dress and attitude becomes more ah easily perceived as being masculine. and Like, I mean, I kind of think of that, that image of like George Washington, like yeah as you were have brought him up several times, like like kind of thinking about that end of the 1700s and like ruggedness in
00:58:10
Speaker
and like ruggedness in I guess, abilities as opposed to manners. Yeah. One thing I think is so interesting about modern suits, modern men's suits, and when I say modern men's suits, I mean, basically after about 1820, is that they to are designed to allow a person to inhabit many different kinds of spaces and do many different kinds of activities in a way that previous fashions didn't really allow. Right. So if you just look at the materials, um you know, women's clothing and men's clothing before the begin, the turn of the 19th century featured velvet, silk in light colors,
00:59:07
Speaker
bright colors, decorated and um with embroidery and fancy buttons and things like that, lace trimmings. And that fabric,
00:59:21
Speaker
tells you where it wants to be, right? Like that fabric tells you, I'm going to go to the ball. it doesn't say, i'd like to ride in a carriage or go on a boat or wash the dishes or go horseback riding, right?
00:59:37
Speaker
So there were always differences in the kinds of textiles that any aristocratic person would wear, where even in a man's wardrobe, he would have the more what we would call feminine kinds of textiles for for court dress for balls. But then when they were out hunting or traveling, they would wear dark colors in woolen fabrics with no ornamentation, which are all more practical.
01:00:07
Speaker
And so if you just look at the practicality of any different type of thing, whether it's color, fabric, decoration, cut, fit, et cetera.
01:00:19
Speaker
Um, and so really with you just look at what the story is that the materials are telling you, it's saying that like, well, this man can do many things. He can ride on a horse, he can go to dinner. And yes, in real fashion, they did have different outfits for, you know, going writing and doing business and then dining, but really the textiles aren't actually that different. Um,
01:00:46
Speaker
And so it just, to me, the signal is men belong in all parts of civic life in a way that women don't because the the story that women's dresses are telling you is um I'm not prepared to survive this shipwreck or can be on a boat or do anything other than be decorative and go to a ball.
01:01:15
Speaker
Something were talking about, there were you know different suits for different activities or parts of the day. you know Disney also has a character that's you know in opposition to you know our rugged heroes or you know our princes. ah a variety of businessmen across films who are suited to kind of blend in unobtrusively or in other ways to kind of elicit pity or in even further cases to instill fear and I think this is a really extraordinary costuming technique yeah in my opinion kind of alter the impressions gleaned by the audience from a singular garment based upon the styling of it and the influence
01:01:55
Speaker
of the character's personality and their physicality and what their motivations are. Quickly, can we kind of walk through what is the establishment of the suit as this kind of paradigm of fashion in the business world, yeah you know, in that very corporate environment? I think that's really interesting to see it go from all of these, you know, It's a dinnertime garment. It's, you know, at very specific places you wear a suit and now it's an office yeah garment. So you introduced me to Oliver and Company, which I hadn't seen before. and the um Bill Sykes character who's wearing the business suit, I think is very interesting because...
01:02:34
Speaker
um of the way that it is a reminder that in the modern world, the suit and the man in the suit have become interchangeable, right? That a a businessman just is a suit,
01:02:50
Speaker
Right. Even that word came to mean both things. Um, and you can really see it on display in the Incredibles. Yeah. Which is they utilize suits really effectively.
01:03:05
Speaker
um it's clearly the early sixties, which they tell you, I think, or they reference something that happens in 1955. So it's clear that time has passed. And so it's sometime in the early nineteen sixty s um And you see that especially um with Mr. Incredible, who has this like terrible office job.
01:03:27
Speaker
Where he's wearing like a short-sleeved shirt and a tie with you know slacks. And that's very 1960s. But since then has come to stand in for the sort of drone office worker.
01:03:43
Speaker
Right. Because... of the rise of office jobs in the 1960s. So again, they're sort of, you in the same way that other Disney movies are pulling on 1790s for the pantaloons or the 1950s for the sort of ideal masculinity shape, that movie is really pulling on pulling on the 1960s in terms of the sort of, yeah,
01:04:11
Speaker
just boredom and complacency of these horrible office jobs. And that like the sort of homogeny of the, yeah. The, the, the ropeness, the uniformity. And then there's, you know, the boss character they're differentiating, even though the boss character is very short. So they're making fun of his,
01:04:32
Speaker
you know, both power, but by differentiating himself with Incredible and the way that he has power is because he's wearing a suit while Mr. Incredible is not wearing a suit jacket.
01:04:45
Speaker
Well, I think that's, that's for me, that's so fascinating about, and you, you as a costume designer, having had that experience and you know, what you see on the movie, that visual suggestion of a suit on a different male body type, emphasizing specific areas or details it can really swing the pendulum of a viewer's perception of that individual. So that very real importance of tailoring, it seems to have an incredibly important effect on the animation of characters. And like cy Bill Sykes from Oliver and Company, he has this sort of big hulking figure and his suit is like a little bit loose. I don't think his tie is ever like completely squared up.
01:05:28
Speaker
And for me, the way that I read the costume is that it's sort of like A formality to engage in the deception of playing a legit businessman when we know that he's not So, you know, you're going wear the trappings of business, but like what kind of business is it really when you're down on the docks and your tie is loosened and, you know, you're threatening people over the phone. He's almost like a mob boss character. And I think I noticed he had gold cufflinks sticking out of his shirt, you know, which again, it's like the the flashiness implies. Yes. Not gentlemanly.
01:06:09
Speaker
Something else kind of in that same vein, like as Sykes, the suit that kind of he's very obvious as a character, you know, you know what's going on with him right away. He's been styled in such a way and his actions and his manners are in such a way, you know, he's a bad guy. There's also the suit that obfuscates nefarious intent with the guise of respectability and kind of trustworthiness. So I go back to thinking about characters like Commander Rourke from Atlantis, who's very slowly revealed, you know, over the course of the movie to be this sort of ruthless capitalist, camouflaged by his military uniform and really bolstered, I think perhaps by a naive trust that most people have in people in military leadership there that is being used for this character, that idea of trust to this type of authority.
01:07:01
Speaker
or even like someone like Prince Hans in Frozen, who has the right posturing, the regal trappings of his suit. And we would recognize all of these things as being befitting a prince and expect that behavior to ring true. But also this person ends up being sort of this covetous and brutal opportunist. So, you know, a suit that should show you, you know,
01:07:24
Speaker
the proper carriage and the proper etiquette and should give you you know signs of respectability it's it's a hiding the opposite yeah and I I just find that so interesting that this single garment can accomplish so yeah many things and how animators are clearly aware of you know that influence in the real world and how to go animate it and use it for this character development I just I think is really kind of brilliant Something that I talk about a little bit in my book is this anxiety that came up in America, at least in the mid 19th century, really right after the origin of the suit.
01:08:05
Speaker
um And the anxiety was about suddenly you can't, it basically like you can't judge a book by its cover. You can't tell who a person is by their clothes. It used to be that you could trust it, but now, oh my gosh, like you go to the house and is this the man of the house or their servant? We can't tell. Is this the waiter or the, you know, person who's being honored at the dinner?
01:08:32
Speaker
The suit really there were consequences to this uniformity ah that all social classes could buy into and that didn't really change very much. So it used to be that servant characters wore the styles of an earlier generation. This is very apparent. but like One of the perfect examples of this is in Cinderella where the footmen are dressed in 18th century livery with their frock coats and their breeches and their wigs. Whereas the prince is wearing again, that very 1820s, you know, military court suit with trousers showing you again, that using fashion history to show the difference between different kinds of characters. But just again, that that anxiety of of perceived gap between a person and their clothing.
01:09:26
Speaker
um that that you could be duped into um ah believing that someone had a ah nice character. in Disney movies, it's usually the opposite. I'm thinking of the, I can't remember his name, but the the voodoo character in The Princess and the Frog. Like you can tell from outfit how he is not to be trusted. Yes. So that's one example of a character wearing a tailcoat with no shirt under it, which is a sign of a lack of respectability.
01:09:57
Speaker
So this character, I love this character. It's kind of exploring the alternative stylings of menswear and kind of less traditional suiting because, you know within Disney, generally the more flamboyant the garb for male characters the more eccentric that individual tends to be. And usually, this isn't always the case, but this individual tends to be a film's villain. The deviation from the norm in clothing is meant to kind of represent a deviance in character.
01:10:27
Speaker
And I think this can be sort of coupled with the influence of the film setting and the historical or kind of art historical references that helped shape it as well. So like Dr. Facilier in 2009's The Princess and the Frog has a completely unique style in the setting of nineteen twenty s New Orleans, particularly as a counterpoint to Prince Naveen and his ballet. So Facilier is wearing a large top hat, a coat with the long tails over what it looks like a waistcoat with no undershirt. And his midriff is exposed, like you can see his stomach. And the audience is introduced to him as a practitioner of voodoo and a charlatan. So i think I think someone actually calls him a charlatan. So he's meant to kind of have that air of eccentricity about him that plays on perhaps some stereotypes surrounding mysticism you know in the American South. And when we see him, even though he's wearing suit garments, like pieces of a suit, they are hodgepodge with very loud color accents and styling that are really kind of discordant with typical men's daydress in the 20s.
Dr. Facilier's Style in The Princess and the Frog
01:11:39
Speaker
But maybe not out of place, like in the 1960s or 70s. like I was really struck by, he reminded me of Prince. Yes. I had never seen this before. And that was sort of my instinct. I think partially it's the purple. yes um And the the little mustache.
01:11:58
Speaker
um but I think even just that the, the color of purple um is again, like culturally referenced to not masculine. Yeah.
01:12:11
Speaker
Right. I mean, if you were to just look at all of the Disney heroes, I bet you would find that the color palette for their outfits would be like white, blue, gold, maybe black, maybe a little bit of red accents. But I bet that's it, that they would be so constrained to that narrow color palette.
01:12:33
Speaker
Purple is notoriously associated with royalty, which this character clearly is not, but is sort of referencing. Another reference that I was seeing was the the too long tail coat, and I think maybe the shape of the pants, that is also referenced in minstrel characters. The character of My Long Tail Blue and Zip Koon and Dandy Jim. And that was really drawing on danundie cartoon British dandy cartoons of like the 1820s, 1830s when minstrelsy was really first established.
01:13:14
Speaker
So I think there's there's clearly a bit of a racialized element to to it in this character. i also thought that he was his grooming was interesting, right? like It looks like he has like plucked eyebrows and he's got this like little sort of fancy mustache, yes which also, again, feels like too dandy-ish, not masculine, is is the message that is providing. I was definitely getting vibes, certainly, you know, Prince vibes and like just that kind of peacock male. Yeah. It also reminded me of Jafar from Aladdin. You know, the kind of like overly groomed facial hair and eyebrows. And the I mean, that's very fantastical in the shapes there. But but maybe we could also talk about the right?
01:14:02
Speaker
the nineteen twenty s right That if if the in the nineteen sixty s if most Disney princesses are dressed in this like weird eighteen twenty s does neo-cavalier style. yeah It's interesting that this is very clearly solid late nineteen twenty s They do pick a date and kind of commit to it, you know, they and there certainly are like lots of references that come into it, but they do establish, you know, this is in the 1920s in New Orleans, which is a real place that exists and has a very real history associated with it. And we're drawing, you know, from some real stuff, even though this is a fantastical fairy tale. Yeah.
01:14:42
Speaker
you know I saw a lot of very specific menswear references for that period too. And a lot of it you get, you know, again, kind of in the background characters, you know, the girls have the cloche hats and the yeah not quite flapper dresses, but the like, low waist. They've got Aggie plus fours. They've got bow ties. They have detachable high detachable collars. They've got spats. I think it might be the only Disney film where they're wearing spats. I'm i'm not an expert. You would know better than me, but definitely spats. Sweater vests, very nineteen twenty s
01:15:18
Speaker
um Anyway, so I saw a lot of those references there. thing This is how I get drawn into Disney, you know, and I come from a fairly traditional history and fashion history background. yeah Like, where does Disney fit into any of this And it's like, because it is so loaded with all of these references and all of it's just, it's that like niche thing, it sucks you right in and then you can't like unsee it.
01:15:39
Speaker
I saw this. um Do we still call them tweets anymore? i don't know i where I saw it on Instagram or something. But it was something like um the wild thing about watching Shakespeare is you're constantly going, is that where they say that? There's so many references in Shakespeare that we use all the time. And a lot of people, i mean, I grew up working on Shakespeare. So most of the time I recognize them, but most people don't. But I feel like it's similar with Disney, too, is that it might not be the words necessarily. But if you are looking at the story that they're telling about, again, just gender, start with that, end with that, about gender roles, about ideal masculinity, ideal femininity. when When we talk about like, what is ideal masculinity? You know, what are we drawing on? What are our sources for claiming what that looks like?
01:16:32
Speaker
Well, I mean, I'm ready to claim a lot of it's coming from Disney movies, even though i might not have said that a week ago. Well, it's, and it's, it's easy to see where that influence yeah lies. And it's very easy to pick up on from, you know, films individually and kind of just the enormous breadth of work that the company has produced. You can absolutely see and feel that, that influence.
01:16:58
Speaker
If you do want to learn more about menswear in general, There are some great books. you know, I have these on my shelf. How to Read a Suit by Lydia Edwards is a great book that breaks down ensembles and kind of IDs the individual garments and accessories. American Menswear by Daniel Dallas Hill is great. Sex and Suits, the Evolution of Modern Dress by Anne Hollander.
01:17:22
Speaker
The suit form function and style by Christopher Breward is another really good one. i think if you like beautifully photographed museum display garments, check out the exhibition publication for reigning men fashion and menswear 1715 to 2015 by Clarissa Esquera.
01:17:40
Speaker
But there is another book on the horizon you may want to check out. Chloe, of course, suitable the sartorial revolution and the fashioning of modern men. The date is coming June 1. What was kind of the most surprising thing that either you learned or was like really emphasized while you were doing your research for that book?
01:18:01
Speaker
I'll tell you that a little bit of the origin story of the book. Really, it started when I was a costume designer and I just was so annoyed that there were so many books about women's dresses and so a few books about menswear. And you mentioned a couple really good ones. But yeah as a costume designer, Sex and Suits was only hopeful to a certain extent because there weren't that many pictures. And that's what you're always looking for as a costume designer.
01:18:25
Speaker
So when I started thinking about writing and being a fashion historian, it just seemed like an obvious hole that needed filling was more um And I initially we know was thinking about it more as being a helpful reference to costume designers, which this version of the book probably won't be as much, although I hope they'll still buy them.
01:18:42
Speaker
But it really started off looking specifically at formal wear because I just, when I realized that no men were wearing black and white, for any occasion in the 18th century, except maybe morning dress. But then by around 1850, and it started earlier, the the styles for you know wearing black and white for evening dress started around the 1810s. But like by 1850, they weren't wearing anything else. It was an established uniform. And that is still standard formal wear today. you know whether now that you have the tuxedo,
01:19:17
Speaker
So there's two different options, but it's still a black coat and trousers and a white or black waistcoat and bow tie. And it's just so interesting to me that in the most formal versions of ourselves, the goal for men is to dress alike, wear something that everyone else is wearing. Whereas for women, it's the opposite goal, that like your worst nightmare would be to show up in the dress that someone else is wearing.
01:19:43
Speaker
And I just thought that was so interesting to thinking about gender. And I i didn't know why. i didn't know when it happened. I didn't know why it happened. It's very interesting, again, that we've been talking so much about the 1820s with Disney movies, because that's such this it's a a blurry time period that's kind of hard to pin down.
01:20:01
Speaker
There's not a lot of once you get past the Regency period with like, you know, sense and sensibility. there's this sort of hole where you don't really pick up again until after the 1850s was sort of like, hi, Victorian.
01:20:15
Speaker
um So something must have been happening in that period, you know, around menswear and masculinity. So I was um i was a fellow at the Smithsonian for a couple of years, right, during the pandemic.
01:20:27
Speaker
And all the archives were closed. And so I just was going crazy. I was like, oh, I need primary sources for my, you know, historic historical project. And I thought, so I was looking for digitized online sources.
Chapin's Research on Men's Fashion
01:20:41
Speaker
And I thought, oh, gosh, does anyone care about Thomas Jefferson anymore? I don't know. But man, those Founding Fathers online documents sure are digitized and keyword searchable. So I thought, famous last words, I thought tomorrow afternoon, I'll spend two hours looking through it and that should be good.
01:21:01
Speaker
Famous last words, right? So within 20 I had found a whole series of letters that George Washington wrote to his tailor in London complaining about how his pants didn't fit. And I was like, I've never heard this story. And like how many books have been written about George Washington, but it's such a human story. And it's the kind of story about men and their relationship with clothing that is so rarely captured in the archive. And it made me change my whole project because I had just been thinking about formal wear. And so that was really looking at like the eighteen twenty s to the eighteen fifty s But I couldn't not I was like, this is the kind of story I've been looking for in the archive for years. So I pulled my time period earlier earlier to include the founding fathers because I wanted to tell this American story.
01:21:48
Speaker
um and then it when it wasn't about formal wear anymore, you know, when I had to move this period, it just became more broadly about suits and sartorial conformity. And and there was really a story there that i I hadn't seen before because I was looking at something a little bit more prescriptive. So, and I really, you know, I was not, I did not set out to to tell a story about George Washington. But I just keep finding everything goes back to him. All of these contemporary styles, really, I think the two most popular menswear styles since the 19th century, well, maybe the 19th century through the mid 20th century are you know blue coats and buff pants or khaki pants and black suits. And I think you could trace them both back to George Washington. well
01:22:37
Speaker
you will be able to read Chloe's book and find out all of this about George Washington and his ill-fitting pants. And it's such a good story. That's amazing. I love that. Can tell you one other funny story about pants? Yes, please. In 1825, John Quincy Adams, who was then the president of the United States, had his portrait painted by Gilbert Stewart, who was one of the like famous portrait painters of the time. And he decided that he wanted to be dressed in pantaloons. We've talked a lot about breeches and pantaloons. And Ward Nicholas Boylston, who had commissioned that portrait, found out that he wanted to wear pantalones instead of breeches and flipped his lid and complained to his father, John Adams, also former president, And wrote him these amazing letters that were like, but the pants that you can't wear pantaloons. And in fact, if you do, and your dad finds out and he's still alive and he comes and sees this painting, he will find a paintbrush and deface it.
01:23:41
Speaker
Oh my God. So men have feelings about their pants. Of course they do. And that's a story that needs to be told. Right? Right. It absolutely does. That's perfect. I love that. um So yeah, definitely check out suitable. It becomes available June 1st. Chloe, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a treat chatting about suits with you.
Episode Conclusion and Future Topics
01:24:05
Speaker
And I feel like now I just have a bunch of ideas for future episodes to take a closer look at menswear and dizzy. So maybe you'll come back and join me.
01:24:12
Speaker
um in the future but i would love to and thank you so much for the invitation it's been a long time since i've looked at disney movies and i have never really looked at them through the lens of the suit and it was really fascinating to see again how many cultural references to this like idealized masculinity and their relationship with their clothing that i had no idea had been implanted in my brain from years and years of disney movies Thank you guys for listening. Be sure to follow Disney Undressed on Instagram and threads where i'll be posting some fun visual references for the episodes as well as info about upcoming episodes. So please keep an eye out. And I hope that you will join me again in the future to undress your favorite Disney films.