Can I Wear This?

This series started as an act of support for friends who have non-traditional relationships and associations with clothing, after seeing how the wider community treats them. It ended up becoming an exploration of societal perceptions surrounding masculinity. My research led me to question my own choices around the clothes I buy and a deeper understanding of societies preconceptions surrounding presentation and masculinity. I formed the title 'Can I Wear This?', as a play on the various forms of permission. The permission you ask of yourself and others concerning how and if the clothing suits you and the permission you ask of society to accept you in wearing it. In posing an open unanswered question, I wanted to break down the metal constructs men allow to be placed on themselves regarding presentation and self-expression. To represent the question visually, I used young aspiring fathers wearing a single item of clothing in whatever manner they wanted. The subtleness of men being simultaneously vulnerable and playful emerges as a dialogue between their hands and the clothing. The use of aspiring fathers was critical. They are still impressionable, influenced by peer pressure but also our best hope of changing the attitudes of future generations. I mapped the finished layered images into a form reminiscent of times past, in recognition of the Men's Dress Reform Party of the 1920s who tried to challenge societal perceptions toward men's clothing and as an expression of hope. A hope that only day generations hence will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about as naturally being expressively divergent is not about masculinity, it's about self-expression and character.