The Essay: Fashion Stories

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Lauren Working explores the cavalier look from Charles I to Harry Styles.

From Van Dyck portraits and a 1628 pamphlet by William Prynne to the poster for the V&A's exhibition Fashioning Masculinities. Lauren Working looks at long hair, lace and earrings.

"Delight in disorder" was celebrated in a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and the long hair, flamboyant dress and embrace of earrings that made up Cavalier style has continued to exert influence as a gender fluid look.  Lauren Working's essay considers examples ranging from Van Dyck portraits and plays by Aphra Behn to the advertising for the exhibition called Fashioning Masculinities which runs at the Victoria and Albert museum this spring. 

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear is at the V&A from March 19th 2022. 
Radio 3 broadcast a series of Essays from New Generation Thinkers exploring Masculinities which you can find on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061jm 
Lauren Working is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of York and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn academic research into radio.  You can hear her discussing The Botanical Past in a Free Thinking discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv 

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image: Anthony van Dyck 
Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart (about 1638)
Oil on canvas
The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1988 © The National Gallery, London.

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