Gentlemen of Fashion 1700-1900 with Professor Peter McNeil

Dress has always been central to how men manage their social, political, and inner selves. What does messy hair and a slouched posture mean? In this special double lecture, Distinguished Professor Peter McNeill leads us on a sartorial journey from the studied negligence of Restoration Rakes to the elegant Australian artists living it up in in Edwardian London.

Many men pursue ‘swagger’ and have done so since Classical Greece and Ancient China. Eighteenth-century macaroni men set up a clash with the older generation and embraced flashy, cosmopolitan dressing.

Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil FAHA is an award-winning design historian. His book Pretty Gentlemen: Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-century Fashion World was published by Yale University Press (2018) and was a Marina Warner ‘Book of the Year’ in London Review of Books. McNeil worked with Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the major exhibition ‘Reigning Men’ (2016).