Rethinking Men’s Dress through Material Sources: The Case Study of a Singlet

Abstract

Singlets occupy a special place in the wardrobe of Australian men, though they might be worn as underwear or sportswear, for work or leisure, daily or as fashion. The semiotic approach favoured by cultural and fashion studies analyses has tended to link the singlet – in particular the iconic Chesty Bond singlet – with working-class masculinity, connecting different groups’ singlet-wearing to a masculine ideal. Turning to the growing use of material culture approaches to dress, I explore what it might mean to think about singlets in Australian history in a different way: by paying attention to materiality and taking everyday practices into account.

The author would like to thank Associate Professor Melissa Bellanta for her close reading of a draft of this article, and for her suggestions which have improved it immeasurably. The author also warmly thanks Debbie Sommers, curator of the Port Macquarie Museum, for an insightful discussion about singlets in museums in general and the examples held in the Port Macquarie Museum’s collection.

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under Grant DP190103341.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For example: ‘“The 150 Millionth Chesty Bond” Men’s Singlet, 1983’, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, https://ma.as/204947 (accessed 19 June 2019); ‘“Chesty Bond” Mannequin Torso with Singlet by Bonds, c. 1950’, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, https://ma.as/204944 (accessed 19 June 2019).

2 For example: ‘“Jack Howe” Singlet, 1839’, Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre, https://ehive.com/collections/3492/objects/17604/jack-howe-singlet (accessed 20 June 2019); ‘Performance Costume, “Tapper”, Fabric, Leather, Designed by Nigel Triffit, Used in the Opening Ceremony of Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000’, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, https://ma.as/503886 (accessed 20 June 2019); ‘Performance Costume, “Jazz Drummer”, Fabric, Leather, Designed by Nigel Triffi, Used in the Opening Ceremony of Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000’, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, https://ma.as/503876 (accessed 20 June 2019); Debbie Rudder, ‘“HYTEST AXE” Singlet Worn by Tom Kirk, c. 1950’, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, https://ma.as/168855 (accessed 24 June 2019).

3 Jess Berry, ‘The Underside of the Undershirt: Australian Masculine Identity and Representations of the Undershirt in the “Chesty Bond” Comic-Strip Advertisements’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 1, no. 2 (2014): 147–59.

4 Juliette Peers, ‘Urban Fashion Culture in Australia’, in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, ed. Margaret Maynard (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 123–31.

5 Vicki Karaminas, ‘Urban Menswear in Australia’, in Maynard, Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, 158–62.

6 Sue Ryan, ‘Popular Music and Dress in Australia’, in Maynard, Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, 231–40.

7 Robert Reynolds, What Happened to Gay Life? (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2007), 56.

8 Clive Faro with Garry Wotherspoon, Street Seen: A History of Oxford Street (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 244.

9 ‘Clone Crossing’, Sydney Star Observer, 25 September 1981, in Faro with Wotherspoon, 241.

10 Reynolds, 56–7.

11 Peter McNeil, ‘Queer Dress in Australia’, in Maynard, Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, 224–30.

12 Shaun Cole, The Story of Men’s Underwear (New York: Parkstone International, 2012), 74.

13 Stephanie Gibson, ‘Engaging in Mischief: The Black Singlet in New Zealand Culture’, in Looking Flash: Clothing in Aotearoa New Zealand, eds Bronwyn Labrum, Fiona McKergow and Stephanie Gibson (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007), 206.

14 Shaun Cole, ‘“Macho Man”: Clones and the Development of a Masculine Stereotype’, Fashion Theory 4, no. 2 (2000): 128.

15 Steven Stines, ‘Cloning Fashion: Uniform Gay Images in Male Apparel’, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 4, no. 2 (2017): 130, 137.

16 Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, Queer Style (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 49–98.

17 Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen, ‘Introduction: Dress History Now: Terms, Themes and Tools’, in Dress History: New Directions in Theory and Practice, eds Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 1.

18 Giorgio Riello, ‘The Object of Fashion: Methodological Approaches to the History of Fashion’, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture 3 (2011): 2. For a summary of the shifts in dress and fashion research see, for example, Yuniya Kawamura, Doing Research in Fashion and Dress: An Introduction to Qualitative Methods (Oxford: Berg, 2011), 1–15.

19 John Styles, ‘Dress in History: Reflections on a Contested Terrain’, Fashion Theory 2, no. 4 (1998): 387; Lou Taylor, ‘Doing the Laundry? A Reassessment of Object-Based Dress History’, Fashion Theory 2, no. 4 (1998): 348; Lou Taylor, The Study of Dress History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 64–85.

20 Styles, ‘Dress in History’, 383–4; Taylor, The Study of Dress History, 2.

21 Jane Tozer, ‘Cunnington’s Interpretation of Dress’, Costume 20, no. 1 (1986): 6.

22 Taylor, The Study of Dress History; Alexandra Palmer, ‘New Directions: Fashion History Studies and Research in North America and England’, Fashion Theory 1, no. 3 (1997): 302.

23 For example: Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption (London: Routledge, 1996 [1979]), 49; Arjun Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 3–63; Igor Kopytoff, ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commodification as Process’, in Appadurai, The Social Life of Things, 64–91; Susan M. Pearce, ‘Objects as Meaning; or Narrating the Past’, in Interpreting Objects and Collections, ed. Susan M. Pearce (London: Routledge, 1994), 19–29.

24 Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley, ‘Introduction’, Journal of Material Culture 1, no. 1 (1996): 5.

25 Daniel Miller, ‘Why Some Things Matter’, in Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, ed. Daniel Miller (London: UCL Press, 1998), 3–21; Daniel Miller, Stuff (Cambridge: Polity, 2010).

26 E. McClung Fleming, ‘Artifact Study: A Proposed Model’, Winterthur Portfolio 9 (1974): 156–61.

27 Jules David Prown, ‘Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method’, Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 16.

28 Jules David Prown, ‘Style as Evidence’, Winterthur Portfolio 15, no. 3 (Autumn 1980): 198.

29 Adrienne Hood, ‘Material Culture and Textiles: An Overview’, Material History Bulletin 31 (Spring 1990): 9.

30 Taylor, ‘Doing the Laundry?’, 347.

31 Kate Smith and Leonie Hannan, ‘Return and Repetition: Methods for Material Culture Studies’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 48, no. 1 (2017): 43–59.

32 Ingrid Mida and Alexandra Kim, The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 26–33.

33 Margaret Maynard, ‘Dress: A Future for Its Past’, in Australian Dress Register: A User’s Guide to the Care, Documentation, Interpretation and Display of Dress, eds Lindie Ward, Kate Chidlow and Sarah Pointon (Sydney: Powerhouse Museum, 2012), 9.

34 For example: Jennifer Clynk and Sharon Peoples, ‘All Out in the Wash: Convict Stain Removal in the Narryna Heritage Museum’s Dress Collection’, in Nicklas and Pollen, Dress History, 49–64; Mary Hutchison, ‘The Social Life of a Denim Jacket’, Journal of Australian Studies 35, no. 4 (2011): 475–93.

35 Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, ‘Introduction: Writing Material Culture History’, in Writing Material Culture History, eds Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 8–9.

36 Gerritsen and Riello, ‘Introduction’, 8–9. For an earlier discussion of the methodological difficulties see Thomas J. Schlereth, ‘Material Culture and Cultural Research’, in Material Culture: A Research Guide, ed. Thomas J. Schlereth (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 14–18.

37 Glenn Adamson, ‘The Case of the Missing Footstool: Reading the Absent Object’, in History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, 2nd edn, ed. Karen Harvey (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 241.

38 ‘The “Jackie Howe”’, Warwick Daily News, 26 October 1936, 4; D’Arcy Niland, ‘Champion Shearers of Australia’, Walkabout 9, no. 4 (1 February 1943): 30.

39 Randolph Bedford, ‘Jacky Howe’, Courier-Mail Brisbane, 10 July 1937, 20.

40 Ibid.

41 ‘Jackie Howe – a Legend’, Argus, 23 November 1956, 13.

42 Jane Haggis and Susanne Schech, ‘Migrant Masculinities and Work in the Australian National Imaginary’, in Migrant Men: Critical Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience, eds Mike Donaldson, Raymond Hibbins, Richard Howson and Bob Pease (New York: Routledge, 2009), 64.

43 Francesco Ricatti, Italians in Australia: History, Memory, Identity (Cham: Palgrave Pivot, 2018), 38.

44 For example: ‘Choose Your Favourite Style of the World’s Favourite Underwear’, Pix 27, no. 24 (9 August 1952), 2.

45 ‘For Fit and Style Insist on NILE’, Man, September 1946, 88.

46 ‘Why NILE Singlets and Sleeks Are Temporarily Unobtainable’, Tailor and Men’s Wear 1, no. 5 (15 June 1946): 19.

47 Karen Harvey, ‘Introduction: Historians, Material Culture and Materiality’, in Harvey, History and Material Culture, 4.

48 Christopher Tilley, ‘Ethnography and Material Culture’, in Handbook of Ethnography, eds Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland and Lyn Lofland (London: Sage, 2001), 260.

49 For example: ‘Local Intelligence’, Age, 22 March 1856, 2; ‘A Tropical City: Townsville, North Queensland’, Illustrated Sydney News, 20 February 1890, 21; ‘Extensive Sale of Slops, Cutlery, Wines, Canvass, &c. &c.’, Australian, 11 March 1940, 3; ‘P. Phillips’, Geelong Advertiser, 22 February 1845, 4; ‘Summer Goods Just Received at the Liverpool Mart, P. Phillips’, Geelong Advertiser and Squatters’ Advocate, 15 November 1845, 3.

50 Richard Cashman, Paradise of Sport: The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995), 78.

51 ‘Sporting Life’, Melbourne Punch, 24 February 1887, 9.

52 ‘The Sculling Match: Brown v. Bubear’, Australian Star, 24 April 1890, 6.

53 Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 15.

54 Varda Burstyn, The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 94.

55 Douglas Booth, ‘Swimming, Surfing and Surf-Lifesaving’, in Sport in Australia: A Social History, eds Wray Vamplew and Brian Stoddart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 231–2; Craig Wilcox, Badge, Boot, Button: The Story of Australian Uniforms (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2017), 71–5, 78.

56 John Ibson, Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 103.

57 Ibid., 107, 110–13.

58 Studies now move beyond the elite to consider the daily dress of ordinary people, marginalised groups, subcultures and those forgotten, for example: John Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Bronwyn Labrum, ‘The Material Culture of Welfare in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Case Study of Clothing’, History Australia 2, no. 3 (2005): 81.1–81.12. Some work explores the role of cloth and clothing in global diasporas, while other work takes a global perspective, for example: the special issue of Textile: Cloth and Culture: Christine Checinska, ‘Editorial: Aesthetics of Blackness? Cloth, Culture, and the African Diasporas’, Textile: Cloth and Culture 16, no. 2 (2018): 118–25; Daniel Miller, ‘Anthropology in Blue Jeans’, American Ethnologist 37, no. 3 (August 2010): 415–28; Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); Sophie Woodward, ‘“Humble” Blue Jeans: Material Culture Approaches to Understanding the Ordinary, Global, and the Personal’, in Fashion Studies: Research Methods, Sites and Practices, ed. Heike Jenss (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 42–57. Gender and sexuality are taken more fully into account, for example: Leora Auslander, ‘Deploying Material Culture to Write the History of Gender and Sexuality: The Example of Clothing and Textiles’, Clio: Women, Gender, History 40 (2014): 157–78; Cole, ‘“Macho Man”’, 125–40; Shaun Cole, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth-Century (Oxford: Berg, 2000); Sally Gray, ‘Crafting Hip and Cool: David McDiarmid’s Handcrafted Lamb Suede Dancefloor Outfits, 1980–1989’, The Journal of Modern Craft 3, no. 1 (2010): 37–54; John Harvey, Men in Black (London: Reaktion Books, 1995); Peter McNeil, ‘Macaroni Masculinities’, Fashion Theory 4, no. 4 (2000): 373–403. Some studies focus on fibres, items of clothing or a combination of these, for example: Kaori O’Connor, ‘Anthropology, Archaeology, History and the Material Culture of Lycra®’, in Gerritsen and Riello, Writing Material Culture History, 81–8; Jane Schneider, ‘In and Out of Polyester: Desire, Disdain and Global Fibre Competitions’, Anthropology Today 10, no. 4 (August 1994): 2–10; Marie Hebrok and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, ‘Wool Is a Knitted Fabric That Itches, Isn’t It?’, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5, no. 1 (2014): 67–93; Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric That Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

59 Miller, Stuff, 23–5; Alice Dolan and Sally Holloway, ‘Emotional Textiles: An Introduction’, Textile: Cloth and Culture 14, no. 2 (2016): 152–9; Bethan Bide, ‘Signs of Wear: Encountering Memory in the Worn Materiality of a Museum Fashion Collection’, Fashion Theory 21, no. 4 (2017): 449–76; Carole Hunt, ‘Worn Clothes and Textiles as Archives of Memory’, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5, no. 2 (2014): 207–32; Denise Noble, ‘Material Objects as Sites of Critical Re-Memorying and Imaginative “Knowing”’, Textile: Cloth and Culture 16, no. 2 (2018): 214–33; Alison Slater, ‘Wearing in Memory: Materiality and Oral Histories of Dress’, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5, no. 1 (2014): 125–39.

60 Daniel Miller, ‘Introduction’, in Clothing as Material Culture, eds Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 1.

61 Sophie Woodward and Tom Fisher, ‘Fashioning through Materials: Material Culture, Materiality and Processes of Materialization’, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5, no. 1 (2014): 3–22.

62 Lucia Ruggerone, ‘The Feeling of Being Dressed: Affect Studies and the Clothed Body’, Fashion Theory 21, no. 5 (2017): 573–93.

63 Hunt, 226.

64 Paul Kelly, How to Make Gravy (Melbourne: Penguin, 2010), 430.

65 Ryan, 231–40.

66 Schneider; Hebrok and Klepp.

67 Miller, Stuff, 23–5.

68 Daniel Miller, The Comfort of Things (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), 43.

69 Debbie Sommers, ‘Men’s Singlets c. 1970, 2001.105: Object Assessment and Statement of Significance’, unpublished museum document (Port Macquarie: Port Macquarie Museum, 2017), 2.

70 Victoria Kelley, ‘Time, Wear and Maintenance: The Afterlife of Things’, in Gerritsen and Riello, Writing Material Culture History, 191, 196.

71 Peter Stallybrass, ‘Worn Worlds: Clothes, Mourning and the Life of Things’, in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (London: Berg, 2012), 69.

72 Amy de la Haye, ‘Introduction: Dress and Fashion in the Context of the Museum’, in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: Global Perspectives, eds Joanne B. Eicher and Phyllis G. Tortora (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 285–7.

73 Jenni Sorkin, ‘Stain: On Cloth, Stigma, and Shame’, Third Text 14, no. 53 (2000): 77–8.

74 Peter Stallybrass quoted in Hunt, 215.

75 James Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life, 2nd edn (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 4.

76 Adamson, 253.

77 Sommers, 2.

78 Ibid., 8.