Why do the most powerful men in the West wear sober, understated attire? Until the “Great Masculine Renunciation” in the eighteenth century, luxurious and often flamboyant clothing signaled social superiority for men as well as women.
Margaret Waller’s fresh account of this historic recalibration of gender and class centers on an unlikely pair: Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart who crowned himself emperor of France, and Pierre Antoine Le Boux La Mésangère, the defrocked priest who became Europe’s premier fashion editor. Looking at knee breeches, schoolboy and officer uniforms, priests’ robes, and imperial regalia, this book shows how misogyny and homophobia helped make Bonaparte, La Mésangère, and their peers men. Paperback, 360 pages.
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