Such creatives as Miles Davis and David Bowe are 20th century examples of men whose sartorial tastes ran toward hexagonal glasses and unitards—but who also knew their way around Brooks Brothers and Saville Row suits. The Los Angeles Country Museum of Art‘s new exhibition, Reigning Men: Fashion In Menswear, 1715-2015, and the accompanying DelMonico Books coffee table volume by Sharon Sadako Takeda, Kaye Durland Spilker, and Clarissa M. Esguerra, cataloging men’s fashion since the 18th century, chronicles such excesses from aristocrats to dandies to Carnaby Street mods to rockers and punks. As the included Tim Blanks essay states, “men’s fashion has traditionally moved in millimeters,” but a look at the range of men’s clothes over the past few centuries shows how diverse and inventive each advance has been. As LACMA director Michael Govan writes in the book’s forward, “Anyone who believes men’s clothing to be limited to business suits in a palette of blues and grays will be surprised at the variety in color, texture, and silhouette. Even the utilitarian uniform appears endlessly reinvented.” Not to be missed is a collection of boot designs that ranges from the early 19th century to a fall 2009 hybrid by Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy, a fall 2015 pair of hightop sandals by Rick Owens, and Jeremy Scott hightop sneakers created for Adidas’ spring 2015 collection.

By Elizabeth Varnell

Pictured: A man’s suit ensemble from Jonathan Hartig of Libertine’s fall 2009 collection, part of the Reigning Men exhibition at LACMA.
Photo courtesy of DelMonico Books

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