Leiland: Here's some info about what I was talking about-
"We do not talk about this revolution in relation to Austen's work, however, because it is hidden in the corners of her novels, the way the Napoleonic Wars are. It's called, fascinatingly enough, the
Great Masculine Renunciation, and involves men's fashion, of all things. While the Terror of the French Revolution was bloodying La Place de la Concorde, while the Napoleonic Wars were destroying the European countryside, an Englishman called George Bryan Brummell was changing the way men dressed. Gone were the scarlets and purples, satins and velvets, lace and embroidery of conspicuous consumption that men wore in the middle of the eighteenth century. Romantic-era men wore instead dark blue or black wool coats, stiffly starched, blindingly white shirts, and skin-tight, skin-colored pantaloons--inconspicuous consumption, in fact. Brummell is famous for saying that "If John Bull turns round to look after you, you are not well-dressed; but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable."
But this Great Masculine Renunciation entailed more than Romanticera men suddenly realizing that dark blue wool and starched shirts were more masculine than red velvet and pantaloons. Indeed, the ideological work that went into making that realization a reality demonstrates the radical transformation that representations of and assumptions about masculinity experienced in the Romantic era. I argue, in fact, that the total transformation in men's fashions in the Regency era was an outward manifestation of a similar renunciation in men's ability to express their emotions. "
The Hidden Consumer: Masculinities, Fashion and City Life in 1860-1914
So there, at one point you men absolutely cherished your materialism and prettyfulness.
edit: Hubster, that is a great example, he's even wearing high heels! thank you dear. Great painting too \m/
