{"id":1683,"date":"2013-04-15T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charisma.local\/charisma2023\/char1smaSSL\/?post_type=histories&p=1683"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:46:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T22:46:02","slug":"fashion-male-beauty-and-the-mens-dress-reform-party","status":"publish","type":"histories","link":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/histories\/fashion-male-beauty-and-the-mens-dress-reform-party","title":{"rendered":"Fashion, Male Beauty and the \u2018Men\u2019s Dress Reform Party\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dress reformers on their way to the MDRP Coronation competition in 1937- from Burman 1995.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Changing ideas about medicine and public health were never more in flux than the two decades before the Second World War.\u00a0 One group that sought to steer a new direction in public health was the social hygiene movement \u2013 a fusion of evolutionary, eugenic and sociological theories that sought to draw a connection between poverty, ill health and inadequate breeding.\u00a0 These ideas were underpinned with fears that the middle classes were in decline while \u2018degenerates\u2019 were on the ascendant.\u00a0 Much has been written on the social hygiene movement<\/a> but one often overlooked offshoot was the Men\u2019s Dress Reform Party<\/em> (MDRP) established in 1929 \u2013 a lobbying group formed by prominent eugenicists who wanted to change male fashion in order to make men more \u2018beautiful\u2019.<\/p>\n

The MDRP emerged out of the Sunlight League<\/a> and New Health Society<\/a> and was founded by Alfred Jordan, an internationally renowned radiologist.\u00a0 Jordan was principally known for wearing shorts in his professional life, something that in this period was sufficiently unusual to generate press interest.<\/p>\n

The formation of the MDRP was announced, together with publication of their manifesto, in the journal of the Sunlight League (Sunlight<\/em>) and the Times<\/em>.\u00a0 It was stressed that the MDRP was open to all classes of men, from the \u2018working chap to the peer\u2019s son\u2019 and that it was not a \u2018crank or a faddist\u2019 organisation.\u00a0 The actual demands of the new party were somewhat diffuse, but included:<\/p>\n

Most members wish for shorts; a few for the kilt; nearly all hate trousers.\u00a0 Some plead for less heavy materials and less padding; others for brighter colours; but the villain of the piece is the collar-stud.\u00a0 A wail has gone up throughout the land; man is clutching at his throat and crying (Times 17 June 1929).<\/em><\/p>\n

A list of those people supporting the Party\u2019s manifesto included: the Dean of St Paul\u2019s, WR Inge, a well-known eugenicist who had written on the decline of the \u2018white race\u2019; the eccentric artist, Richard Sickert who had already established a reputation for dressing incongruously, often appearing at formal occasions wearing slippers and \u2018loud\u2019 checked suits; the actor Ernest Thesiger; the headmaster of University College School, Guy Kendal; and Caleb Saleeby the founder of the Sunlight League.<\/p>\n

The main concern of the MDRP was that men\u2019s clothes were too tight, awkward and ugly and that, prior to the general adoption of dry cleaning, that men\u2019s outer clothing was un-washable: \u2018we wear dark clothes which, as we nicely calculate, need not (as indeed they cannot) be washed, for they won\u2019t show the dirt\u2019(Jordan, Sunlight, 1929:28).\u00a0 Throughout the next few years the MDRP organised a number of events, such as: a Men\u2019s Dress Reform Day, which was to be free of processions and ceremonies but was to be \u2018merely the wearing of hygienic dress in town (and everywhere else) the whole day by all who will\u2019(Jordan, Sunlight, 1929:30).\u00a0 Employers were urged to allow their workers to wear reform dress for the day; and a series of rallies were organised during which prizes were to be awarded for the most imaginative reform attire worn by a man.\u00a0 Indeed the summer rallies of the MDRP became regular events during the 1930s and the event of 1931, staged at the Suffolk Street Galleries, was attended by about a thousand people, including H.G. Wells.<\/p>\n

The movement generated considerable press interest and its activities were covered in The Times<\/em>, The Evening Standard<\/em>, The Daily Sketch<\/em> and The Morning Post<\/em>.\u00a0 The first rally of the MDRP attracted around 150 people the majority of whom \u2018wore short trousers, tennis shirts, woollen stockings, and ordinary lounge jackets.\u00a0 Two women were in cream-coloured trousers, with sandals, and a man wore a garment which was a cross between a skirt and a kilt\u2019 (Times 1929).\u00a0 Correspondence on The Times letters page questioned whether the aims of the party went far enough, as one correspondent said \u2018the desire of men for beauty is just as strong as the desire for comfort; and, if this artistic desire be ignored, the new party will be sacrificing half of its possible supporters\u2019.\u00a0 Activities of the MDRP continued throughout the 1930s but the Party became subject to an increasing degree of popular ridicule. \u00a0One of the final events of the MDRP was the Coronation Dress Reform Competition staged at Alexandra Palace in 1937 and covered not only in the press but also on radio and the newly established BBC television service.\u00a0 Despite the novelty of being televised, BBC publications lampooned the men attending the event:<\/p>\n

Whether man\u2019s lower limbs look their best encased in slightly flattened parallel tubes may be open to doubt, but at least there seems no great aesthetic advantage in cutting the tubes short at the knee\u2026[but the show] provided viewers with an entertaining ten minutes and plenty of laughter (The Listener 1937).<\/em><\/p>\n

After this the dress reform movement became increasingly irrelevant.\u00a0 There were a variety of reasons for this.\u00a0 Some have argued<\/a> that the MDRP failed to appreciate what was already happening to men\u2019s fashions in the 1930s.\u00a0 The mass produced clothing trade was now able to offer new garments made from lighter washable fabrics and these were promoted with adverts that blended quasi-scientific jargon with the language of fashion, aesthetics and athleticism.\u00a0 The \u2018liberationist\u2019 reform language used by the MDRP appeared bizarre in comparison.\u00a0 In addition the MDRP, with their home-made clothing designs, seemed amateurish and eccentric.\u00a0 The clothes used techniques that were more often found in women\u2019s clothes and associated with feminine styles of dressmaking.<\/p>\n

The home-made designs of the reformers referenced a style of clothing from a bygone \u2018Elizabethan\u2019 age when men\u2019s clothing was more flamboyant, feminine and unstructured.\u00a0\u00a0 Today it might seem comical that the MDRP urged men to adopt a more feminine style of clothing.\u00a0 However the underlying project was more sinister and in its efforts to interweave masculinity with the social hygiene and eugenic movements.\u00a0 Articles supporting dress reform in the New Health Society<\/em> journal argued that changes in men\u2019s fashion would bring out a male beauty \u2013 one that celebrated masculine grace and physique.\u00a0 The idea was that if middle class men could, through reformed clothing, become more beautiful then they would inevitably also be more attractive to women (i.e. potential mothers) and thus reverse the perceived evolutionary decline of the middle classes:<\/p>\n

\u2026a renaissance of beauty for men \u2013 true masculine beauty of the body and mind, the bloom of a joyful spirit \u2013 might mean happier marriages, well-born and beautiful children, a healthier and more beautiful race (Dion Byngham, New Health Journal, 1932).<\/em><\/p>\n

It may seem bizarre that the institution of marriage, and middle class breeding, was seen to be threatened by men\u2019s lack of sartorial elegance and beauty.\u00a0 In retrospect perhaps these fears were no less demented than the arguments currently put forward by those who seek to oppose equal marriage rights for gay couples.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgements<\/h4>\n

As part of our inter-network collaboration, this article is reproduced from an original post<\/a> on the Cost of Living Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Carter on the Men\u2019s Dress Reform Party (MDRP), an overlooked 1930s lobbying group seeking to change male fashion in order to make men more \u2018beautiful\u2019 Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":1685,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[593,474,277,591,334,594,592,595],"class_list":["post-1683","histories","type-histories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-writing","tag-1930s","tag-consumer","tag-consumption","tag-fashion","tag-history","tag-male-fashion","tag-mens-dress-reform-party","tag-reform"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/histories\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/histories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/histories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/histories\/1683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4015,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/histories\/1683\/revisions\/4015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}