Author: Conekin, Becky

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Volume 4, Number 4, November 2000 , pp. 447-466(20)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

Abstract:

The most popular male magazine in the post-war period was Playboy. Conekin examines how Playboy addressed, and helped to create, a new masculine consumer, especially in relation to clothes and fashion in its first decade. Playboy magazine claimed that it contained the urban, sophisticated, heterosexual man's life. But what it really contained was heterosexual men's fantasies and desires in post-war America. Playboy's fashion pages advocated distinction through attention to detail, offering the possibility of combining conservatism in dress, success at work, and a new and exciting lifestyle in the realm of leisure. Especially in the early years, the reader was assured that if he dressed correctly, his life would be enriched and he would be capable of moving easily up the social ladder. Conekin concludes that Playboy encouraged men in the 1950s and 1960s to charge their normal working lives with “the excitement of the unusual” through a unique, balance combination of risqué images of beautiful women and conservative fashions.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/136270400779108672

Publication date: 2000-11-01

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