The Hidden Consumer: Masculinities, Fashion and City Life, 1860–1914

This work uncovers the consuming habits of urban men from the second half of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War I. It focuses on the fraught relationships which emerged at this time between ideal models of manly behavior and attitudes towards the expression of sexual and class identities through the medium of dress. The period has been identified by many historians as a crucial moment in the development of a commodity culture and its characteristics have generally been discussed in terms of a feminization of practices linked with shopping and fashionable display.