Man's 2-piece suit. England. c. 1775. Ribbed silk trimmed with ermine. 971.164.A-B Gift of the ROM Members Committee.
Man's 3-piece suit. England. 1770-1779. Silk droguet with silver filé weft and brown flushing-warp pattern, embroidered in coiled metal wire (gold bullion), gold and silver sequins, silver foil and glass paste. 909.33.4.A-C.
Fellowship Year: 1998
Project Title: Fashion Victims: London Macaronis and Paris Petits-Maîtres, c. 1760-80
Fashion Victims: London Macaronis and Paris Petits-Maîtres, c. 1760-80
Peter McNeil’s time as a Gervers fellow went in tandem with his PhD research, in which he was comparing English and French attitudes to male sartorial excess. He focused on roughly 50 fine examples of 18th century waistcoats in the ROM. His interest was in the waistcoat as a target of satire and as a synecdoche for a certain type of male courtly persona. Through his study, he discerned the various and sometimes contradictory meanings that contemporaries of the waistcoat, as a part of court dress, associated with it, ranging from respectful awe at the display of wealth and status to satirizing the perceived effeminacy and excess of such items of dress.
About the Fellow:
Dr. McNeil is currently Distinguished Professor in Design History at the School of Design, University of Technology, in Sydney, Australia.
Dr. McNeil is currently Distinguished Professor in Design History at the School of Design, University of Technology, in Sydney, Australia.
Related Publications: “Mocking the Macaroni: Fashion Victims of 18th Century England,”.Rotunda Spring 2000: pp. 36-42
McNeil, Peter. “Macaroni Masculinities.” Fashion Theory Vol. 4, Issue 4, pp. 373-404. 2000.
Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello, “Walking the Streets of London and Paris in the Enlightenment,” chapter 4 in Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers, eds. Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil. Berg: 2011.
Pretty gentlemen : macaroni men and the eighteenth-century fashion world New Haven, CT ; London : Yale University Press, 2018
“Mocking the Macaroni: Fashion Victims of 18th Century England,”.Rotunda Spring 2000: pp. 36-42
McNeil, Peter. “Macaroni Masculinities.” Fashion Theory Vol. 4, Issue 4, pp. 373-404. 2000.
Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello, “Walking the Streets of London and Paris in the Enlightenment,” chapter 4 in Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers, eds. Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil. Berg: 2011.
Pretty gentlemen : macaroni men and the eighteenth-century fashion world New Haven, CT ; London : Yale University Press, 2018
