Le complet de crime, tendance ou cliché ? Signification de la tenue vestimentaire masculine entre le pouvoir, la criminalité et le genre

From the office desk to the bedroom, the men's tailored suit traverses everyday times and places, assuming multiple meanings. Most people, due to a deep-rooted cultural heritage, recognize in men's formal wear the sign of authority and power, associating gallantry and the traditional idea of "respectability" with a certain way of dressing; others, like some fashion and cinema creators, try to break this rigid ideological representation. Directors and designers interpret "the social uniform of the male" not only as office attire, but enrich it with erotic, criminal, and mysteriously perverse suggestions. In the latest men's collection by Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, for example, the theme of sensuality and sexuality evoked by the men's tailored suit is central. The "terrifying and languid suits," as Mark Holgate describes them in the review of the show on Vogue Runway, express in their classicism a delicate eroticism and a subtle femininity manifested through transparent shirts worn under jackets with a fluid cut. In this regard, Vaccarello uses the high-fashion technique of flou associated with women's fashion, combining materials with different textures, such as leather with softer ones like organza. On that occasion, the Belgian designer explained to the press that he was inspired by a nocturnal, mysterious man, halfway between Patrick Bateman of American Psycho and Julian Kay in American Gigolo: the formal attire thus hides the secrets of perversion and can become a seduction tool.

The crime-suit in contemporary fashion

Fashion and cinema have sought to tarnish the impeccability of men's formal attire by revealing its dark nature. So why then does formalwear, especially on a male, in the collective consciousness identify more as a gentleman than as a murderer? The answer lies in the fact that, as the French sociologist Bourdieu said, our society has exerted a kind of symbolic violence, that is, the imposition of the aesthetic category of the gentleman in a suit and tie, so validated and internalized that it can never be completely deconstructed. In the aforementioned films, especially in the 1960s and '70s, hitmen in suits blended in with the common man because for a long time most men, due to what is commonly referred to as the "great renunciation," dressed in this manner: today, however, formal attire indicates an exception, suggests institutional rigor, and emphasizes social aristocracy. Filmmakers have realized how the aesthetics of the crime suit has become a cliché: perhaps this is why Michael Fassbender, the protagonist of the recent film The Killer as a cynical professional criminal, prefers to blend in with the crowd by dressing like an anonymous, sloppy German tourist. A "man in a suit," today as it stands, could be an easy suspect: a sloppily dressed male, on the other hand, is just one among many.