From Revolting to Revolting: Masculinity and the body politic of the tracksuit

Turney, Joanne (2019) From Revolting to Revolting: Masculinity and the body politic of the tracksuit. In, Turney, Joanne (ed.) Fashion Crimes: Dressing for Deviance. 1 ed. London. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Abstract

This chapter investigates the contemporary phenomenon of the re-appropriation of sportswear (specifically the tracksuit) into everyday/non-sporting dress. Following recent media moral panics regarding social disobedience, deviant behaviour, lack of civic responsibility and consequent links to masculinity in crisis, issues surrounding sartorial coding have never been so central to the political agenda. From ASBO youths to casual loungers, acrylic sportswear has become a staple of the male wardrobe, particularly for those not engaged in sporting pursuits. This chapter, much like the tracksuit, is composed of two distinct but inter-dependent areas of enquiry into sport-less sportswear, its popularity and why these synthetic garments pose such a threat to the status quo. They subvert normative dress codes, and, contemporary performances of masculinity in a ‘leisure’ society.
Here, the juxtaposition of the words ‘track’ and ‘suit’ presents a critique of the construction of masculine ideals through dress, whilst the performance of dominant and formal modes of masculine behaviour (such as sport and competition) will be comparatively discussed with reference to informal and anti-social activities. The two-piece tracksuit is therefore presented as indicative of new binary codes that dictate popular performance modes of masculinity, such as competition/consumption, competitor/spectator, active/passive, smart/casual. Likewise, the term ‘revolt’ will be used and considered as a site of resistance (as in Imogen Tyler’s Revolting Subjects (2013; 3) and as an indicator of social protest and of social abjection .
By analysing this prolific and seemingly innocuous sporting garb as both object and myth, I’ll be positioning the tracksuit as a sign of transitory masculinities and consequently indicative of social instability, and possible social threat. The tracksuit heralds the death of patriarchy. As an item of sportswear, the tracksuit is a pre-performance garment; it warms the wearer, keeping muscles flexible and the wearer largely hidden, and only through its removal are the intentions of the wearer as competitor visible. It is a garment of restlessness, of preparation, of thinking, of focus and ultimately one that when unzipped, literally releases the beast. In everyday life, the tracksuit has similar properties; it hides the wearer and, by association, intent. But what and whom are in competition? What will be released when the body (potentially) emerges? The tracksuit, when worn on the street, will be considered in these terms: as the garb of the socially resting competitor; the temporary outsider for whom normative codes of behaviour and performance are viewed suspiciously from the side-lines.

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