This article explores how collective men’s self-fashioning practices mediate power, social fluidity and belonging in postcolonial India. Drawing on typological analysis, ethnographic fieldwork and visual representations of men in Indian films and fashion advertisements, I introduce several interpretive strategies for understanding how sartorial choices in homosocial spaces simultaneously reinforce social hierarchies and foster intimate bonds among men. I argue that such choices both challenge and uphold existing heteronormative ideals. This study then critically examines how alternative masculinities intersect with the caste, class and sexuality systems. I highlight the significance of the ‘hard body’ masculinity and ‘new man’ figure in fashion, showing how the neo-liberal construct of consumer culture advances progressive masculine aesthetics while compelling men to negotiate both conformity and the pursuit of intimacy. By foregrounding the fashioned male body as a site of modernity, this study addresses the potential for Indian men to subvert hegemonic structures, even as they remain entangled within social strata. In this process, I demonstrate the socially fluid, fashioned body escapes stereotypes and evokes new possibilities for non-traditional expressions of masculinity.
Marius Janusauskas (Wed,) studied this question.