Abstract

While Dressmann is a large Norwegian-owned men’s wears chain store, highly visible in Swedish malls, Undressmann only exists in the imagination of the creators of the Hunks of Hisingen Island– a calender of male pin-ups published in Sweden for 2006. Three women recruited the men, took the photographs, designed the calendar discussed in our article, they arranged its printing and distribution, including a catwalk event, where the men were put on live display. Hunks of Hisingen is an example of women designing a commodity and marketing the product, which is the spectacle of young attractive men posing for a female gaze. The study of this calendar is part of a larger project dealing with consumer products that could have a potential for challenging conventional understandings of gender, thus offering both progressive politics and a marketable product. Cars, DIY-tools, furniture and ads are included in the study. We use an ethnographic approach that combines interviews and visual studies.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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May 27th, 9:00 AM May 30th, 5:00 PM

Femalegaze meets undressman

While Dressmann is a large Norwegian-owned men’s wears chain store, highly visible in Swedish malls, Undressmann only exists in the imagination of the creators of the Hunks of Hisingen Island– a calender of male pin-ups published in Sweden for 2006. Three women recruited the men, took the photographs, designed the calendar discussed in our article, they arranged its printing and distribution, including a catwalk event, where the men were put on live display. Hunks of Hisingen is an example of women designing a commodity and marketing the product, which is the spectacle of young attractive men posing for a female gaze. The study of this calendar is part of a larger project dealing with consumer products that could have a potential for challenging conventional understandings of gender, thus offering both progressive politics and a marketable product. Cars, DIY-tools, furniture and ads are included in the study. We use an ethnographic approach that combines interviews and visual studies.

 

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