Suits and subcultures: Costuming and masculinities in the films of Pedro Almodóvar

This article combines an analysis of the fabrics, surfaces and styles chosen to dress Pedro Almodóvar’s male characters with an exploration of how those codes might be read with respect to the specific and significant shifting historical contexts of 1980s and 1990s Spanish
 society. Through focusing our interdisciplinary analysis upon Labyrinth of Passions (Almodóvar, 1982) and The Flower of My Secret (Almodóvar, 1995), we will identify the multifarious ways in which the male subject mirrors societal and cultural trends in a rapidly changing Spain
 during the years following the country’s emergence from isolation after the Franco years, its subsequent return to democracy and the emergence of a high-living, fashionable cosmopolitanism. In examining the tensions that emerge between pairings of key male figures in the Spanish director’s
 work, we will pay particular attention to their costuming as central to the construction and performance of masculine identities. We will argue that in the films under examination, a series of binary oppositions are offered in which the suited male (whether a doctor or a military general)
 is self-consciously contrasted with representations that connote shifting bohemian, subcultural (or ‘alternative’) identities that destabilize and reconfigure the construction and performance of masculine identities and their more ‘traditional’ counterparts.


Introduction
Since Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom and other Average Girls) (Almodóvar, 1980) was first released, much has been written on Pedro Almodóvar's women and his gay/queer male protagonists. As Spain's most famous contemporary cinematic auteur, he is known internationally for his 'cinema of women', creating memorable, vivacious, emotional and funny cross-generational female characters, who are both strikingly dressed and observed with a strong sense of empathy (Bloom 2016;D'Lugo and Vernon 2013;D'Lugo 2006;Smith 2000;Allinson 2001). The symbiotic relationship between costume, fashion, fabric, the body and performance simultaneously and self-consciously supports the construction and transformation of his characters and expresses their state of being and feelings (Almodóvar in Tindle 2017;Dapena 2013). For instance, in 'What lies beneath', Cath Davies eloquently and convincingly argues that fabric functions as an 'expression of corporeal vulnerability and subjectivity ' (2017: 65). Whereas Almodóvar's narrative focus upon fabric, fashioning femininities and surfaces, together with psychological and aesthetic notions of embodiment and transcending gender binaries, are obvious recurring thematic preoccupations in the auteur's oeuvre (Davies 2017), one should not overlook the ways in which Almodóvar's films also explore a complex array of representations of masculine identities.
Whilst the male subject is not absent from Almodóvar's prolific cinematographic body of work, when such subjects do appear they are usually camp, queer and spectacular -or they are absent, mad or dead. Scholars such as Mark Allinson (2001), Marvin D'Lugo and Vernon (2013), D'Lugo (2006), Kathleen Vernon (1995), Marsha Kinder (1997), Paul Julian Smith (2000), Chris Perriam (2013, Perriam and Santi Hernández Fouz (2000), Hernández Fouz and Alfredo Martinez-Expósito (2007), Jacky Collins and Perriam (2000), Gemma Pérez-Sánchez (2012), Marsh (2004) have all written at length about notions of identity, gender and sexuality, not only with respect to this director's work, but also within the extensive scope of Spanish popular culture. Along with this substantial body of research, more recent studies and edited collections by Lorraine Ryan and Ana Corbalan (2017), Mary T. Hartson (2017) and Juan Rey This article takes films from this underexamined group to explore the costuming of male characters and the relationship between clothing, fabric and embodied performance. Gerald Dapena argues that fashion and design are pushed to such a high level of visibility in Almodóvar's films, where the 'sensuous and decorative properties outshine, and even undermine, its purely narrative role ' (2013: 504). Building upon his highly informative book chapter 'Making Spain fashionable', this article will focus through close textual analysis upon the costuming of masculinities in Almodóvar's Labyrinth of Passions, and The Flower of My Secret (Almodóvar 1995). It will argue that it becomes apparent that in representing the contrasts, intersections and tensions between old and new Spain, patterns of binary pairings, between the seemingly heteronormative suited men and the more fluid subcultural representations of other forms of masculinity, are used to highlight the shifting dynamics of gender relations within the changing contexts of post-Franco Spanish culture. We could have focused on Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (Almodóvar, 1988,) or Kika (Almodóvar, 1993), but instead we opted for Labyrinth and Flower, since we hold that they offer greater scope perhaps than other Almodóvar films from the 1980s/1990s to examine masculine identities and costuming in detail.
'Ordinary male sexuality', as Richard Dyer argues, is frequently deemed to be 'straightforward, universal, devoid of mystery and thus not the "other" warranting examination' (see Bruzzi 2013: 19). Masculinity therefore becomes most legible 'where and when it leaves the white middle class body' (Halberstam 1998cited in Bruzzi 2013. It is only through examining the 'invisible hegemony' (Bruzzi 2013: 18) contained within representations across the complex continuum of gender that we can dismantle and understand the construction, deconstruction and reconceptualization of gendered identities and its intersectional status with specific cultural contexts. As Pamela Church Gibson has argued in her keynote address at the inaugural Fashion, Costume and Visual Cultures conference, masculinities remain an underexamined area of analysis in relation to gender, the body and clothing (2018), and therefore screen costuming analysis needs to explore that which is deemed as ordinary, everyday and thus invisible and not just the spectacular and the other.
Through drawing influence and building upon Stella Bruzzi's seminal work in Undressing Cinema (1997) and Men's Cinema (2013) we wish to explore the intersections of costuming alongside other stylistic elements of mise en scène and style that function to tell 'the man's story'. It is not simply a case of analysing what is worn, but also how and where it is worn and the ways in which the spectator is encouraged to survey costume and scenography and submit to the spectacular, visceral impact of what is worn on-screen. As Bruzzi maintains, the conjunction of stylistic elements to convey masculinity, and not just represent it, constructs visceral responses that create a 'non-genderised response ' (2013: 5). In destabilizing the premise of a stable gender binary and heteronormative desire, it is important for an analysis of masculinities to move beyond the masculine body and men 'in films', to a consideration of the intersections between masculinity, ideology and aesthetics (see Bruzzi 2013: 5-7).
Accordingly, close textual analysis of the intersections between costume, the body and identities should not succumb to the dangers of becoming divorced from the specificities of wider social, cultural and historical contexts. In this examination of masculinities, costuming and aesthetics, there is a need to situate the texts not only within the moments of production but also within the broader continuum of the director's body of work.

Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passions) (1982)
The first two decades of Almodóvar's filmmaking correspond to Spain's first twenty years as a reformed democratic nation. Traditional notions of masculinity prevalent during Franco's dictatorship were a means to ground male dominance and legitimize state control over the nation. This regime attempted to regulate its citizens through the promotion of traditional concepts of gender, with Francoist masculinity being associated with the victory and glory of the military (Vincent 2006;Bazo 2015). Whilst these concepts remained for some time after Franco's death, the transition to democracy ushered in a new approach to gender, characterized by a move towards gender parity, and increased public awareness of the unacceptability of machismo. Indeed, as Spain moved into the 1990s, 'the traditional father-figure, combining strength and self-confidence with an air of distance and inaccessibility, [was] now replaced with an equally self-confident, but manifestly more affectionate and caring figure' (Antón 2000: 210).
The director's second film, which he considered a reworking of the Hollywood screwball comedy, was more commercially successful than his first endeavour, taking ESP 98, 650, 920 at the box office in Spain, by comparison with ESP 43, 000, 000 for Pepi, Luci, Bom. As Marvin D'Lugo explains, Labyrinth of Passions 'represents the first extensive example of the devilishly complex plotting that characterizes many of Almodóvar's films' (2006: 26).
Labyrinth was made during the golden age of la movida madrileña , and is perhaps the 'quintessential' film of the self-proclaimed avant-garde expression of youth culture emanating from the capital, that encompassed new trends in music, fashion, design, art and clandestinely. Under Franco, Spanish citizens were well aware that at every turn they were being watched, either by official bodies (including the Catholic Church and schools) or by a neighbour or colleague who was happy to collaborate with the regime as an informer (Barba 2007;Cazorla Sánchez 2000;Ruiz 2005;Preston 2003).  Passions (1982). DVD frame grab.
In a radical break from this surveillance society of the Franco era, the opening sequence of Labyrinth explicitly reconceptualizes the power of the gaze, granting the citizen the individual power to look, objectify and freely wander the cosmopolitan streets of Madrid. Riza (Imanol Arias) is introduced as a flâneur, both looking and offering himself as object of the gaze (see Figure 1). As Christopher Breward argues, the literary construct of the flâneur as 'the leisured connoisseur and critic of life, in mid-century Paris' is one that Charles Baudelaire (1863) saw as being the 'quintessential Parisian voyeur' (Baudelaire cited in Breward 1999: 153). In The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin argues that the flâneur is a bohemian, a man uprooted, who is only at home in the crowd (1999 edition: 895). In analysing a post-Franco Spanish context, the notion of this roaming flâneur as a 'spectator and recorder of the shifting, elusive richness of a generic city life' and a symbol of urban modernity is particularly useful (Breward 1999: 153). The city functions therefore as a 'stage, a spectacle' where the desultorily walking figure can survey the types who appear before him. Whilst he may not know them personally the images linger; 'imagined moments' resonate in his mind's eye (Blanchard in Breward 1999: 153).  (1982). DVD frame grabs.
As Riza casually strolls through the streets of Madrid, the camera cuts between mid-shots of his head and shoulders and fragmented crotch and buttock shots. Through the proliferation of sports jackets and stone washed denim worn by Riza and those he looks at, it is not immediately apparent where Riza begins and his desiring gaze ends (see Figures 2-5). Notably, the power to survey is further enhanced through the wearing of sunglasses. Connoting a sense of continental sartorial 'cool', the sunglasses also grant the power for the flâneur to act as a voyeur, without the gaze being surveyed by others. Sunglasses enable the wearer to remain incognito, detached and unseen; they create a barrier against the 'urban chaos', granting their wearer a freedom to roam the streets with a blasé attitude (Brown 2015: 15-16   Furthermore, the proliferation of denim in the opening sequence signals the destabilizing of traditional Spanish masculinity with a new attitude to performing the male body and the construction of a new uniform for the masses. Denim has a global presence and has in many countries become 'the single most common form of everyday attire' (Miller and Woodward 2007: 336). Denim jeans in particular are 'democratic rather than elite', as every pair of jeans is 'mass produced and cut from the same, basic quality cloth in exactly the same colour blue' (Dant 1999: 105). The jeans in the sequence are stonewashed 'authentic', 'original', with the iconic, cult Levis red tag visible on the derrière of one wearer. Characterized by strategies of fragmentation, jeans present the body as a 'fetishised object' that is 'chopped up and ready for consumption' (Dant 1999: 105). Through brass rivets, stitching, pockets and seams, the visual effect of jeans -and in particular the exposed seams -is to 'dissect the form of the body, revealing it as made up of parts' (Dant 1999: 105). The camera lingers on the creases of repeated wear on the upper thigh that draw the eyes like a stocking-top to the bulging hard seam on the groin (see Figure 8). The seams frame the fly and trace the curve of the buttocks.
In addition to showcasing the sexualization of the bodies on the streets, the appropriation of casual wear enables a performative disguise of 'everyday' dress in which Riza is seemingly able to pass as an ordinary Spaniard, rather than as a man from Tiran. Gender, ethnicity and sexuality intersect as he becomes read as straight through his apparent appropriation of a conventionally hetero, norm-core, muted and drab aesthetic.  (1982). DVD frame grab.

La movida madrileña
As the first film to foreground new Spanish design and fashion trends from 'inside an underground movement', Labyrinth exudes a strong 'sense of authenticity and authority' (Dapena 2013: 502   Nevertheless, when Labyrinth was released, as Dapena points out, la movida 'was still a relatively unknown phenomenon outside a small group of journalists and tastemakers ' (2013: 502). Yet, this film would provide a vehicle through which these burgeoning subcultures were revealed to a wider national audience. It is also worth noting that, in addition to the use of venues popular with the movida crowd, significant contributions from key individuals belonging to this destabilizing cultural movement were included in the making of the film, including Fanny McNamara's cameo performance as punk drag artist, the set designs by painter and sculptor Guillermo Pérez Villata and the costumes designed by musician and artist Carlos Berlanga. The 'jolting camp performance' of the fashion-conscious queer Patty (played by Fanny McNamara) signals the connection between la movida, drag and queer cultures and the trend-setting avant-garde that is central to the infusion of a 'subversive edge' within the film (Dapena 2013: 503). From his glistening black leather jacket teamed with garish pink blusher and lipstick, blue eyeshadow and a backcombed bouffant of dyed black hair, to his appropriation of 'feminine' garments with his pink and cream fur bolero and tanga briefs on the set of his 'Photo porno sexy fever', Patty is a disruptive, spectacular force (see Figures 9-12). The exposing of the flesh of his lithe, muscular legs and torso not only contrasts with the opulent tactility of the shaggy fur but also with Riza's muted attire. Patty is everything that Riza appears not (yet) to be. pervades, where the scruffy and dowdy become transformed into a desirable gender normative ideal (Gilligan 2011: 169). In Labyrinth, the 'natural' is called into question, as Riza informs Patty that 'I want to change my look […] I want you to completely transform me'. A doubling takes place, which further draws attention to the process of make-under and make-over; in breaking from the past, gender, sexuality and ethnicity become a performative disguise as Riza's 'natural' hair is revealed to be a wig. Riza removes his 'disguise' of stereotypically 'Spanish' hair, to reveal a short back and sides, more groomed and conventional than his unkempt dark, curly locks.
The make-over transformation of Riza initially appears to be one in which 'the grand reveal' will adopt a drag aesthetic of performing femininity. Devoid of a montage showcasing the 'hard work' so typical of the make-over sequence (see Gilligan 2011), Riza's transformation is simply revealed -an effortless transformation fuelled by fashionable consumption and appropriation of an aesthetic dominated by a showy spectacle of surfaces and textures (see Figures 17-19). Leather, studding and the juxtapositioning of the t-shirt with the iconic biker jacket style appear straight out of the punk-infused stylistic traits of la movida. Yet, this look is overshadowed by the use of bright scarlet (rather than black) leather, which grounds the garment within the wider contexts of costuming in Almodóvar's films, where (as we will discuss in relation to Flower of my Secret) red comes to signify passion, desire, confidence and the blood of Spain (Shaw 2000;Rennett 2012;Allinson 2001).

Buttoned-up repression
One of Labyrinth's key narrative strands is the binary structure of passion and repression. If  His slicked-back hairstyle is also reminiscent of an outmoded authoritarian Spain that was now being left behind. In scenes shot outside the surgery, for example at a party, clothed in a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie Dr de la Peña maintains the same professional air, however, in addition to understanding the doctor as a patriarchal figure embodying social authority in science, his being clinically 'buttoned-up' self further reflects his inability to engage in intimate relationships, despite attracting a lot of attention. However, this is an Almodóvar film and accordingly it comes as no surprise when Dr de la Peña is shown as finally disrobed and

La flor de mi secreto (Flower of my Secret) (1995)
Twenty years after the death of Franco, notions of masculinity in Spain were unquestionably undergoing significant changes. Now a member of the EU, greater cultural influences were felt from the other member states including fashion trends. Nevertheless, traditional values and attitudes around identity constructs did not disappear overnight and this tension between old and new can be observed in the following film under discussion.
Almodóvar's eleventh film represents a significant change in his creative direction; the director himself describing this as a film 'about pain, about the growth process ' (2004: 113). We should also note that, as D'Lugo informs, in this film 'the values and emotions of the characters […] seem to embrace an optimistic world view despite many outwardly negative themes, such as marital infidelity, attempted suicide, and drug addiction ' (2006: 85). As is characteristic of this director's filmmaking, Flower, which follows the loves, losses and revitalization of beleaguered author Leo (Marisa Paredes), is a film that explores the notion of identity and finding oneself; however, this time the audience takes that journey without the usual array of flamboyant marginalized 'others'.

Paco and military masculinity
The first glimpse that we catch of Leo's husband Paco (Imanol Arias), shows him framed in a black and white portrait shot found on Leo's dresser. Despite the lack of colour, it is evident that this man is wearing the kaki uniforme de gala ('dress uniform') of a military official, specifically that of the Ejército Nacional (Spain's Army), which carries all the connotations of the military support of General Franco from the military uprising that sparked Spain's Civil War (1936War ( -1939 through the years of his dictatorship. We later see Leo's husband in the flesh, as he returns from peacekeeping duty in the Bosnian conflict, on the premise of a short leave of absence (see Figure 23). The distancing device is further utilized as Paco showers and dresses. As a site of intimacy, we would anticipate that Leo joining him in the bathroom would lead to proximity and passion.
Instead, he turns from her. She aches for affection, but he remains shielded and impenetrable.
As we see Paco dressing again after taking a shower, he puts on pristine, bright white underwear comprising a t-shirt and boxer shorts (see Figure 24). His t-shirt functions as a traditional male undershirt, a soft protective, absorbent layer to enable the exterior uniformed image to remain pristine. The sweat of the body thus remains concealed and contained. He showers, grooms, brushes his hair and applies deodorant, but does not do so to revel and luxuriate in the processes of tending to his looks, but to reconstruct the body as an armour that remains in control and does not leak, exposing a level of vulnerability. While this military costume that adorns his body as a protective shield may speak of honour, duty, integrity and purity, it is shown here to be but a sham, a performance. Paco may be serving his country, but he is also having an affair with his wife's best friend. Rey cites Paco among the group of male characters found in Almodóvar's work who are 'unfaithful husbands, abusers, rapists and sexists' (2017: 169), dictatorial hegemonic males without empathy or compassion. Standing in the bedroom, Leo is framed in a mirror adjacent to Paco. Through this doubling, the replication speaks of separation.
She exists as a memory, like an image of a long-lost love in a locket. It is the silenced idea of her, rather than the reality of Leo's hysterical excess, that Paco desires. He wishes for her not to shout, cry, show emotion or express her opinions. He must retain (an illusion of) control.

Ángel and intimacy
In stark contrast to this hegemonic masculine subject, the audience is offered an alternative manifestation of heterosexuality in the form of Ángel (Juan Echanove) and as the character who succeeds in lifting Leo out of her professional and personal malaise. Where Leo and Paco are marked by their distance and contrasting costuming, Leo and Ángel are characterised by their mirroring within scenography and costume. As Leo meets Ángel at the journalist's office to discuss a possible case of plagiarism of her work, the strategy of reflections and visual fragmentation, as the protagonists appear to merge, creates a sense of unity, rather than distance and separation. Leo is fragmented through replication, a doubling in which her reflected image becomes layered and superimposed upon the body of Ángel. Whilst Leo's material body initially remains out of sight, her image becomes the feminine upon and in him, which creates a sense of the two being equal and connected. Where Paco repeatedly turned his back upon Leo, Ángel's performance is characterized by proximity and softness. He and Leo turn towards one another as they walk side by side, mirroring one another's body language, their postural echo imbuing their interactions with flirtation and intimacy.
Adopting Almodóvar's trademark red attire, which is most often reserved for female characters, Ángel is immediately signalled in terms of his contrast to hegemonic notions of masculinity. The use of the colour red by this director has received much attention in many of the previous studies mentioned above. Deborah Shaw (2000: 57) argues how in Tacones lejanos (High Heels) (Almodóvar, 1991)  It would appear that the vast majority of analysis provided on this aspect focuses chiefly on the vivid scarlet (Armani) red as worn by the female protagonists, or as part of a set decoration with a focus on broad sweeping references to the story-telling capacity of costume, rather than an exploration of either the nuances of colour or their connection with fashion cultures.
However, for this study, we seek to turn that focus of this feature onto the character of Ángel; here it becomes clear that there is not a singular unified use of red, but that a broader, more nuanced palette of red hues is used to signify the complexities and subtleties of his performance of masculine identity within a specific context of Spanish fashion cultures. As we are introduced to Ángel in his office, he is adorned in a fine ribbed red woollen jumper, teamed with indigo denim jeans and a light denim shirt (see Figures 25). In contrast to the tightly buttoned-up and starchily pressed Paco, Ángel's attire is characterized by its casual and soft styling. Rather than being clean shaven, and wearing sharp creases and suited shoulder pads, Ángel's shoulders are soft and unstructured, his shirt is open and the collar is tucked into the neck of the jumper that frames his greying, unshaven face and neck. His jumper appears as another layer casually added upon his body, rather than a cohesive and powerful sartorial statement. The hidden collar implies that the jumper has been added almost as an afterthought.
In contrast to the trademark bold red so frequently worn by Almodóvar's women, Ángel's jumper is a more muted hue that tends towards a hint of salmon pink. Its softness is further emphasized against the contrasting 'smart-casual' aesthetic of deep indigo denim. Where Paco's costuming draws attention to the construction of a hard, phallic body, Ángel's sweater envelops his body, clinging to the soft, rounded curve of his belly. His body is devoid of the rigidity, conformity and control of the military body; instead it is (as he later remarks) a body of someone who likes their food. It is a body that carries the markers of comfort and consumption, but does so with a confidence and ease.
Throughout the majority of scenes that feature Ángel, his costuming contains a reoccurring use of red hues, both as a thematic preoccupation and to support the representation of his inner emotions and character. The deep rust of his duffel coat, the coral knitted sweater with flecks of paler creams, the red plaid shirt and washed-out red of the mise en scène of the décor of his apartment offer a palette of red-infused tones that disrupt our expectations of Almodóvar's usual deployment of the colour red in his films. Rennett argues that it 'is this recurring intersection between colour and themes that marks Almodóvar's distinctiveness as an auteur' (2012: 88-89). Where for Almodóvar's women red is frequently fiery and bold, symbolizing blood, death, passion and religion (Rennett 2012), for Ángel there is a softness and gentleness, which is heightened through the combination of colour and fabric. The knitwear, coat and shirt invite the sensory pleasure of touch. Where Paco's costuming repels tactility by creating a hard armour, Ángel's look offers vulnerability, tenderness and affection without the drama of passion. This is particularly evident in the scene where the doctors protest on the streets. Ángel rescues the distraught Leo, and as he envelops her in his arms they become one. Not only does she sink into him, but together their costuming resembles that of Paddington Bear. Leo with her bright blue wool coat and red floppy cloth hat merges with Ángel's red-toned duffle coat.
She, like Paddington, needs looking after, and he becomes the bear who protects her (see Figure   26). The palette of muted reds is further echoed within Ángel's apartment, signalling his break away from established notions of Spanish masculinity. With his penthouse city-centre apartment overlooking the streets of Madrid, colour is seamlessly infused into his apartment and he is afforded the opportunity to survey the city, whilst retaining a level of privileged privacy.
Through the mise en scène of his apartment, he is represented as a single man who decorates and looks after his own home, filling it with beautifully crafted goods, and who can tend to a woman within it. He combines classic romanticism and protective tenderness as he brings Leo breakfast in bed, complete with both a single red rose and a box of vitamin C to help her recuperate (see Figure 27). The rose functions as an obvious reference to the passion and drama more commonly associated with red and femininity in Almodóvar's films. Tending to and caring for her as she collapses, he combines a sense of masculine strength and dependability, with a tenderness that evokes femininity. Through such gender blurring, Ángel is a cosmopolitan, modern and seemingly unconventional (particularly in contrast to Paco) representation of masculinity. This unconventionality is further displayed when Ángel reveals that it is he who wrote the two recent novels under the guise of Leo's pseudonym (Amanda Gris). Adorned in a lumberjack shirt, jeans and t-shirt, his look is far removed from that of Paco. Where the lumberjack shirt is stereotypically associated with the mythology of an active, outdoorsy, working-class masculinity (Mackinney-Valentin 2017), Ángel's shirt is an oversized check in a palette of cream, blues and purple. Rather than being fastened, it is left casually undone on top of a grey t-shirt (see Figure 28). Where for Paco the t-shirt was a pristine white undershirt, Ángel's tshirt becomes a marker of a more fluid masculinity, imbued to a certain extent with the camp sensibility that nods to the transgressive, oppositional and subversive roots of la movida. The open shirt reveals a print of a lingerie-clad woman kneeling on all fours, her suspenders tracing the line of her thighs to her buttocks, which are raised in the air. Her arched back draws our attention to her dark long hair with strong 'bangs' and her arm, clad in a long glistening black latex glove. The combination of hairstyle, lingerie, pose and fetish wear functions as a clear textual reference to 1950s pin-up Bettie Page. With her playful BDSM and fetish wear photoshoots, Page offered a subversive image of female sexuality (Mason 2014).
With its clear referencing of the subcultures of sexual subversion, the t-shirt acts as a marker of his (sub)cultural capital and his representation as a sexually liberated man who does not conform to dominant heteronormative notions of masculinity. As Valerie Steele notes, 'the "playful" use of fetishistic themes has been increasingly assimilated into fashion'. It is, she argues, 'no longer associated primarily with individual sexual "perversions" or sexual subcultures ' (1996: 33). Ángel's look is not one emerging from the subversive underground of la movida, but rather a watered-down commercialized and fashion-centred version, which highlights the way in which the subculture's style was -as Dapena posits -commodified as 'spectacle, masquerade and fashion statement ' (2013: 503). Ángel is positioned as edgy, but not deviant. Adorned in an image drawn from fetish pin-up iconography, Ángel becomes the bearer of the object of desire and the gaze, rather than the active consumer of such an image.
When feminine performance is coupled with the lumberjack shirt, Ángel offers a fluid (and arguably queered) masculinity that appears both straight and queer, evoking the 'bear' styling of gay men (see Geczy and Karaminas 2013;Steele 2013;Cole 2000). As Dapena (2013) argues, in constructing a modern subjectivity, Madrid's urban subcultures were precariously poised between hedonism and consumerism. As a city of pleasure and desire, the liberating, transgressive and trendsetting avant-garde subverted the canons of taste, identity and behaviour. Ángel's image is not anywhere near as subversive as that of Patty in Labyrinth, and thus marks an integration and watering down of la movida's looks into Spanish mainstream fashion.
In combining references to subcultural marginal groups and new identities in Spanish culture, fashion design and the styling of individual looks offered new modes of consumption and consumerism. Ángel's costuming therefore signals a new fashionability within Spanish metropolitan culture tied to the consumption of European (and not just Spanish) fashion brands.
The release of Flower of My Secret comes at a point where city-dwelling Spaniards were both increasingly prosperous and comfortable with their European identity. His (and Leo's) clothes are intrusive and characterized by their newness. They are devoid of bobbling, stains and signs of wear, tear and repair. In contrast to the fragile, intricate details of the hand-woven lace in the village that speaks of regional heritage and tradition, Ángel's clothes convey a sense of cosmopolitan confidence that is expressed through the adoption of luxurious Italian fashion. highlight the (stereotyped) perception of an Italian preoccupation with luxury, style, elegance, quality, taste and enjoying 'the nice things in life combining beauty and tradition' (Amatulli et al. et al. 2017: 78-79). This preference for luxury clothing that is made in Europe, rather than 'Made in Spain', mirrors (as Dapena also argues) a shift from the 'national and local' to new modes of consumption 'shaped by cosmopolitanism and globalism' that reflects the everincreasing purchasing power and prosperity afforded to Spanish consumers through the years of a Socialist government (2013: 497, see Figure 29).

Conclusion
Through costuming (and the appropriation of European fashion brands), Almodóvar contributes to the shifting representation and international visibility of Spain as a modern, upto-date, fashionable European nation characterized by its 'hip (post) modernity' and 'cultural effervescence', as a centre of 'artistic creativity' (Dapena 2013: 496). Through Almodóvar's representation of both young people and the rising middle class as 'consumers of designer clothes and accessories of national and foreign origin', his films offer clear links between a proliferation of identities and the aspirational desire for Spaniards to be schooled in how to be fashionable and thus 'perceived as fully-fledged modern subjects' (Dapena 2013: 496). In representing Spanish masculinities at a crossroads, Almodóvar offers a schism between the past and the present, the authoritarian and the disruptive, pointing to a nation on the verge of diversification.
Rizo offers the viewer a punk-infused confrontational image, which brings a necessary spectacular intervention, designed to challenge the dominant notions of 'acceptable' masculinities in 1980s Spain. Conversely, by the mid-1990s, there is a greater acceptance of a variety of masculine identities. As suggested by Ángel's less intrusive and confrontational styling, he does not need to be shocking to subvert dominant notions of hegemonic masculinity.
The softness, quality and layering of his clothes convey a greater acceptance of the subtle nuances of identities that break beyond binary oppositions of gender.
Peter William Evans affirms that '[a] number of Almodóvar's films can be considered explorations of a socially conditioned general crisis of masculinity ' (2009: 105). The monolithic, fixed notion of masculinity as a heterogeneous concept is called into question, particularly through the characters of Rizo, Ángel and Patty. It is not simply a binary between gay and straight, but the suggestion of a more complex spectrum of sexualities that intersect with new formations in gendered identities, where clothing offers a space in which to try on and explore new identities that 'fit' within the ever-shifting contexts of a new cosmopolitan Spain.
By the turn of the millennium, it was the notion of 'masculinity in crisis' that was increasingly discussed by Spanish scholars and sociologists. We, however, see it rather to be masculinity at a crossroads, because in this rephrasing the changes become imbued with possibility and positive change, rather than simply with an angst-ridden negativity. We would hold that this phenomenon pointed to a social and cultural context where, as Hartson observes, '[p]ersonal pleasure and the satisfaction of one's desires replace submission, obedience and selfabnegation-leading to a reconstruction of masculine identities in a social context that appears increasingly fragmented, plural and individualistic' (2017: s/n). It is these notions of intersections and pleasures that will form the focus of our future work on costuming masculinities in Almodóvar's films from the new millennium.