Locating identity in self-styled portraits: Youth, masculinity and subcultural capital through a C.P. Company lens

When the Italian sportswear brand C.P. Company chose to hold their 50th anniversary exhibition in a small market town in northern England, it raised complex questions about identity, place and subcultural capital, particularly in relation to young men who are underrepresented in critical menswear studies. This analysis of photographic portraits reveals how meanings attributed to male dress shift in relation to place and audience. We analyse three interconnected portrait sessions staged as part of the anniversary exhibition: for a commemorative book, at the private view and a workshop with local young men. Each shoot shared the same photographer and technical set up but had very different subjects and audiences. To address these complexities, we developed a visual methodology for the analysis of self-styled portraits, enabling comparison across diverse positionalities and social and spatial contexts. The portraits articulate performances of masculinity, degrees of connoisseurship and relationships to place and visibility, revealing stark contrasts between elite insider representations and marginalized youth experiences. The portrait sessions provided the young men with the agency to perform their identity as they wished but also surfaced how menswear cultures reflect and reinforce inequalities related to age, class, gender and place. The methodology, and positioning of self-styled portraits as a social lens, provides a model for participatory, place-based studies of fashion and identity that foreground underrepresented menswear narratives.