Julio Iglesias's tailored suit, "whether a rogue or a gentleman"
Last week, Julio Iglesias' public image was deeply shaken by the revelation of a case of alleged sexual violenceIf the accusations are confirmed in court, the narrative that has surrounded the singer for decades would collapse, giving way to a much darker figure: that of a true sexual predator. A man who has been out of the public eye for years, but who in the eighties and nineties was a leading male role model. This fact compels us not only to examine the specific events, but also to question the sociocultural framework that sustained, normalized, and even celebrated this figure. And, within that framework, to understand the extent to which fashion acted as a decisive ally in constructing a sex symbol friendly, relaxed, and seemingly harmless.
Thinking of Julio Iglesias almost automatically brings to mind the tailored suit. But not in its most conservative version. The singer embraced an emerging trend in the 1980s: the relaxation (and in a way, deconstruction) of a canonical garment of masculinity since the 19th century. One of the key precedents for this shift is Nino Cerruti, who with films like The Swimming Pool (1969) anticipated the change. In this film, Alain Delon embodies a sensual and unsettling masculinity through a wardrobe that accompanies the body without dominating it: open shirts, flowing trousers, jackets without rigidity. Power is no longer presented as armor, but as seduction.
The definitive consecration of this model comes with Giorgio Armani to American Gigolo (1980), a film that redefines what it means to be a man in contemporary visual culture. Richard Gere projects a new masculinity that will mark the entire decade. His suits with jackets lacking lining or padding, sloping shoulders, and an absence of tension function as a true technology of seduction. Through soft fabrics and half-open shirts, the male body is displayed and suggested through a sexualization that, unlike the female, never loses control. Vulnerability is strictly aesthetic: the man does not relinquish power because nothing is more effective than wielding it without appearing to do so.
This language is definitively expanded with the series Miami ViceIn this film, Armani embodies a masculinity that appears deactivated, yet remains fully functional. Jackets wrinkled from lack of structure, T-shirts instead of dress shirts, light or pastel colors, no tie, loafers without socks. The character of Sonny Crockett embodies the institutional authority and violence of a police officer while seemingly not wielding it. Julio Iglesias, also based in Miami, adopts this same code: a suit laden with symbolic power that is presented, nevertheless, as a sheep's clothing.
This aesthetic—which began with Cerruti, was defined by Armani, and normalized by brands like Ermenegildo Zegna—didn't emerge from nowhere. It's an indirect offspring of the feminist and LGBTQ+ rights struggles of the 1970s, which demanded a profound rethinking of masculinity. But the fashion embodied by Julio Iglesias only captures its formal surface, deactivating its political substance. A classic operation of cultural capitalism: absorb criticism, empty it of content, and return it as style.
Julio Iglesias's aesthetic thus constructs a non-threatening, hedonistic, seemingly vulnerable masculinity that never relinquishes male centrality or the implicit right over the bodies and desires of others. The "relaxed" tailored suit is not a deconstruction of patriarchy, but a hedonistic update of its privilege.
