The Great Male Renunciation (French: Grande Renonciation masculine) is the historical phenomenon at the end of the 18th century in which Western men stopped using brilliant or refined forms in their dress, which were left to women's clothing.[1] Coined by psychoanalyst John Flügel in 1930, it is considered a major turning point in the history of clothing in which the men relinquished their claim to adornment and beauty.[2] The Great Renunciation encouraged the establishment of the suit's monopoly on male dress codes at the beginning of the 19th century.
In the United States, only four presidents, from John Adams to James Monroe, wore curly powdered wigs tied in a queue according to the old-fashioned style of the 18th century,[20][21] though Thomas Jefferson stopped wearing a wig shortly after becoming president.[22] Unlike them, the first president, George Washington, never wore a wig; instead, he powdered, curled and tied in a queue his own long hair.[23]
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