From Low to High: Fashion, Reggaeton, and Latino Male Idols

Over the past two decades, the reggaeton genre, a vernacular Latin American music expression, has gone global. Its male performers have become active participants in the fashion establishment, both in their home countries and abroad. The reggaeton industry in Medellín, Colombia has played a key role in this process. There, historically, masculinity and fashion have been opposing concepts, as evidenced by the social scorn that the first manifestations of dandyism underwent at the beginning of the twentieth century. Reggaetoneros seem to have in common with those dandies a sensitivity to fashion. However, overcoming rejection and living in a new era, this sensitivity is celebrated and embraced, and serves as a boundary-pushing device in young, urban male fashion. This marks an important change in a conservative society where fashion-conscious men were seen as morally suspect. Since fashion literature focuses primarily on the urban fashions of the Global North, this chapter aims to contribute to the study of urban men’s fashion in a region of the Global South, in particular, with a focus on Medellín, Colombia.