Relaxed Bodies and Comfortable Clothes: Reframing Masculinity in Post-War Australia

As Australia's Second World War servicemen began returning home, many anticipated the pleasure of stepping out of their uniforms for the last time. Yet scholarship on the role clothing played in repatriation and post-war rehabilitation in Australia remains scarce. Exploring the post-war swing towards sportswear, the article considers the growing idea of relaxed bodies and the language of comfort that underpinned it. It argues that being attentive to men's dress allows us to engage with a reframing of attractive, able, white, heterosexual bodies that combined two icons of Australian masculinity – the Anzac and the athlete – into a more relaxed vision of manliness.