Sophie Harding
The way we dress is one of the biggest expressions of our identity. In an ever more overwhelming world, fashion helps us to explore our own personal style and taste; it is an authentic expression of identity. The flexibility and creativity of fashion allow it to be the ideal medium for non-binary expression, and as it has become more widely accepted that gender is a spectrum rather than a group of rigid categories, gender neutral style has become more and more prevalent in mainstream fashion.
In both the streetwear and runway fashion industries, designers and influencers have begun to embrace androgyny in their designs and ignore the constraints of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ garments. This would lead us to believe outdated notion of gendered clothing is on a decline, but it is worth questioning the authenticity of the fashion industry and commitment it has to this cause. Is the popularity of gender-neutral design simply part of another trend cycle, destined to disappear alongside shoulder pads and jeggings, or will the presence and influence of non-binary catering brands and designers mean that it is here to stay?
Streetwear brands such as Aimé Leon Dore, Wildfang and Barragán all embrace androgyny in their collections, not only enabling their clothing to be more inclusive, but elevating the very composition of their collections. The collusion of blazers with masculine silhouettes and feminine finishes, or ambiguity of garments that do not attempt to be either ‘male’ or ‘female’ creates clothing collections that exudes absolute creativity, not constrained to the binary labels that have been perpetuated by department store brands and other mainstream fashion.
Meanwhile, mainstream binary streetwear brands such as Supreme, Stussy, and Palace that traditionally make clothing for men have been reimagined by non-binary and female streetwear enthusiasts and influencers, who take classic masculine streetwear silhouettes and repurpose them alongside feminine colour pallets and accessories, surpassing the rigid constraints of the concept of ‘menswear’ and ‘womenswear’.
On the runway and red-carpet, high-end fashion designers showcase inspired couture that celebrates androgyny. Fashion houses are embracing gender non-conforming styles. Louis Vuitton’s 2021 summer collection aimed to ‘discover and abolish the last [gender] frontiers’ by adding unique twists to staple business and streetwear silhouettes. Marc Jacobs polysexual ‘Heaven’ collection honours iconic queer figures, inspired by the ‘D.I.Y spirit that connects subcultures around the world and recontextualises them for a new generation’. The list of luxury fashion houses embracing androgyny in their collections currently could go on and on.
Clearly, gender neutral design has a firm foothold on current mainstream fashion. Yet this does not reassure us that it will become a permanent feature within mainstream trends. The ‘unisex’ movement has taken the forefront of mainstream fashion in the past, and its time there was fleeting. In 1969, Paris runways saw designers such as Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne create ‘space age’ looks that refused to comply with historical gender associations. Alongside this runway breakthrough, second wave feminism saw women reclaiming their autonomy through their clothing, unwilling to indulge in ‘women’s’ clothing that perpetuated the gender norms that oppressed them. As a result, department stores began to create special sections for ‘unisex’ fashion, and it seemed that gender neutral style had finally hit the mainstream. Within a year, most of these sections had closed, and along with them the prevalence of androgyny on the runway. ‘Unisex’ design had little longevity in the mainstream market.
Alternatively, for subcultures throughout history, gender-neutral and non-conforming fashion has always been prevalent as a method of subversion and resistance. Elizabeth Smith Millers inventing bloomers in the height of the first wave feminist movement, goths in the 80s who repurposed ‘feminine’ makeup to create harsh and dramatic looks, David Bowie and his cover of “The Man who Sold the World”, wearing a dress and defining the androgynous movement in the 60s- these all encompass the way subculture has embraced androgyny to challenge societal norms.
By subverting the gender norms applied to clothing, non-binary individuals subvert the very ideas of gender that they do not conform to. It begins to dismantle the physical misconceptions of how a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ should look and questions the very notion of applying genders to pieces of clothing. Subcultures have always used style as a bricolage in which the reassembling of traditional formats of clothing is utilised as a form of resistance. For many nonbinary people, gender neutral style subverts the norms placed upon them, and challenges the cisgender lens that dominates culture. It is worth questioning whether the ingenuity and creativity of gender-neutral design is more powerful in the context of these subcultures, and perhaps this would explain how it has never managed to break the mainstream market.
With gender-neutral fashion gaining popularity on the runway and in streetwear, will the fashion industry truly be able to start dismantling the binary worldview that it helped to create, or is this just the latest trend, a brief spark destined to fizzle out just like the androgynous trend that took place in the 60s? If this is the case, will it remain up to subcultures and non-binary groups to continue to challenge the outdated and invented notion of gendered clothing?
