Liberate Gender in Fashion
As an usher for Arts NC State, you are given two options for vests. They come in different sizes, but you can have one with or without a bust dart. With a bust dark, I am a size large. Without, I am a size 2XL. The invention of shaping techniques such as bust darts allows for clothing to fit different body types, specifically the different sexes, and led to the differentiation of womens and menswear. However, the historic context of this differentiation has led to a misogynistic undertone in most women's clothing styles, and as the world pushes for gender-neutral clothing, misogyny runs rampant in gender-neutral styles as well. Although many may argue that the implementation of gender neutral clothing will cause the erasure of feminine styles, clothes should be constructed and referred to in inclusive ways, as gendered clothing enforces obsolete gender roles, erases the identities of those "in-between", and stifles creativity.
Clothing has always had an impact on the ways that we are perceived. Less and less people these days are cringing at a man in a skirt on the street, but because gender is so embedded in our society, we still tend to gender clothing without realizing it. For instance, one does not often describe clothing as “gentlemanly,” and “gentlemanliness” is used to describe one's behavior. On the other hand, to be ladylike, one must follow strict rules of dress and appearance as well as behavioral rules. These common ideals are so imbued in our society that certain items of clothing are imbued with traditionally gendered personality traits, as shown by common phrases such as “the clothes make the man” and “wears the pants” (Newman, 2021, para 1). The association of a focus on appearance within femininity in clothing is then reflected into our society. Women are valued for the way that they look, while the value of men is not confined to that. This then reflects back into clothing, wherein masculine pieces of clothing are associated with power and prosperity, while feminine styles of clothing are associated with nurturing and docility. This cycle repeats, adapting as it does, reinforcing misogynistic gender roles into every aspect of our society and keeping non-traditional styles of dress considered “weird” and unable to evolve.
But where did these arbitrary “rules” come from? Well, up until the 17th century, mens and womens clothing were basically the same and made by people called “tailors”. It wasn’t until the reign of Louis XIV in France that womenswear and menswear separated into “fashion” and “tailoring” (Bergoglio 2021). Tailoring was for men, and the industry was driven by a need for functional clothing. Low, middle, and high class men alike all had clothes that they could do their respective jobs in. Fashion, on the other hand, was driven by something else: perceived beauty. While some menswear held looks to some importance, it was often a performance of social class and wealth rather than the beauty of the individual. Womens fashion began to accentuate the body shape and cater to the physical standard of the time, whether it was the full bodied ideal of the pre-1900’s or the 1920’s straight-up-and-down flapper (Howard, 2018). The focus of women's clothing on beauty was the direct result of misogyny, but because men’s and women’s clothing has continued to be designed and produced separately, the core values embedded in each still remain. The only way that women can “succeed” in fashion is to look good, while men’s clothes are perfectly okay if they are just simply functional.
The people who want it have been pushing for fashion freedom for many years, and the fashion industry has been responding. Many brands have come out with collections, lines, or even sub-brands dedicated to gender-inclusive fashion, but unfortunately, they haven’t gotten it quite right. Wren Sanders (2019) of British Vogue describes this dissatisfaction in “There's More At Stake With Fashion's Gender-Fluid Movement Than You Realize”. They write about their interviews with various queer, transgender, and gender non-comforming folks, arguing that “To collapse gender expression into a wash of baggy black jumpers inevitably overlooks trans people who wear skirts and suits to affirm their identities” (para. 5). Sanders is observing a trend in these collections of “gender-neutral” clothing, where clothing that has any gendered association at all is being pushed to the side. Maddie Jones of Pink News observes a more specific version of this trend, saying that “This decision by retailers to avoid marketing feminine style pushes the notion that only masculine clothing is worth being worn by both genders” (para. 6). She argues that more than gender, feminine styles and femininity itself is being ignored in the design of these pieces, and unfortunately, this seems to be an accurate representation of where the gender-neutral clothing industry is in our day and age. Pieces are boring and shapeless, with a masculine-leaning cut that is exclusive and unflattering to anyone with a feminine body type, and feminine styles such as skirts and ruffles are nowhere to be found. The exclusion of these styles exposes the inherent misogyny ever-present in the fashion industry, as it deems femininity and feminine clothes to be unworthy of even possibly being worn by someone who is assigned male at birth. As stated by Vanessa Friedman (2021) of the New York Times, “[It is] seen as somehow disempowering for men to have access to classically female clothes” (para. 10). Clothing has always been a signifier of one’s membership in a group, and to disrupt that is scandalous. So why do people do it? To put it simply: because we have to.
company, and a man can wear a dress and be a preschool teacher. However, while these examples don’t discriminate in terms of gender, they associate outdated gender roles with pieces of gendered clothing. A woman wearing a suit is likely to be assumed to be in a position of power, and a man wearing a dress is likely to be assumed to be in a position of nurture. In order for the world to truly liberate gender in fashion, clothing must be liberated from gendered traits, and the people wearing the clothing liberated from those traits as well.
Arie, P. (2021, February 6). Evolution & history of gender neutral fashion and clothing | Purushu Arie | TEDxChennai [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_T0gzUU_T0
Bergoglio, E. (2021). Degendering fashion: The origins of gendered fashion. Seamwork. https://www.seamwork.com/articles/degendering-fashion-the-origins-of-gendered-fashion
Friedman, V., & Trebay, G. (2021, October 11). The end of gender. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/fashion/the-end-of-gender.html
Howard, J. (2018, March 9). The history of the “ideal” woman and where that has left us. CNN; CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/health/body-image-history-of-beauty-explainer-intl/index.html
Jones, M. (2019, June 26). Gender neutral clothing: Is it always a good thing? we investigated. PinkNews. https://www.thepinknews.com/2017/11/24/the-pros-and-cons-of-the-rise-of-gender-neutral-clothing/
Newman, C. (2021, May 3). Gender-bending fashion rewrites the rules of who wears what. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/gender-bending-fashion-rewrites-rules-who-wears-what
Sanders, W. (2019, August 11). There’s more at stake with Fashion’s gender-fluid movement than you realise. British Vogue. https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-meaning-of-gender-fluid-fashion
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