I'll start by saying I'm opposed to societal gender roles, and tearing down barriers is always a good thing... but what is motivating the fashion industry's drive towards gender neutral clothes? Is this really an attempt to blur the lines of gender to let everyone express themselves however they desire... or is this a plot to merge the two markets to get twice the bang for the same fashion buck?
In recent years, the world of high fashion has expressed a penchant towards androgynous models and has subsequently received critical applause for blurring the rigid hegemonic gender binary. The catwalk and fashion advertisements are constructed as a place where gender plays out through heavy styling and make-up. Normative ideals of gendered behaviour are temporarily suspended. Models Andrej Pejic and Freja Beha Erichsen have emerged as the exemplars of androgyny in fashion, negating prescribed gender roles. Freja’s “enigmatic boy/girl look—the antithesis to the equally current all-woman ideal” allows her to occupy a ‘masculine’ role in advertisements and don menswear inspired looks on the catwalk while Andrej’s “extreme androgyny” grants his agency to post him “not just on the men’s board but also on the women’s.” (Read More)
