Is Gender-Neutral Clothing the Future of Fashion? In London last week, Selfridges, the British department store, opened Agender, a three-story pop-up shop devoted to gender-neutral clothing. Billed as “a fashion exploration of the masculine, the feminine and the interplay—or the blur—found in between” and featuring more than 40 brands, Agender is an unprecedented investment by a major retailer in the idea of androgyny. But is it simply a seasonal marketing gimmick? Selfridges is not the first big brand to explore gender-neutral clothing. One example is American Apparel, which this fall plans to introduce several gender-neutral pieces. It is those customers—young, trend-conscious but not trend-controlled, and liberated by the Internet—who are demanding a less rigid fashion future. Fabio Costa is on the front lines of the shift. The growing presence of transgender people in society and business is also driving the gender-neutral fashion shift. Erland, the American Apparel executive, agrees that editability is key for this market.
Is the Future of Fashion Genderless? Men in womenswear and women in menswear is nothing new, but clothing has taken a turn toward a less gendered appearance of late. And it’s not just avant-garde designers—even Zara has a unisex collection called Ungendered. At the same time, however, the move toward genderless fashion has occurred as growth in menswear outpaced womenswear: a recent Fashionbi report revealed that menswear sales grew 1.9% in 2015, compared to 1.6% growth in womenswear. Coincidence? “From a business standpoint, a move toward genderless categorizations for clothing has been a boon for the menswear market, which already possesses a lot of other pieces with a cross-gender appeal, like a drop-shoulder crewneck sweatshirt, for example,” said Jian DeLeon, senior menswear editor at WGSN, moderating a panel discussion last week at the trend forecaster’s Futures Conference. Case in point: oversized suit jackets and men’s shirts were big at the Spring/Summer 2017 women’s shows.
Jaden Smith for Louis Vuitton: The New Man in a Skirt - The New York Times But whatever the motivation of both parties, and however pure (or not), the result has its own substance. It’s not unisex. It’s not gender neutral or gender bending or gender free or any of the other expressions we’ve been using to describe the current clothes-fluid moment, because it is, in fact, entirely gendered, at least going by traditional definitions of men’s versus women’s clothing. The clothes and their conceptual allegiance have not changed at all. The person wearing them has. And therein lies the rub. But while runways, even in the age of social media, are largely for the fashion-centric few, global ad campaigns have a wider reach. That could be overstating the matter, but there’s no question clothes are one way we order the world. How will we know what floors to shop on? The fear of semiological chaos (and the force of historical convention) explains in part why clothing norms have held on so long.
Inside Selfridges' radical, gender-neutral department store We live in a world where Facebook and Google+ have introduced "infinite" gender options for users, trans models like Andreja Pejic and Hari Nef are burning up the runway; and designers like Hood By Air and Telfar break new ground in fashion every day. Is it any wonder that walking into a store and only heading for your gender-assigned aisle is starting to feel a little passé? Enter Selfridges latest initiative, Agender, a pop-up department that aims to create a "genderless shopping experience" within the London department store. I went down to visit Agender on the opening day to see what a gender-neutral store actually looks like. "Selfridges' ambition was to create a space where men and women could essentially come and shop together irrespective of gender, and that you would choose clothes as an individual rather than based on your gender," Faye Toogood, who designed the retail space, says. You see what you mean when you enter her space. So does Agender's radical experiment work?
Style – She's a Gent Sunday’s or as I like to say S U N D A Z E… are just that. A daze! Maybe I’m getting old because bouncing back isn’t as easy as it was in my college days. I had no idea how much of an effect the three trips in August would have on my body, nor… Read More Who would’ve thought… 10 consecutive days of sun and heat in London. Read More Casual, sporty, chic… They are all just adjectives, right? Read More Little by little I’m drifting back into a more sophisticated style of dressing. Read More I felt it only right to attend this seasons NYFW Men’s after semi-boycotting FW18. Read More Summer attire doesn’t necessarily mean shorts and tanks, but it doesn’t always warrant a blazer or suit. Read More This New York Pride 2017 I had the honor and privilege of partnering with dapperQ (a queer style and empowerment website). dapperQ partnered with Target to produce a Youth Pop-up Fashion (for young adults ages 18-21) as part of NYC Pride’s 2017 inaugural Youth Pride event. Read More Read More Read More
Don’t Call It Unisex: Avoc’s Gender-Neutral Utopia | The Spotlight, People PARIS, France — Showing men’s and women’s collections together has become almost de riguer in recent seasons, but when Avoc founders Bastien Laurent and Laura Do first proposed the idea for their debut runway show in 2013, it was initially met with resistance. “When we wanted to start showing on-schedule during Paris Fashion Week, it wasn’t possible to have 50 percent men and 50 percent women on the catwalk,” Laurent tells BoF. “Now that a lot of major labels [like Burberry, Gucci and Saint Laurent] are making statements for it, the Fédération has made it easier, which is great.” For the Paris-based label, mixed-gender runway shows are only the beginning when it comes to unifying its men’s and womenswear offerings. “We always try to find the right balance between masculinity and femininity. Avoc Autumn/Winter 2017 | Photo: Shoji Fujii Laurent and Do oversee both the creative and business sides of the company together. Do and Laurent met in 2012. Avoc for BoF | Source: Avoc
How Fashion is Updating Power Dressing for 2017 In the late 1970s and early ’80s, business-minded women began dressing—if not for power, then simply to fit in. They were joining a boys’ club, and if they wanted to be taken seriously, they had to assume the uniform—which is to say, a slightly below-the-knee skirt suit, preferably in gray or dark blue, with a white blouse, a scarf tie, sensible pumps, and skin-toned pantyhose. “Anything else at work is unthinkable,” proclaimed John T. But as women made strides in the corporate world, so did their wardrobes. “Nobody understood how busy our lives were,” she says. But while the body-con silhouette raged, the smell of teen spirit started to seep in. Of course, both Sander and Lang left holes in many wardrobes when they exited their companies in 2000 and 2005, respectively; and they weren’t truly filled until Phoebe Philo took the reins at Céline in 2008. Perhaps, then, power dressing in this day and age has less to do with style than with substance. Watch W's most popular videos here:
The Designers Challenging Gender Codes at LFWM It’s not unusual for a fashion designer to use the catwalk to confront the very purpose of a fashion show. London has always been a prime spot to do so – its playfulness and penchant for punk (not to mention world-renowned art schools) making it a breeding ground for hyper-creativity and an intellectual approach that follows in the footsteps of talents like Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. As schedules and seasons are increasingly reshuffled and rejected and London Fashion Week Mens S/S18 draws to a close, yet more questions about the nature of the catwalk are left in the air. 1. Last season, Martine Rose’s line-up of all-male looks – tailoring with a shantung sheen pared with 80s windbreakers – garnered fans across genders. “Tailoring comes with connotations that other [clothing] doesn’t... aspiration… the class system… I’m not interested in being the next Savile Row tailor, I’m interested in what tailoring can be,” Rose told Another Man. 2. 3. 4. 5.
John Lewis gender neutral clothing labels faces public backlash | The Independent Over the weekend, John Lewis announced that they would no longer use “boys” and “girls” labels on children’s clothing. The progressive move was praised by many customers, who were happy to see a major retailer recognising the complexities of gender. But that didn't stop an army of angry Twitter users - who find themselves triggered by change - doing their best to pick fault with John Lewis' decision. “You have let us all down John Lewis, if only people stopped pandering to the PC brigade. There are only two sexes, male or female,” wrote one vexed person on Twitter. “John Lewis’s introduction of ‘gender neutral’ kids clothes is a worrying sign of the times. Some expressed their horror at the thought of dressing their children in gender neutral clothing. “This John Lewis thing is pure shi*te, my child is a boy and will be dressed as a boy…rugby tops, polo shirts, jeans..trainers etc..” “So pleased to see the news this morning that John Lewis has scrapped gendered clothing and toys.