Strutting your stuff took on a literal meaning at Rick Owens’s recent men’s-wear show in Paris, where models walked down the runway with their genitalia in various states of display. The essential maleness of the situation was at least somewhat confounded by the fact that these particular guys wore skirts and dresses; many of them also sported long locks that would probably be considered feminine were they not part of an acutely post-gender fashion statement. For obvious, X-rated reasons, Owens’s show provided the OMG moment of the week, though it certainly wasn’t the only example of the design world’s current obsession with gender ambiguity. At Gucci, powder-faced Peter Pans wore lace tunics and pussy bow blouses, while gamines dressed in boxy suits. At Givenchy and Raf Simons, models wore skirts over pants. And at the On Aura Tout Vous couture show, women were adorned with crystal beards (to unexpectedly glamourous effect), while the models at Hood By Air wore stockings over their faces, making their genders totally indiscernible and, more to the point, insignificant.
Androgyny is the fashion world’s latest hot concept, both on the runway and beyond. Selma Hayek, a celebrity known for her va-va-va-voomness, attended Paris Fashion Week in a laddish two-piece suit, while the uniquely masculine pretty boy Jared Leto wore a lilac tux to the Oscars. Of course, gender bending isn’t a new concept, sartorially speaking. Three decades ago, Jean Paul Gaultier championed skirts for dudes. Long before that, Coco Chanel turned the classic men’s business shirt into a woman’s best friend. Still, the recent erosion of “for her” and “for him” is distinct in its underlying attitude – one that is less about subverting gender norms than abandoning them altogether.
Will consumers be willing to do the same? It’s a question soon to be answered with the opening of Agender, a new gender-neutral clothing boutique launched earlier this week by the U.K. retailer Selfridges. The project will be housed on the first three floors of the store’s Oxford Street flagship and will stock traditionally gender-neutral street wear (jeans, sweatshirts, sneakers) as well as more avantgarde garments. Although it’s unlikely that skirts and structured blouses will appeal to the typical male department-store shopper, the endorsement of genderless fashion from a major player such as Selfridges signals its unprecendented stride into popular consciousness. Selfridge’s creative director, Linda Hewson, says the project, which is set to run through the end of April, will be a “test bed” for future possibilities, insisting that Agender is “not about harnessing a trend, but rather tapping into a mind-set and acknowledging and responding to a cultural shift.” More likely it’s a little of both.
Never before has the complexity and fluidity of gender been so recognized and represented in mainstream culture. There are transgender TV stars (Laverne Cox of Orange Is The New Black) and chief executive officers (Martine Rothblatt of United Therapeutics). Bruce Jenner, the Olympic and reality-TV star, is reportedly embracing a long-suppressed female identity. And the first ever transgendered mayor in India, a country that only gave trans citizens the vote last year, was elected in January. Last month, a study released by the American media company Fusion revealed that 50 per cent of millennials believe that gender falls on a spectrum.
“I think it’s one of those times when fashion is really mirroring the world at large,” says Natalia Manzocco, the Toronto-based creator of Future Is the Future, a gender-neutral vintage-clothing website that recently opened a physical space in the Elephant in the Attic boutique on Dundas Street West. Manzocco, whose personal aesthetic falls somewhere between jaunty pageboy and sexy librarian, spends much of her free time combing flea markets for vintage items that will appeal to both male and female shoppers. “I was pretty surprised at how many people were excited about what I was doing,” she says, calling Future is the Future a social enterprise as much as a fashionable one. “We’re seeing [gender-neutral dressing] in the spotlight right now. But for a lot of people who want to dress this way, it’s not about being in fashion so much as just being comfortable.”
Even so, the biological differences between male and female physiques present an obvious practical challenge. On the runways, where everyone – male and female – is built like the Little Match Girl, sizing and design are minor concerns. But in the real world, breasts and hips and broad shoulders can make postgender fashion look a little, well, lumpy. “If this was really going to happen, it would require a major restructuring and re-educating of the retail sector,” says Toronto stylist Susie Sheffman. “Just today I was trying to buy a pair of Stan Smith running shoes for a shoot and the salesperson had no clue how to size them for a woman.” And that’s just feet.
Along with logistical issues, the fickleness of both designers and consumers presents another hindrance. Gender-neutral shopping spaces jibe well, for instance, with the sexless athleticism and drapey normcore look that has reigned over the last few seasons. But by spring/summer 2016, hypersexualized femininity and old-school machismo might be back in vogue. “Even this year, there was, along with the gender-neutral dressing, also this real return to romanticism in a lot of the collections,” Sheffman says. (Witness the latest Dolce & Gabbana show, a love letter to femininity featuring pregnant models, babies, flowers and soft hues.)
For now, Sheffman says, the androgyny explosion still feels like a bit of a bandwagon scenario, but its extreme trendiness doesn’t necessarily negate what could very well be a significant cultural shift. “Time will tell,” she surmises. “But my husband’s not going to be wearing a pussycat bow blouse any time soon.”