English Version | “I am a man who likes to wear skirts” - Billy Porter

14 Apr 2022
By Mariana Silva

Had this sentence been said more times and perhaps these pages were not even necessary. Still, here we are. Fashion and gender have had a long-term relationship, but maybe it has run its course.

Had this sentence been said more times and perhaps these pages were not even necessary. Still, here we are. Fashion and gender have had a long-term relationship, but maybe it has run its course. 

It’s not hard to think of gender with the analogy of a box. After all, there were a lot of similar boxes that we’ve had to fill during our lives. In our birth certificate: male or female? During school registration: male or female? In the resume: male or female? In the satisfaction inquiry that we'll fill up only to get 20% off in the next round of shopping: male or female? In its early days, the logic behind a binary classification was to facilitate people's characterization. Even though we could not know a person by its name, we believed we could assume certain personality traits by the genitals that had been assigned during a person’s body formation. That’s mistake number one. Actually, there are several mistakes in the last sentence, but let’s begin with the less obvious: the one related to words. Unlike what common sense dictates, people’s genders don't have to be directly proportional to the genitals they possess. That’s sex. On the other hand, gender is a social construction. It’s a set of psychological characteristics, also related to appearance (for example, hair length), that we assume of a person based on their sex. This means that, if we say that someone, on a binary system, identifies as female for having a vagina, that’s sex. But if we say that the presence of that vagina implies that someone likes skirts or the color pink, that’s gender. And gender is not as straightforward as society makes it out to be.

For a long time, Fashion had been defining itself by this type of social construction. It’s enough to walk into a store to understand the impact that the gender binary system maintains on the textile sector. In the first place, this same system became part of Fashion, since the majority of stores are divided into two sections: one dedicated to male clothing, and the other to female garments (when it’s not only exclusive to one of these). Besides, each one of these sections is an endless repository of examples portraying how gender stereotypes influence Fashion. While one is filled with pink garments, florals, skirts and dresses, the other is filled with black and grey looks, baggy silhouettes and minimalistic suits. A person does not even need to identify the gender of each of these sections to understand which one we are talking about. Wasn’t Fashion supposed to be a means of personal expression, instead of being limiting? Maybe that’s why the industry began to look for alternatives that presented themselves as “outside of the box”, even though the box itself (being the binary identification of gender) has never been completely put to the side.

“Fashion Design hasn’t completely forgotten about gender classification - what happened, in various moments of its history, was allowing it to become more inclusive and less straightforward, running away from its binary division,” explains Catarina Moura, professor at Universidade da Beira Interior and coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Fashion Branding and Design, in partnership with IADE. One of those moments is the birth of what we now know as unisex Fashion. “The concept [unisex] is created around 1965, it becomes particularly expressive around the 70s, suffers several changes during the following two decades, and lives until today as a part of our vocabulary, even though it may not always be used in the rightest of ways.” Changes, twists and spins which ended up being reflected in this movement’s own aesthetic. In the words of the fashion expert, “(…) around the 70s we see it associated with the creation of denim and loungewear, making entire families wear the same outfits, filled with extravagant and colorful patterns. That’s why it’s so curious that unisex fashion has later come (and, in a certain way, to this today) to be associated with the normcore trend of the 80s and 90s, mainly known for jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, shirts, and sneakers, having a preference for colors like blue, gray, white and black.” Besides, it’s hard to dissociate unisex clothes to its sociopolitical dimension, since this movement was a part “of a bigger interrogation about the role of men and women in the most distinct spheres, from family to work, or even in politics and in the general society,” explains Catarina Moura.

Unisex is not, however, the only way to approach gender. In the last years, we’ve been seeing the spread of a concept that looks further away from the binary division than what we’re used to. We’re talking about genderless fashion. The professor clarifies that there are clear differences between these two concepts: “Unisex and genderless fashion are not synonyms. (…) It’s important to consider that genderless Fashion has as its goal the progressive disintegration of the binary classification gender - unlike unisex fashion, which, in its core, remains heteronormative and binary.” We can go back to the box analogy to unpack (pun intended) these two ideas. If we think about the male and female gender as two separate boxes, each one filled with its own characteristics and, consequently, its own stereotypes, we're describing unisex Fashion (or the unisex concept in a more general way) as something like one single box where both genders cohabitate. In a more brief explanation, the unisex movement didn’t come to eliminate gender duality (that kept on existing), the differences between both genders were simply softened. That is why unisex clothing goes hand in hand with normcore, a trend where there’s no room for colors, patterns, or even silhouettes that are too associated with only one gender. On the other hand, genderless Fashion is the absence of any box. Here there are no barriers or limits posed by society related to what one should or should not wear. But here is more: “From oversized to form-fitting, [genderless Fashion designers] look to merge which, more than simply eliminating gender, subverts what is expected in it - not just through shapes or colors, but also materials, patterns, texture and a new approach (more inclusive, but also lighter, uncompromising and, in some cases, even funnier) to the concept of Fashion accessory,” Catarina Moura says.

In this day and age, there’s no need to investigate deeply in order to find clear examples of genderless Fashion, even in the most mainstream part of the industry. According to the researcher, “the last years have placed [genderless Fashion] clearly as a trend (one of the most profitable between 2022 and 2023, according to several economical indicators)” and alongside that we find several cases where gender fluidity is presented as one of the main cornerstones of a brand. One of those cases is Ludovic de Saint Sernin. The French designer created his namesake brand in 2017, after having worked in maisons such as Balmain, Dior, and Saint Laurent. His new way of thinking about gender was one of the things that lead him to the center stage of Paris Fashion Week, where, nowadays, models like Bella and Gigi Hadid showcase his boldest garments. “I try to think of the garments more so than the gender of the person that’s going to wear it, and I let the wearer define the gender of the garment (if they want to even definite it),” said the designer in an interview with Vogue Portugal. “Not thinking about gender when you design a collection allows you to have bigger freedom and a bigger pole of possibilities in terms of how you’re gonna present the look or the garment (…). That’s very exciting, you let yourself be surprised, because maybe you have an idea of how this [the garment] is gonna look on the runway, but actually it turns out completely different and depending on the person who’s wearing it.” Ludovic de Saint Sernin is one of the biggest names when we talk about genderless Fashion on a global scale, but we’re also starting to see similar examples on a national level. Carolina Moreira is the designer behind Cravo Studios, a Portuguese brand that has been working to subvert many of the gender stereotypes that still persist in male clothing. Even though the brand is focused on the menswear market, Cravo Studios applies many of the genderless Fashion principles in their collections. In the last edition of ModLisboa, for example, the brand closed its Fall/Winter 2022 show with a look that stayed on everyone's lips. “Our last look, a long dress with a feminine silhouette, was presented with the intent to show that we should step aside from the idea that dresses should only be worn by one gender,” said Carolina Moreira to Vogue. “This collection was definitely a risk, I was especially nervous in this presentation. I didn’t know for sure how the audience would react. (…) [But] for now, the feedback is pretty positive!”

Unlike what one would expect, the majority of challenges presented to a genderless Fashion designer are not even associated with the audience’s reaction. Catarina Moura says that “today, more than 50% of Gen Z consumers buy without having gender as a priority, or even considering this factor in their choices.” Most of the challenges are actually in logistics. “I think the barriers were more in the technicalities of how do you propose a garment that’s not gendered. For example, in a store, where would you have it: is it in the men’s section, is it in the women’s section?,” asks Ludovic. Everything else is just a barrier waiting to be surpassed. And, for the French designer, one of his main missions is fighting for a silhouette that enhances a man’s body: “The thing in general that happens with genderless fashion is that it doesn’t really enhance or celebrate the body, or show its curves. It has a tendency of just being oversize (…). So that’s why I think it was kinda new [what I did], and why people were like ‘oh, that’s a boy in a dress, but it doesn’t look like a transgender or a cross-dresser, it looks like a beautiful boy in a beautiful dress.’” Carolina Moreira shares the same opinion: “I think skirts and dresses should not be a barrier when a genderless collection is presented. A male audience can and should be free to appreciate and even wear skirts and dresses (…). We live in a time when it’s more important than ever to express ourselves and not be judged for that, and genderless Fashion has contributed to that evolution.” Still, it’s expected that many remain hesitant towards freeing themselves completely from stereotypes and prejudice. We’re still human beings, we look for validation and support from those who surround us, and we like to feel good in our own skin. Ludovic de Saint Sernin says that the only way to face those fears is by “trying” the garments. “It’s one thing for people to see it on the runway, to see a proposition that’s new, to see a boy on a dress or in a skirt, but they don’t necessarily make the step to actually try the dress or try the skirt on and then decide if it feels good or not.” Because that is the ultimate purpose: to feel good on our skin, regardless of what we wear. Don’t forget that the same industry that saw the birth of Yves Saint Laurent’s female tuxedo in 1966 also allowed Christian Siriano to create a tuxedo dress for Billy Porter to take to the Oscars in 2019. The big moments in Fashion history do not happen when we close our ideas in boxes, but every time we think outside them. 

Translated form the original on The Quote Issue, from Vogue Portugal, published April 2022.Full stories and credits on the print issue.

Mariana Silva By Mariana Silva

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