By Chelsea Faler |Staff Writer|
Boundaries are being broken, showing that fashion is truly limitless; females don’t have to wear just dresses and males don’t have to only wear pants.
Androgynous fashion has recently become more popular and gives both genders more freedom to choose what they want to wear by breaking the rules of generally acceptable styles.
Society has always pressured both men and women to look and act a certain way, discouraging girls to venture from anything other than typical pink, girly attire and pressuring men to always have a rigid, masculine appearance.
Androgynous fashion consists of masculine and feminine styles meant for the opposite gender. This trend has recently gained popularity, however, it is something that originates in early feminism and has appeared in women’s liberation movements throughout history.
Androgyny also dates back to classic fashion icons. Pacific Standard magazine writes, “Coco Chanel, the highest of fashion icons, famously wore heavy tweed coats belonging to her lover the Duke of Westminster, and Diane Keaton’s obsession with vintage menswear leaked into Woody Allen’s ‘Annie Hall.’
Androgyny describes a person who does not fit into any stereotypical gender categories, social rules or cultural roles of how they are supposed to act or behave.
According to Wall Street International, androgynous fashion went mainstream in 1972, after David Bowie released his album and introduced his feminine alter ego, Ziggy Stardust.
This style has gained more popularity when androgynous model, Andrej Pejic, conquered the fashion world. Pejic is an Australian transgender model who describes himself as being “in between genders.”
In recent fashion shows, androgyny has made plenty of appearances in runway shows, such as Alexander Wang, Vanessa Bruno and Dries Van Noten. Primarily tomboy styles have been displayed, such as over- sized blazers, boyfriend jeans, pantsuits, sporty attire, and boyish accessories.
Although it appears as if androgyny has made a bigger impact on women’s fashion, men’s fashion has also experienced an increase in popularity of feminine based clothing.
During a fashion week in Paris, men strutted the runway showcasing pieces such as skirts, fitted coats, vests, and even long dresses.
Despite the female clothing, these male models were described as very masculine.
Other than just being popular on the runway and high-end fashion neighborhoods like New York and Paris, more and more clothing stores are starting to sell androgynous fashion as well.
H&M, one of the most popular stores to support this trend, gave 25 percent of their profit back to the awareness of AIDS after launching their unisex clothing and accessory line.
Androgynous fashion is something that has been around for decades and has a lot more history behind it than meets the eye. This style comes from the roots of feminism; early designers and globalized fashion icons who had open minds and broke the rules of gender based fashion.
Androgyny has had its high and low points of popularity in the fashion industry, peeking when famous artists or celebrities display this style.
Now that the lines between masculinity and feminism are beginning to blur more and more, I foresee this style of fashion only growing in popularity in the future.
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