issue 178
FASHION & BEAUTY - 71
The Revival of the Androgynous Model Before I even begin to talk about androgynous fashion, it’s important to point out what I actually mean when using the term. An androgynous person is someone whose physical appearance is ambiguous in terms of masculine and feminine features. It’s often difficult to tell whether this individual identifies as a man or a woman. Indeed, many androgynous people do not conform to the labels of gender. However, before we begin, I’d like to clarify that since my focus is on androgynous models, I’m not impying that all androgynous models are non-binary or transgender. In recent years, androgynous fashion has catapulted into the mainstream, modelled by celebrities such as Jaden Smith and Tilda Swinton. You could even say that the new trend of men painting their nails has come from the eruption of androgynous culture. But where did it come from? It has long been argued where androgyny was originally derived from. On the one hand, it could have stemmed from the rise of feminism, whether this be in its first or second wave. Indeed, Elizabeth Smith Miller, a suffragette, is reported as the first modern woman to wear trousers. After this, the 1960s brought about the so called sexual freedom of women. With this came Yves Saint Laurent in 1966, pioneering the first tuxedo for women. YSL’s purpose was to “give possession of masculine attire to the woman”, giving women the option to take on male prescribed clothing as their own. Afterwards, the 1980’s saw the rise of the “strong working woman”, with bold trouser suits for female workers, which often had built in shoulder panels. These panels were to make the women look broader and powerful, much like their male counterparts in the workplace. Men have also had their own part to play in this style revolution. The most notable instance of this was expressed in the music industry. Hendrix and Bowie in the 1960s gave us skinny jeans and the ‘peacocking’ trend of paisley and poets’ blouses galore. Where would we even be without David Bowie and his alter ego Ziggy Stardust who was painted in theatrical makeup, dressed in go-go boots. Male androgyny had its own social role to play too. Homosexuality had begun to be decriminalised during this area, and a sexual revolution for all genders was coming into fruition. Male artists were also challenging the hyper-masculinity that rockers before them had endorsed. Indeed, androgyny has always been a movement which has included clothes and people’s self expression through style. However, in the past twenty years, it’s been welcomed into the world of couture fashion. Two years ago, the organisers of New York Fashion Week added ‘unisex/non-binary’ as an option for runways at the event. Paris fashion Week welcomed shows by designers such as Haider Ackermann, whose entire catwalk was based off of the male silhouette, despite creating clothes for a female audience. In 2017, Calvin Klein, with the help of creative director Raf Simons, created a runway that was minimalist and androgynous, with female models in ‘male’ work shirt and tailored trousers. Jeremy Scott has recently dressed his male models in fishnets and bows.
words by: ANNA HELEDD design by: LUISA DE LA CONCHA MONTES
Unisex everything is back with a vengeance, pioneered in the 1900’s and now becoming, arguably, the new norm for fashion everywhere. The runway has always played with the concept of androgyny, but it seems like it’s only now that we are really understanding what it truly is. Instead of shocking the audience with androgyny and using it as a gimmick, high-end brands are catching up with how modern society now presents and discusses gender norms. Due to this, there is now a huge demand androgynous models globally. Tamy Glauser, a Swiss model famous in their country for being an outspoken activist for LGBTQ+ rights, has modelled for big names such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy. Jay Espinosa, modelled for Louis Vuitton’s groundbreaking S/S 2019 collection, where the majority of the models were androgynous and transgender. Rain Dove models for male and female collections; recently breaking the internet by posting a collection of photographs, where she posed for the same picture as a male, then as a woman. These faces have changed the way that runways are now working for the social market. So, fashion, much like society, is no longer opting for hard and fast rules. Fashion is now on an anything-goes zone, where anyone can wear skirts, trousers, makeup and beyond.
