Is Unisex Fashion Truly Unisex?
Unisex fashion is not the product of gender equality, but it emphasizes the gender inequality in fashion.
What Makes Unisex fashion So Unique?
In contrast to unisex fashion, traditional menswear emphasizes functionality or practicability while traditional womenswear emphasizes decoration and popularity of wearing. Therefore, there is always an invisible aesthetic standard that differentiates men’s and women’s clothing. However, with the development of the times, the social status of men and women has gradually changed, and in this condition, unisex fashion emerged. As a powerful unique trend, unisex fashion rapidly affects the main fashion trend.
Unisex fashion is suitable for people of different ages, different personalities, different education background and different occupations. This trend is no doubt regarded as one of the most vital and extended fashion styles in the world of fashion. Therefore, studying unisex fashion is also significant by knowing the dynamic state of fashion trends.
In a sense, Unisex fashion is one culture connotation and one kind of time product. This essay will first put unisex fashion into the historical context and analyzes how gender differences as a factor embrace unisex fashion trend and how does it promote the development of unisex fashion. Then based on the historical statement, to make a judgment on how unisex fashion shifted gender perception and what are the break though or difficulties it encountered.
“The unisex movement may have made women’s clothes more masculine, but it never made them unfeminine.” — Kimberly Chrisman-Cambell
This essay will repeatedly address the gender difference in unisex fashion, most of the journal or article attach “gender line been blurred” along with unisex fashion, however unisex fashion is not the product of gender equality, but it emphasizes the gender inequality in fashion. The gender inequality can be seen from the original of unisex fashion where unisex fashion was first emerged by the feminist movement in 19 century, it carries the masculinity try to change the stereotype perception toward the female which provides a style that “uniformity with a masculine”. After decades, unisex fashion in the 21 century is more popular than before and women are the major target customer, while man is more suffering from the discrimination of being feminine. Even though queer culture fosters the genderless conception in fashion, but due to the Metoo and other feminist movements, the acceptance of masculinity in womenswear is stronger than the femininity in menswear.
Back in 19 century to 20 century, traditional society was a male-dominated society which man was the representative of authority and production capacity, therefore they determined the aesthetic standard, such as the male gaze that showed in early Hollywood film that the female figure in the film as an objects where the male was the subject who looks. “The phrase ‘male gaze’ refers to the frequent framing of objects of visual art so that the viewer is situated in a ‘masculine’ position of appreciation.” which can be seen from visual art(literature, fine art, and film). Not only female figures were always been portrayed as erotic and flabby but they were always been considered as the attachment of men, mainly because they were politically weak and without economic statues. Fortunately, due to the cultural diversity in modern society, the status of women has undergone a subversive change, especially in the field of fashion.
“Men, on the other hand, have traditionally been immune to gender-neutral fashion trends’” — Kimberly Chrisman-Cambell
“The first wave of feminism took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. ”
During the industrial revolution, a massive migration of women out of their homes and first get the chance to work in the industry. Of course, the male-dominated society was against women being independent, and female by fighting for their rights and appealing gender equality they have to be masculine like men do. So it started with the right of wearing pants under their shortened dresses, and it is called bloomers. The unisex clothing was first to appear by adding masculinity to womenswear because of the dominance of masculinity, women want to dress up more masculine so that they can use the masculinity in unisex fashion to impose on their sovereignty. But this cannot change the predominance of patriarchy, and the unisex clothing indeed emphasizing gender inequality.
There is no doubt that the feminist movement promotes the development of unisex fashion, the massive target of the unisex fashion is female customer, that’s why there are so many gender-neutral womenswear brands have mushroomed, but not menswear. The demand for feminine menswear for men is not that large amount. Chrisman Campbell, a fashion historian make a similar command on the unisex fashion target customer “Men, on the other hand, ‘have traditionally been immune to gender-neutral fashion trends’” Due to the feminist movement undergoing along those years, women who wear masculine clothing are considered as modern, adventurous and independent. However, if men tend to wear feminine wearings are either get labeled or defined to be sissy. “Roma wants to wear skirts and dresses, he doesn’t feel as though he would be understood in public, so he does photo shoots in the clothes and shares them online instead” Roma is a male unisex designer of unisex fashion, he tries to wear feminine clothing but was afraid to attract the public awareness, he does admit the gender inequality in fashion and gender stereotype will not change easily. what unisex fashion try to do is to offer the chance for woman or man to explore the gender line in fashion. More importantly, Roma doesn’t want to wear feminine fashion pieces consider the contrast of clothing and the wearer make his original sex glaringly obvious which moves to the next reason about why unisex magnifies the gender difference, it shows the contrast between the clothes and wearer which attract the attention of the original gender of the wearer.
“ Gernreich envisioned 1999 as a gender-neutral utopia of jumpsuits, turtlenecks, and tunics. While technically unisex, these tight-fitting costumes made the wearer’s sex glaringly obvious, and they retained traditional gender markers such as bras, makeup, and jewelry for women.”
There are some significant fashion segments are related to an exclusive gender. Fashion segments not only mean the exclusive clothing(like the dress for women) but also including some pattern, color, and fabric. “Sometimes people get crazy that I dress boys in pink,” she tells Teen Vogue a few days after her show. The color pink is the girliest, the designer Olya Volshebova adds this feminine element in her pieces to try to promote unisex fashion and blurring the gender line to supporting the LGBT group in Russian. But will people really accept it? The cheers that happen in the show does not mean unisex fashion get the perception and understanding in society. Unfortunately, the masculinity of male figure is difficult to erase even though the queer movement has been successfully won the rights to be treated equally, but man that belongs to LGBT group can wear what they like even the feminine menswear or womenswear, but not including the men that are outside the circle. Still, the traditional perception between male and female is not easy to be redefined.
The last factor that causes unisex fashion emphasizing gender inequality is the bias in unisex fashion. Kimberly also common that “The unisex movement may have made women’s clothes more masculine, but it never made them unfeminine.” The main target customer of unisex fashion is always the female, that’s why there are only pants in unisex fashion but never have dresses or skirts that can category into unisex fashion. Not only because unisex fashion arose from the feminist movement, but it is also because of the masculinity of the male figure constrain the feminization of menswear.
In conclusion, unisex fashion as a fashion trend it scrambles both femininity and masculinity these two elements in one style which for sure challenging traditional gender norm in fashion. However due to its original motivation by providing masculinity for women and the contradiction that happens on feminine menswear, it emphasizes the gender inequality that exists in society or in fashion. It does not mean that unisex fashion exclusively serving for feminists, or males have no demand for unisex fashion. The unisex fashion for sure provides an opportunity for the wearer to explore themselves, and be aware of gender inequality.
