-less

FashionMarch 6, 2016
-less

Fashion is a way of expressing yourself, and yes, genders express themselves differently. At least that is how it was until today. Now the new generation doesn’t mention gender when they define or express themselves.

Someone you know is pregnant. Your first question is: “What is the gender?” And the classic lie that follows: “As long as it’s healthy, the gender does not matter!” If it wasn’t important, why would your first question be about gender? Let’s admit it; we’ve been raised in a society where gender matters, where girls have been the dutiful child whereas the boys meant “pride.” We have to really work on reseting the gender codes that are changing, actually disappearing in the world, in our memory.

Getting dressed is the most common way of expressing yourself, and we are going through a period where gender is questioned in fashion. It has been a long time since women began haunting men’s wardrobes anyway. Gender-lessness in fashion began for them a long time ago. As for men, it
is slowly being accepted. The opinion that everyone has feminine and masculine sides has become widespread. And now is the time to make peace with it. The successful and married designer Rick Owens said “I am happy with my partner. I have a more naive and sensitive side in me, maybe even a feminine side. And I made peace with that side.” in his most recent interview.

Just when we got over the division of women and men fashion weeks due to bigger collections into different weeks, now we see presentations that feed off of each other of womenswear and menswear during one fashion show, on the same catwalk, appealing to both genders. Pantene, the biggest color and pigment authority in the world, designated two colors as the color of the year last year, for the first time in their history: Baby pink Rose Quartz and Serenity blue true to male babies. The company explained this choice as underlying the resistance to gender of the new generation. Pink was a more common color for men, and in the near past, The First Lady of the US in the 50’s, Mamie Eisenhower identified it with women for the first time, and the perception of the color changed in time. Nowadays, it is known that the pastel tones associated with women are used more on men, whereas military tones are used for women in order to scatter this color perception.

What a calamitous prejudice it is for a color to be perceived as a woman or a man though? Now the fashion brands focus on the “person” they are dressing, having removed trends, colors, cuts and patterns from gender norms parallel to modern generation. In doing so, brands reach the new generation more easily portraying getting dressed as a way of expressing and discovering oneself. This is why we see the oversized and androgynous looks more frequently that are not definable as feminine or masculine.

The world is really evolving in the gender topic. The mothers who we used to ask “What is it’s gender?” instantly are now uncomfortable with that question. As a matter of fact, they try to give their children genderless names. The gender section of job applications are being removed; Facebook is extending it’s gender section from 2 to close to 20 options. True to it’s name, Covergirl Magazine had a male on the cover for the first time last October; make-up Vlogger and social media phenomenon James Charles, having only women on the cover beforehand.

As a part of Pitti Uomo, Juun.J’s 2016-2017 Fall / Winter collection show which I watched at Florence, had a Genderless theme using androgynous models with colors and cuts that could be worn by both genders, with the title “-less” for the collection.

The collective brand Vetements shows show both the female and male collections simultaneously. It is known that the line between female and male models down to clothes are blurred where the viewer has a hard time differentiating.

As for the Gucci catwalks, the line between female and male haven’t been this obscure since Alessandro Michele became the head designer. The designer explains the situation as “This is how I see the world today.”

The barnburner project in retail belongs to the department store of Selfridges in London, creating genderless concept stores in some sections with androgynous looks picked from collections, and the “You” campaign they focus on, striking out the words “Male. Female. Me.”

As prevailing as women are in fashion, there are people who think that it is necessary to break the dominance of men that have come to the forefront in years with some positive discrimination. This reflects on collections as feminism. Maria Grazia Chuiri’s first show for Dior as the brands first female creative director after transferring from Valentino was highly anticipated. In conclusion, just like Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi’s TEDx talk in 2013 entitled “We should all be feminists” and like Beyoncé’s feminism anthem “Flawless,” Chuiri had placed the name on t-shirts directly. The feminism movement is actually perceived as women making an effort of having equal rights as men. And the strongest feminists are not just women but more so men. Men bring a fairer and more accurate awareness on the issue when they are feminists. Maybe this was the reason why Acne Studios had the“Women Power” and “Radical Feminist” slogans on their clothing for their 2015-2016 Fall / Winter Men collection. Again, the designer of Acne Studios Johnny Johansson, had his 11 year-old-son as the model for the 2015-2016 Fall / Winter women’s collection campaign visuals. The designer says “The new generation focuses on clothing when they get dresses, not the norms of society.” about his son Frasse who was photographed in clothing from the women’s collection.

In her recently released album last month, Sezen Aksu expresses the unhappy state of our country and unhappy marriage statuses of housewives, how they are perceived as secondary to their partners and their partners’ families, and how their dreams are shattered one by one in a tragicomical way in her song “Koca Kıçlı.”

In short, there is a revolt and effort felt at all sections of society in regards to this topic. And fixing one thing is not just dependant on that. Yes, the extinction of slavery in the US was decided upon law. However would we be wrong to say that the whole world became like slaves afterwards? Think of all the people from all religions and races that are slave to money in the capitalist system… Hence did the rights given to women really make them equal to men? Didn’t positive discrimination make women’s positions in men’s eyes as “She is a woman, poor her, she needs support” while trying to lift women up? The feminist approach of women has been pulled to different sides for a long time and the effort in that context possibly harmed them the most. It’s clear today that the real affect of feminism is the one that men are involved with. Just like Adicihie’s Dior t-shirts, the day is the day where “We should all be feminists.”

Author: Based Istanbul

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