I’m a fashion designer. I went to school for 5 years, worked in retail, and interned in corporate design, costume design, and at Vogue. I worked in the industry for four years before switching careers.

I’m here to tell y’all a little bit about gender and fashion.

Thanks to the internet, a lot of folks already know this stuff. But it's worth repeating for those who haven't, especially from someone who actually studied fashion history, marketing, and sociology.

First, the gender binary is largely a modern (and western) concept, and thus western societies tend to be the ones who struggle with gender non-conforming fashion the most. I could write a whole paper on this, but for twitter, I'll leave it at that.

History has tons of examples of individual items switching between being "masculine"/"feminine."

High heels started in Persia in the 1400s to help soldiers keep their feet in their stirrups, and when migrants brought them to Europe, upper-class men wore them to seem taller.

Men and women wore skirts in Egypt + surrounding areas for centuries.

Men didn't start wearing pants/tights until the Middle Ages, because that's the first time that weaving and tailoring techniques were advanced enough to create them.

So already, when we take a step back, the number of years that skirts/heels/etc. have been considered "only for women" and pants/low shoes/etc. have been "only for men" is a teensy sliver in human history. It's new, and frankly (hopefully), it'll probably change again soon.

More recently, despite our society's general decisions about what men and women "should" wear, gender non-conforming fashion has been around (and celebrated) for decades. Some of the world's and most talented and influential stars shirked gendered fashion, with fabulous results.

In the 80s, Prince (imo one of the best musicians who ever lived), swapped suits for crop tops and ruffles on a regular basis. Beloved by many and a fashion icon.
#harrystylesvogue #gendernonconforming

In the 70s, superstars David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen (RIP love) wore crop tops, jumpsuits, sequins, and skintight pants. These cisgender, straight men played stadiums across the country and inspired fans to experiment with fashion and step outside typical "men's" clothes.

David Bowie bent gender and gendered fashion constantly, tied it into his albums and art, and was so unapologetic and successful that I'd argue he transformed fashion permanently. Just before I left my last fashion job, we designed an entire menswear collection based on Bowie.

More recently, musician Janelle Monáe has blended gendered clothing in innovative and flattering ways, and runs the gamut from full suits to capes to red carpet gowns - not just gender non-conforming, but genderfluid.

Of course, the most recent example is #HarryStyles, who periodically does photoshoots in skirts and dresses, and has sparked a series of conversations, both praising and criticizing his choices.

So what's my point?

1. What humans decide is "male" clothing vs. "female" clothing changes repeatedly over history.
2. Celebrities of all orientations embracing gender non-conforming fashion isn't new - and society has loved it too!
3. The gender binary isn't real anyway.

From a personal standpoint, both as a designer and someone who just wears clothes, I think #HarryStyles did say it best: "There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes...it just becomes this extended part of creating something."

So there's a little fashion+gender history, and some observations about its impact.

Earlier, I mentioned sociology+gendered fashion. Let's go there.

Fashion isn't frivolous (I could also write a paper about how irritating that opinion is). It's the first thing others see, and we control it. For better or for worse, what we wear communicates a lot about us - profession, income, aesthetic, interests, political affiliations, etc

If you haven't seen it before, check out this study on "the white-coat effect": basically, if two people say they're a doctor but one is wearing a lab coat and the other is in casual clothes, people trust the one in the lab coat more.

https://www.k-state.edu/psych/research/documents/2004JASP_000.pdf

So we know fashion influences perception. Let's talk about its influence on gender, and more importantly, how we think about gender.

Historically (told ya'll this all intersects), clothing already indicates that people used to think about gender very differently than we do now.

For example, early psychologists often said "masculine" nature is practical and "feminine" nature is emotional - but the elaborate clothing men wore during the Italian Renaissance kiiiiiiiinda says otherwise.

Similarly, erogenous zones shift; which body parts we consider "sexual" aren't even consistent, *even between genders*. Remember Van Halen and his oh-so-low pants? He was a sex icon. Remember 20 years later, in the 90s, when low-rise was all the rage...but only for women?

Here's a logic chain to bring it together:

A person's clothing influences how we think of them -> clothing is often gendered -> how clothing is gendered shifts with time and culture -> how we see other people's genders shifts with time and culture.

The resurgence of gender non-conforming clothing (especially with us average folks and not just rock stars) relates directly to our evolving understanding of what gender is - nonbinary - and indicates that society is slowly coming to accept it.

Basically, fashion communicates gender, which fashion is gendered and how isn't static, and therefore our understanding of gender isn't static. It never has been.

I hope some of this was interesting and maybe helpful. Being able to express yourself through fashion is a wonderful thing, and I'm thrilled that non-gendered clothing and style is joining the mainstream (again, lol).