By Molly Madigan
From a young age we are influenced by our surroundings and instantly put into a category by our biological sex. From the second we’re born, ‘It’s a girl/boy!’ leads us to believe we should follow in conventional gender footsteps. We are bought blue or pink toys, taught to believe dresses are for girls and trousers are for boys and things like make-up are gender specific. No no. Things are starting to change. We could argue all day long as to where the root of these gender codes originate from, but instead, it is worth noting how fashion, in particular, is starting to recognize we can not simply be classified into merely ‘male’ and ‘female’.
Society is in a time of change in aspects of the definition of gender. Culture wars rage over bathrooms and even the very notion that men or women have to choose one fixed gender identity. President Donald J. Trump reportedly likes his female staff “to dress like women.” However, what this means isn’t entirely clear. The divide looms between those who welcome the new fluidity and those who yearn for clearly defined gender roles. So designers on the runway engage in a continuing dialogue about how clothing defines masculinity and femininity.
Fashion has crossed many of these lines for years, of course. Women have long appropriated men’s clothes for comfort and authority. In the 1960s, long-haired men in paisley, florals, and bell-bottoms defied conventions of what men were supposed to look like and what clothes they were supposed to wear.
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