Un-divide & Conquer
Sex sells, but for how long? Emma McCarthy looks at the trend that’s taking the sex out of
fashion. Literally.
Unisex. What does the word mean to us? Calvin Klein CK1? Naturally. Toilets? Preferably
not. But British Fashion Culture? Apparently so. With Andrej Pejic grabbing more column
inches than most of the designers this Fashion Week and Leah T snogging the face off Mossy
on the cover of Love, unisex is definitely sexy. Androgyny has grabbed the fashion world by
the balls, so to speak, and it’s refusing to let go. With most trends only lasting one brief
Topshop cycle, this could well be classed as a full-on fashion revolution with more gumption
behind it than just your average hem length or it-bag. It equals Femiman’s and Female
Dandy’s, the launch of The Gentlewoman, Jack Wills and Superdry creaming other brands in
the high street stakes and the world going Gaga for Jo Calderone. But could it change the
great British high street as we know it?
To us Brits, it seems the general consensus amongst the fashion folk is that the trend relies
on bending the will of womenswear in favour of men’s. “There is a huge trend now for more
preppy dressing which is very menswear driven along with boyfriend jeans and tees,” thinks
Aimee Brown, womenswear buyer for Urban Outfitters, “but this only really works applying
menswear to women’s. The reverse does not seem to be true and men wearing women’s
clothes carry other implications entirely.” Anything goes for womenswear, and men have
been trained to embrace a lesser sensibility and an edited selection of the wider fashion
whole.
Case in point is the newest addition to denim - if that is even possible anymore - Levi’s exgirlfriend jeans. In direct competition with the much adored female counterpart, these are
‘a tribute to the ex-girlfriend with great style’. While being slightly derogatory to the current
girlfriend with decidedly less style, these spray-on babies also scream ‘boundaries’. Don’t
worry, these new jeans say, we know you’re straight because these jeans are your exGIRLfriends. Phew, thinks the chappie, I can be just as comfortable with this as my Nivea for
Men. Cross dressing is now acceptable in the world of denim...as long as you are in a
relationship, of course.
“We call ourselves men’s unisex,” says Chris Kelly, designer for British label TDLM, “and the
reason for that is I think men would be more intimidated by a unisex brand.” When
considering the masses, it seems no-one really knows what to do with ‘unisex’, feeling
instead that it must inch into one gender band more than the other. Even American
Apparel, with its aggressively unisex advertising strategies, has to concede in splitting their
e-commerce into ‘shop men’ or ‘shop women’, and their stores into upstairs or down. “But
there is something happening,” insists Chris. “There’s a huge cross-over in the collections of
the newest menswear designers and I think it’s something that all designers like the idea of.
The fashion world has become a smaller place and this can open the doors for much more
interesting design.”
Genderless looks were championed by a wealth of national and international designers,
from our very own Mr. Pugh, to Rick Owens and Belgian designers Damir Domar and
Veronique Branquinho. All, however, showed across the pond in Gay Paree. “Menswear
hasn’t had a forum in Britain for so long and now suddenly all of these people are coming
out of the woodwork,” says Chris. “Christopher Shannon, for example, and various other
designers need a forum and I do think that eventually you just get squeezed out to Paris. I
have a real love of London and I love what we represent in the industry, it’s just a shame
that the British Fashion Council doesn’t take our industry so seriously.”
When considering (wo)menswear, you can’t ignore the distinct lack of interest the BFC has
shown towards our ever-expanding menswear talent. “I think it was in a completely
different time when those sorts of schedules were put together,” muses Chris, “a time when
menswear wasn’t as fashion forward or serious and it is now, so I think they could easily be
fused.”
So the designers are ready for an equal portion of the limelight, but what of the
clotheshorses? “Someone once said to me,” says Rosemary Varley, a lecturer on marketing
and retail, “men buy by brand, women buy by product.” In other words, men are hunters,
women are gatherers. But is it just us Brits that are still so Neanderthal? “British men shop
in an entirely different way,” says Francesca Muston, a retail analyst for WGSN. “They’re
much more focused but also they are more subtle in their fashion choices in comparison to
other countries such as Italy, Japan or Brazil where the guys are more like peacocks.”
Metrosexual behaviour is still in contest in most of Britain (outside of Essex, at least), but a
well-groomed brow and well-oiled cuticles is nothing short of necessary for most selfrespecting internationals and if you rewind back past Deyn and Dellal, you’ll see Britain is
merely playing catch up to countries flying the flag for androgynous styling as well. Many of
the genderless looks on the catwalk were achieved by stripping away the details, cleaning
up the design and restricting the colours to a simple palette (read: Ikea). While champions
of design Japan and Scandinavia have perfected and honed the national identity through the
rigorous pursuit of no-fuss-no-muss practicality, Britain’s fast fashion culture doesn’t stay
loyal to such a signature design, choosing instead to remain promiscuous and unattached.
While such epicene brands, like Uniqlo and Cheap Monday’s, have eked into the British
urban cool pool, we are far from the leaders of this global trend.
“Here in the UK, we will pretty much get on board with most trends,” says Francesca. “In the
US things are a lot more conservative. In France the market is more premium and
consumers will buy less frequently but spend more money on an individual item, and the
same can be said of Russia and China, which are much more conspicuous in their
consumption as their new middle class markets emerge.” The UK has the most evolved fast
fashion market globally, which reached fever pitch a couple of years ago when the trends
were swinging quite violently from one style to another. But the recession has forced us to
chill our boots and begin to take stock of our wardrobes crammed with uneven hemlines,
thin and itchy fabrics and Primarni knockoffs. As fashion’s answer to Darwin comes off the
steroids and monthly magazines can once again write concurrent trend pieces, the longevity
of the androgynous craze is starting to reveal its significance.
We are starting to pick up the pace in the retail stakes too and areas like Redchurch Street
and Brick Lane are rife with shops sprouting up that both tap into the androgynous look and
are undertaking huge international expansion. “Stores like Hostem, Labour and Wait, Rough
Trade, Folk, Albam, All Saints and The Kooples are almost moving towards a genderless
trend,” says Francesca. “At the moment, it’s still important for them to be defined but as
these brands build pace there’s no reason why the lines can’t be completely blurred.”
Of course, there are limitations to the development of this idyllic unisex fashion market, and
LCF’s fashion management heavyweights see us hitting a stumbling block. “I believe it would
be very ambitious for the industry to challenge the boundaries of menswear and
womenswear,” thinks Alessandra Vecchi, “and surely not a profitable strategy in the short
term.” Rosemary Varley agrees; “For the older customer it is important to make shopping
easy, so mixing men’s and women’s up could be a disaster!” It’s true that, with the very
nature of fashion and trends, creating such a small pool of detail-devoid garments would fail
to drive the economy into a frenzy of new season must-have spending, but creating just one
capsule wardrobe available to both genders would surely halve expensive production costs
and become the ultimate in recession-friendly spending. Founder of urban youth brand,
Connected Generation, seems to think so. “It all started with one size fits all,” says Rachel
Cosford, “and now, with vintage fashions really taking off, today’s youth doesn’t care about
who their clothes are supposed to be for, especially when it comes to tees, sweats and
jeans. If they like it, they’ll buy it. So it would be silly for me not to offer them to both
sexes.”
So maybe it’s a youth thing. Maybe it’s an international influx. But is it here to stay?
“Androgyny has moved on,” says Francesca, “and we’re seeing many more examples of men
moving towards a feminine aesthetic. What’s new is the middle ground; not women
dressing in men’s clothing or men dressing in women’s clothing. It’s neither here nor there.”
Humans are, by nature, androgynous. We are all born with the same sex hormones and the
same emotions, though we can’t get away from the fact that men and women are shaped
differently. Slim, straight-up-and-down figures wear the trend best, which could explain why
the Japanese do it justice and the fashion pack have jumped on board. But fashion, of
course, is never just about clothing, and as feminism and political correctness gradually
picks away at the gender roles in our society, so too will our fashions change. As for the
fashion world’s most compelling movements, the debate is still on as to what direction the
androgyny trend will take. Whether the rest of the western world will continue to follow, we
must watch this mainstream menswear space.