Androgyny

Throughout different periods in Western history, men  and women have both embraced  what today is considered to be androgynous fashion. Prior to the Industrial Revolution and before  the decline  of the aristocracy in the late 18th  century, aristocratic men  indulged in cosmetics, preferred perfectly coifed hair and powdered wigs,  and adorned themselves in lace, velvets, and silk. Increasingly, the elaborate outfits  of aristocratic males embodied the slothfulness and leisurely abominations of the  upper classes.  Proletarian men  dressed in austere and  distinct clothing to distance themselves from  the  aristocracy; they  dressed in a manner that  represented their  class and  Protestant work values. Women’s fashion remained largely unaffected by the restructuring of men’s  fashion; nevertheless, women often  embraced  cross-dressing (although distinct in many  ways from  androgyny) to  slip into male worlds of leisure,  romance, work, and politics.  However, it would  not be until  the counterrevolutions of the 1960s  and  ’70s that  directly  challenged longstanding assumptions about sex and gender that  the fashion industry would  fully embrace androgyny as a marketing strategy.

Attempts at  androgyny have  often  reflected  social  and  cultural movements in  the  1960s  and  70s.  Second-wave feminism, for  example,  opened traditionally male  professions to  the  working girl who,  in  the  name  of equality, sought pantsuits, slacks,  ties, and  pressed dress  shirts  to signify her  transition from  domesticity  to a position of authority. Working women’s use of androgynous style, however, proved  to be a double bind. Women with long hair and a conventionally feminine appearance often  represented less  of a threat to  the  male-dominated workforce, which  increased her employment and  advancement opportunities. To ensure the  continuation of women’s femininity, today’s  designers soften  women’s work  clothes to prevent women from  losing  their  feminine identity. Thus, a blazer may be thrown over a blouse to support a professional appearance.

In the 1960s,  males once  again began  to play with androgynous styles, but this time it was all about hair. Men’s  visits to barber  shops declined and, more  often than not,  they  simply  grew their  hair  long  or frequented unisex  salons. In order to adapt  to this new trend, beauty  salons  often  dropped traditional symbols  of effeminacy, such  as a pink  and  frilly décor,  and  transformed the  beauty shop into a more  gender-neutral space.  While  long  hair  stood in contrast to the  crew cut, something that  was highly  significant against  the  backdrop of the Vietnam War, rock  and  rollers  contributed to androgynous fashion trends on both sides of the Atlantic. The  Beatles’ girlish mop  tops gave rise to an older generation’s concerns that  “you  can’t  tell  the  boys  from  the  girls.”  Indeed, a hippy  aesthetic seemed to create  as much debate as any political  stance. By the  1972  Nixon-McGovern campaign, politics  and  style  had  completely intertwined  and  returning POWs (prisoners of war) were sometimes shocked by pictures of their  long-haired adolescent sons  and  their  support of antiwar  politics.  The  Vietnamese, cast through the  gaze of war, were caricatured as inverting gender norms, making men  effete and women masculine, all of which, it has been noted, added  to the sense of shock for returning POWs  while fueling  conservative reactions that  associated a decline in traditional American values  with women wearing  unisex  pants, shaggy-haired men,  and  left-wing  movements. And in popular culture, the  most  visible symbol of androgyny in 1972  was rock  star David  Bowie, whose  hot-orange Ziggy Stardust  look gave rise to the 1980s  mullet—a style popular regardless of gender.

A gay aesthetic would  also  have  profound effects  on  the  advertising industry. In the 1970s,  the nude male photography exhibited by Wilhelm Von Golden, Robert  Mapplethorpe, Arthur Tress, and other gay photographers also influenced designers to use  the  male  body  to advertise  their  men’s  lines  in ways that  challenged  prevailing notions of gender distinction. Calvin Klein, the famous fashion designer and founder of Calvin Klein, Inc., integrated masculine depictions of the male body into fashion advertising and merchandising after visiting the Flamingo bar in New York City. Not  only did CK ads recast  the  male body  in erotic  poses of vulnerability and  sensuality commonly associated with the  female  model, but ads selling CK One,  a fragrance for either  sex, relied  on the  youthful embrace of androgyny to sell its product.

In the  late 1980s,  some  fashion observers doubted androgyny would  fully reemerge, but recent trends have proven them  wrong.  Blue jeans, for example,  once the  epitome of  working-class masculinity, were  transformed  decades ago  into mainstream attire  for either  sex. However, a younger generation of men  are providing a bit of a twist on the once  exclusively male fashion by not simply rejecting the baggy style that  has recently  dominated men’s  lower half, but also purchasing women’s skinny  jeans  such  as those  introduced by Hedi  Slimane of Yves Saint Laurent. As well, both Emo  culture (coming from  style, music, and  an ethos  that embraces rather than masks  emotion) and the conspicuous consumption of metrosexuality encourages an array of fashion trends and  processes that  blur,  if not completely undermining, dichotomous notions of gender and sexuality.


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