Where’s the fun in looking like everyone else? Designers are asking the same question.
Conformity and authority have always been the enemies of new trends—until something catches on, and everyone joins in and claims they were doing it before it was cool. The essence of style and cool is something that makes you stand out in a crowd, and the easiest way to do that is break some rules—one of which is wearing clothing not marketed to your gender.
Growing up, I followed the trends, but I tried to do it with my own twist. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. As a guy, when I started growing my hair long in high school, my friends made fun of me, but a year later they all had long hair. When I put highlights in my long hair, they made fun of me again, but a year later none of them had followed suit. High school can be complicated.
When you get older, fashion becomes less profound and less statement driven, but “rules” can still be broken in different ways, such as favouring function over fashion. A co-worker of mine wears snowboard boots. They might look stupid, they might even be a bit hard to walk in, but he wants his feet to be warm, and I’m sure they are.
Who says these rules, ideas, and beliefs we are taught have to be followed? If a piece of “women’s” clothing looks good on me or another male and serves its purpose of keeping me comfortable and stylish, then who’s to say it should be labeled as women’s clothing? Why are the designers or the people marketing this item of clothing given such authority?
If Kellogg’s suddenly started trying to sell ketchup with its cereal and telling people that you were supposed to put your cereal in that instead of milk, most people would say “that’s disgusting” and stick to milk. But there’d also be some people who would try the ketchup, and maybe even like it enough to make the switch permanent. There’s nothing wrong with that either.
There’s some reason and logic to gender assigned fashion. Sometimes it’s function—such as bras or the way pants are shaped to fit a specific shape—but most clothing doesn’t work for exclusively one gender. At the end of the day, very few of these things should be thought of as “rules.” But surely there are some rules, right? In an effort to discover what these were, I did some research, which involved trying on my girlfriends bikini bottom while she wasn’t home. Turns out that one’s a rule.
