London – Gender neutral fashion
seems to be a hot topic lately, Louis Vuitton styled Jaden Smith in a skirt
for its womenswear campaign and brands such as Rick Owens and Vetements are
continuing to push gender fluidity into fashion, and now it seems high
street giant Zara is getting in on the act with its new ‘ungendered’
collection nestled under its casual, more affordable TRF range.
I applaud the high street chain’s idea to be progressive, to help break
down the idea of gender that isn’t just as simple as male or female, but
why then did they decide that ‘ungendered’ translated into boring? The
collection, which actually launched last week with no fanfare, consists of
T-shirts, tops, hoodies, shorts, jogging trousers and jeans, all of which
are in plain grey, white and navy colours.
Now is this genderless or just unisex? Yes, the collection has been
modelled by both a male and a female on the retailer’s website, and yes I
can see that it can be worn by any gender, what I don’t understand is why
genderless equals cosy, loungewear that’s minimalistic and masculine. Is it
really an attempt to produce a genderless collection or just an on trend
rebranding of its unisex basic clothing line, which might I also add
American Apparel has been selling for years.
The news of the collection has been hit with some criticism, mainly for
its lack of style and originality, where are the bold pieces, the items
that do push boundaries – this collection is just clothing that has been
worn by men and women for decades. It isn’t as though Zara has produced a
skirt for women and men, or decided that its floral blouse could cross
genders, I don’t feel like it is a major step away from traditional binary
offerings, but what the collection is doing is putting a spotlight on the
gender conversation.
If
Zara actually wanted to release an ‘ungendered’ clothing line they
could just take the words ‘men’ and ‘women’ off their
current lines.— CN Lester (@cnlester) March 5,
2016
“Zara has boldly released its first Ungendered clothing
line” it’s literally just male coded lounge wear— fay
organa d-5 (@magicaIgirI) March 4,
2016
I know the high street chain isn’t the first, designer brands including
Rick Owens, Vetements, Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, and J.W Anderson
have been pushing genderless fashion, and recently Gucci under the creative
directorship of Alessandro Michele sent male models down the catwalk in
pussybow blouses. Even last year, Selfridges introduced a pop-up called
Agender, showcasing a gender-neutral store. However, Zara is an influential
mainstream retailer in the affordable fashion sector and it will be
interesting to see whether its consumers buy into the gender-neutral
clothing.
Maybe the introduction of the conversation to mainstream fashion will
see other retailers come on board with bolder style options to appeal to
gender fluidity in fashion. This collection for me seems more unisex than
genderless, and more of a stunt surround the name than about highlighting
the conversation, but surely all talk on the subject can only be a good
thing, right?
Images: Zara