‘Genderless’, ‘gender-neutral’, ‘gender-fluid’ or the classic ‘unisex’ all describe an approach to fashion that rejects traditional distinctions between male and female clothing, from shapes to patterns to colours – blue for boys, pink for girls; florals for women, checkers for men.
The concept of genderless fashion is not new, but when the French couturier Pierre Cardin put box-shaped dresses on women in the 60s, David Bowie wowed the world with his androgynous style in the 70s, and boyfriend jeans popped up in every fast fashion catalogue of the late noughties, no one was calling it that. And while 20th-century visionaries like Cardin or Austrian-American Rudi Gernreich designed pieces with the intention of subverting sartorial gender norms, their avant-garde creations were not fit for everyday wear and thus failed to do so. Over time, unisex fashion off the rack – despite its best efforts to market itself as versatile and timeless – developed a reputation for being shapeless, unflattering and dull.
“Women want to look like women, and men want to look like men,” Shih-Shun Huang, founder of the Berlin-based gender-fluid label #DAMUR, says of gender-neutral fashion’s historical struggle to stick. “People are not going to expect a man to wear a ruffled dress on the street, and if they do, they will say, damn, you are crazy.”
The world today has a very wrong idea about gender-free fashion, and that is: you have to make the men look like gays.
In the past, unisex fashion has had a hard time gaining mainstream appeal, but an influx of genderless design and an increased demand suggest attitudes are shifting. “Even though it has mostly been smaller brands or individual collections from larger labels that have specialised in genderless fashion so far, gender-neutral clothing and its gender-fluid presentation are becoming increasingly prominent on runways,” Berlin Fashion Week said in a statement referencing the rise of young Berlin labels like #DAMUR, which put non-binary garment design at the centre of their philosophy.
When #DAMUR, known for its playful, colourful streetwear, first launched in 2015, Huang didn’t initially define his brand as gender-neutral. Now, the label emphasises that its designs “don’t abide by gender categories”. “From a business perspective, we have to talk about it. We have to say, hey, we’re unisex,” Huang says, pointing to the growing demand in genderless fashion.
A 2022 Klarna study of over 8,000 adults from the US, Australia and seven European countries, cited by Vogue Business, found that nearly 30% of respondents (and 50% of Gen Z) had at some point purchased clothing “outside of their gender identity”. The trend is on the rise, with the global unisex fashion market projected to expand by 10.82% between 2023 and 2031, according to a recent report published by Market Research Intellect in August.
Welcome to the new age
“I think it’s a genuine revolution. Ten years ago it was very niche to wear genderless clothing,” says Idan Gilony of UY Studio, a Berlin-based label whose founding impetus was rooted in the co-owners’ own wish for unisex garments.
Gilony and his business partner Fanny Lawaez met at university in Barcelona, where they studied fashion design. “We became best friends. We took each other’s clothing and kind of played around with it. And we noticed that it was hard for us to get clothes that fit us both unless they were really oversized.”
Gilony notes a clear change in the brand’s clientele since its founding in 2014. Initially appealing only to subcultures and creative scenes, UY now attracts people from all ages, walks of life and genders with its versatile black and white garments.
Perhaps the most drastic change accounting for this development is the coming-of-age of a new generation. “They’re more brave than us millennials. We were also very brave compared to the boomers, but for a while, we were kind of alone with this fresh thinking, and Gen Z really gave us more confidence that we are doing the right thing,” says Gilony.
We are very, very used to a specific standard, and it is hard to buy different.
Today’s twentysomethings are breaking away from gendered and often oppressive fashion customs. Size zero, ‘sexy’ clothes and high heels – the party shoes of choice for millennial women – are becoming relics of the past.
A July headline in Grazia proclaimed: “Sexy underwear is over, as Gen Z and beyond discover the joys of wireless bras and boxers”, referencing the 2019 cancellation of the Victoria’s Secret underwear show over its lack of inclusivity. (After six years off air and an alleged overhaul, it’s set to return this autumn.) On social media, the trend of the ‘female gaze’ challenges the ‘male gaze’, which traditionally depicted women as objects of pleasure in literature and film.
Simultaneously, Gen Z is embracing a more liberal and experimental approach to clothing. Celebrities like Billie Eilish and Harry Styles, praised for their forward-thinking style choices – loose-fitting over figure-hugging for Eilish, playful dresses, earrings and nail polish for Styles – reflect and set the tone for the style of a new generation.
In December 2020, Styles became the first man to grace the cover of Vogue solo, clad in a ruched Gucci dress, chest hair peeking out and a subheading declaring that “Harry Styles makes his own rules”.
Around that time, Huang noticed a shift in how the press describe his brand. “When we had more fashion shows in 2020, 2021, I realised that journalists used a lot of this wording, saying that we’re gender-free or gender-neutral.”
It’s no coincidence that the terminology is reminiscent of that of the queer movement. As society increasingly fosters an atmosphere in which more and more people feel comfortable openly identifying as transgender or non-binary, gender roles are gradually deconstructed – and fashion mirrors these cultural shifts.
“I think that the design, the style of every fashion brand will always grow together with the customer base and also the climate of politics,” says Huang.
The long and winding road
Despite the uptick in the demand for gender-neutral clothing and cultural shift facilitating it, genderless fashion still faces significant challenges. Everyday fashion labels have not caught on yet, largely due to the time and costs associated with creating genderless clothing that fits male and female bodies equally well.
“The key is a lot of pattern work, extra fittings with different kinds of genders and different kinds of sizes, all the time – which is more work and [costs] more money, definitely,” Gilony explains. “Some of the garments we have to dismiss from the collection, because we can see that it’s not going to look good on everyone.”
The design of every fashion brand will always grow together with the customer base and the climate of politics.
Genderless fashion, as it stands, has limitations – both in terms of the type of garment (swim- and activewear are particularly tricky, says Gilony) and the sizing. The larger a woman’s breasts, for example, the more difficult it is to design a piece that would also fit a male body with a flat chest. Independent brands like UY address this problem by adjusting parts of their collections, making some pieces more “breast-friendly”, as Gilony puts it.
For larger retailers, which already face high return rates due to incorrect sizing, it’s crucial that gender-neutral designers get the sizing right, as Vogue Business emphasised in their 2023 article.
Gilony also criticises labels that continue to prescribe what people should wear. “There’s a lot of brands that have an image of genderless fashion – Balenciaga, for example – but when you go to the website, you still have the men’s and women’s section, and this is to me so not necessary … From a sales point of view, I don’t think it’s smart.”
On the other hand, for real change to happen, customers need to be open to new ideas. “It’s not that society is not ready, but we are very, very used to a specific standard, and it is hard to buy different,” Gilony says.
Similarly, while performers like Harry Styles are lauded for their bold fashion choices, their flamboyant outfits can overshadow the diverse possibilities of gender-neutral fashion.
“I think the world today has a very wrong idea about gender-free fashion, and that is: you have to make the men look like gays,” says Huang. “We should allow people to have the opportunity to wear something new. But if all the gender-free brands only create oversized or a drag-style piece, then how can a more neutral person ever try something to experiment?”
In the face of these hurdles, genderless fashion is gaining momentum, driven by a new, more positive rhetoric. “Fashion can change the narrative,” says Huang. Gender-free fashion is already widening the scope of what’s acceptable for both men and women to wear; he imagines a future where gender labels and expectations in fashion are eliminated altogether.
Gen Z really gave us more confidence that we are doing the right thing.
“My long-term vision is that one day we won’t even need to talk about gender. Customers will simply come in and try on whatever they like and what fits them, without needing to ask if it’s for men or women.” Gilony shares a similar outlook: “Personality – I feel that is the next trend. You’ll want to buy clothes you really feel represent your personality, regardless of the trend, season, title, gender. I think that is the new direction.”
Gilony likens the process of advancing genderless fashion to peeling an onion: “another layer, another label, until you get to the heart”.
While genderless fashion is making headway, the journey has only just begun. But perhaps there’s value in embracing the state of transformation: as Huang concludes, “the most beautiful part”, like with gender, “is always in between.”
