ar store on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles last week.
Stocking a range of 90s-inspired clothing and lifestyle products amidst vintage magazines and CDs and collaborations with cult favourite brands, such as Stray Rats and Cactus Plant Flea Market, Heaven mixes pop culture references with positive messages of self-love, encouraging customers to “always be yourself” and “never try to hide who you are”.
It’s an attitude that resonates with younger consumers, who not only value inclusion more than previous generations, but also are more likely to identify as non-binary or third-gender, according to a 2018 survey by Deloitte. And it’s flowing through to the way the dress.
“Gen Z [is] the first generation set to be relatively gender neutral. They simply don’t focus on gender or sexuality, and are open to disregarding gender-based approaches to fashion,” Jaana Jätyri, Trendstop founder, told Inside Retail.
Celebrities, such as Harry Styles, 27, and Timothee Chalamet, 25, have made it cool to wear makeup, jewellery and traditionally female clothing, such as dresses and blouses, as a form of self-expression, rather than an outward sign of their gender identity.
“There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes,” Styles said in an interview in the December 2020 issue of Vogue, where he appeared on the cover in a Gucci dress. “I’ve never thought too much about what it means — it just becomes this extended part of creating something.”
Clothes are just clothes
Recent years have seen major brands, including Zara and H&M, tap into this trend with the launch of the launch of gender-neutral and unisex clothing collections. But some of them have missed the mark.
This could be because of the subtle differences between unisex, androgynous, gender-neutral and gender-fluid fashion and how these terms are understood by brands and consumers.
“Describing gender fluid and non-binary clothing is tricky, unless we look at specific lines by non-binary designers,” Dr Emily Brayshaw, an honorary research fellow at UTS, told Inside Retail.
“Clothing is always gender coded, even our most seemingly ‘neutral’ clothing. I think it’s how people wear it. How non-binary and gender-fluid people choose to perform their gender through dress is what is important.”
One of the key problems, according to Brayshaw, is the tendency for gender-neutral clothing to be geared towards young, slim and adrogynous people, when non-binary and gender-fluid people actually are all shapes and sizes.
“You can have an hourglass figure and be non-binary,” she pointed out.
That’s why, instead of redesigning clothing for consumers who might have a more fluid understanding of gender, Brayshaw believes retailers should focus on redesigning their spaces and marketing.
Removing in-store signage for men’s clothing and women’s clothing and replacing it with signage for dressers, skirts and trousers, and using more non-binary, gender-fluid and trans models in marketing are good first steps, she said.
“Clothes at the end of the day are just clothes. It’s how we wear and style them that is important. Who says boys can’t wear pink? Who says girls can’t wear camo print? What does gender neutral mean anyway? Is it a simple pair of jeans? People should be encouraged to dress in a way that makes them feel good, regardless of their gender.”
