Week 4

Gender and sexuality

I find it odd to believe that it was not until the seventeenth or eighteenth century that male and female dress was clearly distinguishable. I always thought of male and female dress being unique to gender. To think of them being similar with our physical differences seams a hard concept to come by. Now in the twentieth-first century we have come along way and can clearly identify between the male and female dress. However in saying this they have still influenced each other throughout the twentieth century up to today. Designers such as Anne Valérie Hash have looked to men’s wear for inspiration for female designs.

There is also a lying tension between females wanting to be feminine but wanting to be taken seriously in the professional world. Power dressing for females from the 80s resembles this, with the use of exaggerated shoulders and tailored cuts.

Regardless of trends and fashions I think there will also be a curiosity about how far designers can ‘play’ with the idea of men and female designs. But nevertheless I still believe women will always want to feel sexy and a male will want to be masculine. This is an inbuilt trait that is part of who we are.

‘Today androgyny has ceased to be sacred. Modern fashion plays endlessly with the distinction between masculinity and femininity. With it we express our shifting ideas about what masculinity and femininity are’ (Gender and Identity p.122). 

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