In this rich examination of gender fluidity in contemporary fashion design, Judith Beyer develops an emerging new theoretical framework for understanding how fashion can blur and challenge gender boundaries: antigender fashion.
How is gender fluidity in contemporary fashion different from 20th century androgyny or millennial unisex styles? Like antifashion, which opposes and challenges fashion, Beyer argues that antigender fashion seeks to dismantle and confront binary gender signifiers. After tracing the history of gender-blurring fashion from Marlene Dietrich's androgynous tailoring to Alessandro Michele's floral Gucci suits, case studies of four high-profile fashion brands reveal the diverse approaches to gender-fluidity in contemporary fashion.
Investigating each case study through multiple theoretical perspectives – from gender studies to gothic horror, cyborg theory to Afrofuturism – Beyer situates antigender fashion in a rich theoretical landscape and illuminates exciting new critical directions for students and researchers. Can antigender fashion influence the construction of contemporary masculinities and femininities – and can it be a catalyst for change?
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
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Develops a compelling theoretical framework for understanding the resurgence of gender-fluidity in contemporary fashion, illuminating exciting new critical directions in fashion studies.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Methodology
Case Study Approach
Materials and Data Gathering
Internet-Mediated Research
Outline
1 Troubling Gender: On the Proliferation of Gender and the Performativity of
Fashion
Sex, Gender, and Performativity
Trans* and the Proliferation of Gender
The Performativity of Fashion: Fashions System of Signification in
Post-Postmodernity
2 Tracing Fluidity: Understanding Moments of Gender-Blurring Fashion
Moment I: Bohemians in the Nineteenth Century
Moment II: Female Masculinities in the 1920s
Moment III: Youth and Countercultures of the 1960s and 1970s
Moment IV: Ck One, Unisex, and Millennial Masculinities
3 Antigender Fashion; or, Why Cant Girls Have Dicks and Boys Have Boobs?
Anti-Fashion and Subculture: Anti-Fashion as Confrontational Dress
Anti-Fashion and Queerness: Anti-Fashion as Oppositional Dress
Anti-Fashion and Feminism: Anti-Fashion as Protest
Philosophical Perspectives on Anti-Fashion: A Dialectical Approach
From Anti-Fashion to Antigender Fashion
4 JW Anderson: The Architecture of Antigender Fashion
Millennial Masculinity and JW Andersons Beginnings
Moment I: (Re-)Building the Architecture of Man and Woman
Moment II: Out of Proportion or Fashioning the Grotesque Antigendered Body
Moment III: The Camp, the Carnival, the Surreal of Antigender Fashion
5 Alessandro Michele and Gucci: The Bricolage of Antigender Fashion
Gender Fluidity Goes Mainstream: The Making and Breaking of Gucci
Moment I: Guccis New Man Antigender Fashion and the Floral Suit
Moment II: Time Leaps, Détournement, and Memory
Moment III: The Bricolage, the Cyborg, and the Post-Human of Antigender
6 Art School: Dressing the Queer and Antigendered Body
Designing with and within Londons Queer/Trans* Community
Moment I: Performing Fashion, Performing Queerness Staging Antigender
Fashion
Moment II: Antigender Bodies In-Between Dressing Intersectionalities or the
Trans*,
Ageing, Fat, and Disabled Body
Moment III: On Gothic Queer Cultures the Uncanny Horror in Art Schools
Antigender
Fashion
7 No Sesso: Styling the Black, Antigendered, and Afrofuturist Body
On Disidentification and Designing for an Inclusive Future
Moment I: Antigender Streetwear
Moment II: Reusing, Recycling, and Remembering
Moment III: Antigender and Afrofuturism
Conclusion
References
Index
Judith Beyer is a fashion scholar and educator. Her research focuses on the intersections of fashion, culture, and identity, particularly gender fluidity and masculinities in contemporary fashion design. She has published in several journals, including Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, ZoneModa and the Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities.
