When we walk into a clothing store the first thing we are told to do is navigate to either the men’s, women’s or children’s section. Stores like this do not have any scope for a gender neutral line. It’s the same thing online, most apps only give me cis gender options.
A few fashion trends can actually change the way we dress–gender fluid clothing is the next big thing and I’ll tell you why.
Unisex garments are designed with no specific gender in mind. Society has tried to enforce that there are only two genders and they have a specific way to dress. Gender neutral fashion breaks constructs and does away with concepts like trousers just for men and dresses just for women.
And when you think about it, it does more than just that.
Tanmay Saxena, the founder of LaneFortyfive, a London- based unisex label said, “It’s already very hard to break the metaphorical walls and create equality in the times we live in. I feel unisex clothing is a small but effective way to roll out a line of conversation towards a broader dialogue about equality.”
Unisex clothing has been around for a while, but only recently has it made it to the high street. What made this change was that many customers of haute couture brands didn’t want to be defined by the label on their clothes or the section of the store in which they shopped. Fast fashion soon followed suit.
Celebrities helped drive unisex clothing to the forefront and along with street fashion, high fashion also started to change. For example, Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director, had a significant impact since he introduced pussy bows and lace shirts in his first menswear shows in 2015. Only svelte and androgynouse models worked in his shows. Michele transformed Gucci and the rest of the luxury fashion set followed.
“We don’t want to assign a gender to any of our products, Equl stands for gender neutrality. It is who we are!” said Charu Sharma, Founder of our very own, Equl.
Charu continued to tell me what actually went behind creating our unisex clothing line, that just launched,
“While creating this collection our main focus was to create a clothing line which was comfortable and attractive, something that you could wear at home and outside, something for everyone no matter your gender or body type. We wanted to create a line which made people feel good. Breaking stereotypes is a big part of that.We’ve worked on this collection for a year and a half now and have seen our product develop in stages. Our colours, to all the designs, are gender neutral keeping only our customers in mind.”
As Tanmay Saxena says, “A chef does not care for whether the food will be eaten by a person of a specific gender.” So why should we care about whether we wear ‘male’ or ‘female’ clothing? If you like a piece of clothing and it fits in the way you intended, buy it – gender shouldn’t come into it.
We need to be able to wear what we feel most ourselves in and having just two choices of styles – male and female- isn’t enough and it doesn’t represent the world we live in or who we are.
Plus, clothing based on stereotypes is sooooo out of style
Equl is proud to announce their first clothing line as part of Equl store. The line features unisex comfort wear and we couldn’t be happier. Everything Equl sells will be gender neutral and we can’t wait for you to try them!
