Genderfluid fashion is making a mark on the mainstream and its latest insurgence into High Street children’s wear is turning the tide of tradition. British department chain John Lewis has courageously faced controversy by introducing unisex items and banishing girls and boys labels from their children’s collections.
Topshop, H&M and Zara are just a portion of pioneering fashion brands that have previously blurred the sexes and dabbled in the androgynous with female boyfriend jeans/boxer shorts and male jewellery/floral shirts. Cultural history has also brought forward gender activists over the years; the 70s and Mr.
Bowie are not easily overlooked! But it seems that clothing has not encountered such an extreme sense of feminine and masculine ambiguity since the toga back in the BC Roman times.
Frida Kahlo
A recently resurrected Mexican painter who defines the zeitgeist of this free-spirited time is Frida Kahlo. Much media attention has been currently cast upon Frida’s legacy due to Prime Minister Theresa May’s unanticipated bracelet adornment at October’s Conservative Conference, and which featured the artist's face.
Frida is a woman hailed as much for her candid artistry as her activism and refusal to conform to the rigid 1930-40’s conventions of feminine beauty. Her paintings harmonised pain with passion and her brush strokes synchronised honest personal poetry and taboo topics such as abortion, infertility, marital struggle and divorce.
Her work was also underpinned in unity with visual symbolism of her connection to nature, animals and the universe. Frida Kahlo was very much her own person and lived free from societal stipulation. She refused to pluck her now heroic monobrow and facial hair and felt no shame in letting loose and dressing as a boy for family portraits.
Catwalk and High Street Style
Vivienne Westwood, Dolce and Gabbana, and Gucci are fashion giants who have all paid homage to Frida Kahlo through their clothing designs on the catwalk. Frida’s inner fire has ignited their shows with flower crowns, colonial earrings, flowing skirts, baroque embellishments and parrot appliqué.
The Mexican look can also be imitated with your own unique twist, online and across the High Street by any gender with flower accessories from eBay, Mexican blouses from Etsy and maxi skirts from Monsoon and House of Fraser (a quick Google will no doubt add to the variety of suppliers). With these replicas, you can project your inner Frida Kahlo, as her clothing and courage (as yours also can) know no bounds.
