Artist: Various
Location: Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, Boston, MA
Dates: March 21 – August 25, 2019
The Gender Bending Fashion exhibition explores the concept of unisex styles and how these trends have been challenging boundaries in gender and fashion for decades. Featuring ensembles from famous designers such as Alessandro Trincone, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent and many more, Gender Bending Fashion surveyed 100 years of haute-couture, ready-to-wear and other famous fashion trends from the 1920s and beyond.
Keep reading for an overview of select popular styles featured in Gender Bending Fashion.
Men In Skirts
The green skirt ensemble to the left, is by Walter van Beirendock and it’s part of his Winter 2017-2018 collection, Woest. Woest in Flemish translates to English as “furious”. Beirendock is well-known for his ensembles that challenge gender convention. The soft pink floral and hooded coatdress in the middle is by Spanish designer Alejandro Gómez Palomo for his collection, Objecto Sexual. Japenese designer Rei Kawakubo is responsible for the floral statement blazer and kilt to the right, for Commes des Garcons.
One Woman Show
Kilted Kin
Who remembers when Diddy sported his famous Irish tartan kilt at MTV’s Crash Glasgow in 2010? This kilted fashion hails from Northern European tradition and is considered typical menswear in this region.
Women in Suits
In the 1990s, power suits from Donna Karan, Armani, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein were trendy and wearing them made a patriarchal statement in society.
Women on Bikes
Designers and trendsetters began using fashion to disrupt the paradigm of the traditional skirted woman and the suited man. Swimwear, bike gear and even motor gear were becoming acceptable unisex and gender neutral fashions.
In the photo above, the ensembles on display from the early 1900s are by (left to right) Wm. H. Hoegee Co. and Brother’s Corset Co.
Tuxedo
Smoking Jacket Style
High Fashion Ensembles
From left to right, the featured ensembles are, Not Equal from the ZerO collection, Boy Walks into an Exotic Forest from Palomo Spain and a suit from Spain’s Fall 2017 Objecto Sexual collection.
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