Is Menswear the Reason for Gender Inequality?
Coco Chanel revolutionarised womenswear in the 1909 by creating trousers for women to ride horses. In the past, women in dresses, sat side ways when they rode horses, which was simply inconvenient.
In the 1940s Katherine Hepburn pioneered androgynous fashion by wearing loose fitting trousers on and off screen as an A-listed movie star.
In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent created the iconic “Le Smoking” trousers suit for women and since there was no turning back. We have seen numerous female stars wearing trousers and blazers (sometimes without a shirt under the blazer!)on red carpet, and ordinary women wearing suit are now an everyday scene on the tube.
This whole time, what have the men been wearing? Tailored suit, mass produced suit, trackies, jeans, chinos, cheap suit, joggers and suits again. Literally that’s it.
This is not a post to criticise menswear designers. The fact they can create season after season of new suits within the limitation of menswear are ingenious. And of course, we know people have created dresses for men, such as John Galliano and J.W. Anderson. Unfortunately, this trend wasn’t copied by the high street (as much as high street brands are so good at copying high fashion!).
When a person assigned the gender ‘male’ at birth but ultimately want to become a woman,there must be multiple reasons for this need. I believe one of them would be to embrace femininity, which in the most superficial level, would be womanswear, this includes make up, dresses and shoes, a lot of shoes.
I can’t help by wonder, what if, in this most superficial level, everyone can just wear whatever they want? When men can just wear dresses, heels and Birkin bags on a daily basis, and without the need to dress up as a drag queen, or as a Scotsman, would this make the lives of men who self identify as women, a lot easier, immediately?
We must remember that when women first started wearing trousers, it was so frowned upon! In 1870s (150 years ago), the French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt wore trousers on stage, and the society almost cancelled her. It took another 30 odd years for Coco Chanel to sort it out and for society to accept women in trousers.
Society, as a incoherent group made up of diverse individuals, will always be full of contradictions and slow to accept changes. But look, we are 150 years late in making menswear diverse, we are 150 years late in allowing everyone to wear whatever they want. This is how slow the society has been.
My favourite Hollywood rom-com actress is Meg Ryan. She’s known for her short hair, shirt/trousers combo as a big city strong working woman looking for love. But no men in movies ever wear dresses, except maybe Nick in New Girl wore a pyjama dress once, but Jess didn’t like it; or Jonathan van Ness in Queer Eye (fierce!).
All the Avengers superheros have muscles and are super “masculine” (except for Ant Man, my favourite). Hollywood, please create a bloody superhero with a dress on! Especially if you dared to put underwear on top of a pair of spandex for superman. Put a men in dress for Kingsman and James Bond! Change public discourse with stage, theatre, art and social media, so the society can get used to it.
Daniel Craig, in the movie Flashbacks of a Fool, played the role of a self-indulgent Hollywood actor. There was a scene where he put concealer under his eyes after a hardcore night out and was nastily exposed by his family. God, give the men a chance.
Industries, do something. We are 150 years late.
