Gender-neutral fashion is all the rage, and these are the people to thank.
Men are smudging the fine line between gendered fashion norms. This has become more popular in the past couple of years, but this gender-bending fashion movement has been happening for years.
David Bowie
The gender-bending fashion movement did not come out of the blue. The 70s were filled with celebrities that always broke the barrier in fashion gender roles.
There is no doubt that David Bowie, the famous singer-songwriter, challenged gender norms immensely throughout his life.
Bowie flaunted heels, blouses, one-legged catsuits, makeup and dresses while preforming throughout his career. The well-known Ziggy Stardust makeup on the cover of his album Aladdin Sane revolutionized not only the makeup world, but also the gender-bending fashion movement. It showed that men and women could wear makeup and look good.
Photographed in multiple gender-fluid outfits while preforming, attending events and photoshoots, his outfits and gender fluidity is still remembered and celebrated today.
Elton John
Elton John is an inspiration to not only famous fashion designers such as Gucci and Versace, but he also inspired recent popular icons like Harry Styles. John is known for his flamboyant gender-fluid stage costumes. He was not afraid to throw out the ideas of toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes.
John flaunts dresses, wigs, bedazzled jumpsuits and his iconic tinted eyewear in his wardrobe. John unapologetically was who he was whether he was performing or not. The wardrobe John has off and on stage pushed gender lines, especially in the time of the 1970s and 1980s, where gender identity was only recently being questioned.
Prince
Prince will always be the icon that pushed every boundary when it came to fashion. Just like everyone else on this list, Prince wanted to feel unique and confident in his clothing. He didn’t let people put him into a box and tell him what he could and could not wear based on his race and gender identity.
In many of his songs he spoke about the boundaries that society puts on people.
Where I come from, we don’t let society tell us how it’s supposed to be. Our clothes, our hair, we don’t care.
Prince, ‘Uptown’
Prince embraced colorful, patterned and feminine garments in his day-to-day wardrobe. His style choices will continue to inspire people to take risks with their clothing and not to let society determine what you can and cannot wear.
Harry Styles
The former One Direction member has been making headlines in the last couple of years, gaining more popularity, not from just his emerging solo career, but also his sense of style.
Styles embraces flared pants, loud patterns, heeled boots and sequined suits as well as the occasional dress here and there.
Styles takes fashion inspiration from Elton John, and surprisingly Shania Twain, who he stated in a Vanity Fair interview as being his main inspiration for both music and fashion.
The most recent gender-neutral fashion statement Styles made is on the cover of Vogue magazine, where he was photographed wearing a dress. When interviewed by Vogue, Styles stated that the “barriers” defining what was men’s and women’s clothing are “crumbling away.”
It’s like anything – anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself. There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes.
Harry Styles in Vogue
All of these performers broke down the barriers to gender-neutral fashion. They show that fashion is not limited to what your gender identity is, rather it is something you can create.
David Bowie, Elton John, Prince, Harry Styles and many more gender-neutral fashion icons will be an inspiration to many.
