Essay On Genderless Fashion

By Yeo Chia Hui

For the longest of time, gender was the focal point in fashion. We have fashion brands rolling out niche collections, clothing stores adopting gender-specific layout, and separate men and women fashion show. Regardless of the reason behind these decisions, gender binary clothing has been the norm and, in large part, still is.

However, there has been a paradigm shift recently. Along with the rise of the gender fluid movement, the fashion industry has had a social awakening of sort when it embraced the unisex appeal.

"To welcome the future of genderless shopping", last year, department store company, Selfridges, set up Agender. It is a pop-up concept space where items’ colour, fit and style take precedence over gender, and where genderless mannequins were utilised. Fashion label Zara popularised this

In fact, these actions have inspired similar reaction worldwide, including Malaysia.

FOR MEN AND WOMEN

A couple walked into a quaint fashion boutique, and immediately browsed through the collection available. Yet, instead of looking at separate selection, both man and woman were looking at the same item before they each took said clothing in the fitting rooms. What stood out in this incident is that they weren’t browsing matching couple attire. No, what they were interested in was the Him & Her Series.

Designers, Ana Abu and Aimi Ismail, developed this debut unisex collection for the local brand, Anaabu, due to the increased “demand in menswear clothing and the need to provide gender-neutral, comfortable, functional, and versatile outfits”.

“Before this, our customers were mainly women, and whenever they shop here, their partners constantly ask us for a menswear collection. These requests got us thinking, and we decided that rather than a menswear collection, we want to produce a unisex line,” disclosed Ana, who is also the brand’s