The 21st century has witnessed a lot of milestones when it comes to the progression of gender movements. This includes movements as monumental as women clinching high-profile and coveted positions in the world of politics and corporations down to movements that blur the line between men and women’s fashion—the unisex movement.
What is the unisex movement?
The unisex movement is one of the many eras of the fashion industry that enables everyone—regardless of their gender—to live in the comfort of their authentic preferences when it comes to expressing themselves through their appearance.
As a human’s main way of communicating with the outside world and the people around them is their appearance, a great deal of effort to give people more wiggle room when it comes to the array of choices they have was made. Fortunately, the efforts were fruitful and gave way to more ways of expression for the masses.
The movement to eradicate the restrictive line between men’s and women’s fashion gave birth to the gender-neutral trend. It gave designers a way to design apparel without letting the gender of their consumers restrict their innovations. As a result, the said consumers were given more choices—the unisex movement and its offspring gender-neutral trend made men and women’s apparel accessible to everyone.
How is the gender-neutral trend helping people express themselves better?
As we all know, some people prefer apparel in the men’s section. Some like women’s section products, and others are previously conflicted ones—the consumers looking for apparel without designs and marketing geared towards either section mentioned. The ones looking for gender neutrality when it comes to the way they dress.
It has given all people with converging preferences in style freedom to stay in the neutral zone of the highly gendered world of fashion. Runway shows showcase more gender neutrality in style and through models with androgynous looks. It is their way of inspiring consumers to help them blur the restrictive gender line in fashion.
It is not the gender-neutral fashion trend alone that opened up ways for better self-expression. It is also the unisex movement itself—the movement gave people their awaited green light when it comes to using fashion items such as the most basic ones like denim jeans, loose tops, sturdy bags, and different hats.
If you rely on fashion as your way of self-expression, would you want to be restricted by gender “rules” in choosing your pieces?
Where can we see the impact of the unisex movement?
These days we can see a number of men sporting skirts. But the same cannot be said when it comes to women wearing clothes primarily marketed towards the male population. It has always been women’s fashion that is restrictive when it comes to consumers.
It is not as easy for a man to wear a woman’s blouse as it is easy for a woman to sport a man’s shirt. Can it be attributed to women being better at styling themselves? We will never know. Not every woman is good at dressing themselves. It has never been proven that any gender is better than others when it comes to styling, anyway.
Did the unisex movement affect the way we dress?
The answer can be found in your closet. Take a look and answer these questions:
- Are your apparels now a mix of items from the men’s and women’s section?
- Are you sporting more gender-neutral styles?
- Are you comfortable switching and mixing styles?
If you answered yes to those three questions, it is safe to say that the unisex movement is revolutionizing the way you dress. You are now free to pick any style you want without letting predisposed notions about fashion dictate the way you dress.
The gendered attitude of fashion will stay for a long time—the same attitude is its foundation. It gave birth to innovations that propelled careers and businesses to great heights. It will be hard to get rid of. Maybe doing so is not necessary. It is always good to have choices when it comes to fashion as a form of expressing ourselves. It would not hurt to have more costumes to choose from, right?
The impact of the unisex movement on our style
The impact may not be all-encompassing, but to say the movement did not do anything to change the world of fashion is underestimating the weight of the movement. The unisex movement is impactful enough that it gave groups of people better channels of expression. That fact alone makes the unisex movement monumental in itself.
