Thursday, February 18, 2010

Gender bending?



The fashion industry is one of the most confusing and complex industries out there. It's beyond just what is "in" style and what is "out" of style. In fact, the fashion industry is one of those industries where what is presented through fashion magazines, editorials, advertisements, and fashion campaigns seems to be aimed at the wrong audience. Why are all the faces of most male models, who are supposed to be selling masculine clothing for men, clean shaven, made up and airbrushed to the point where their faces look feminine? Why are androgynous looking female models the more well paid and well known supermodels?

It's difficult to understand an industry that cranks out clothing for men and women to wear and trends for them to follow when the faces representing the clothes and trends seem to be the opposite of their intended target. Almost every men's fashion magazine that I open has advertisements for brands that show men in either really masculine, almost lumberjack like clothing, or they have men who are selling suits and ties but look almost completely feminine. I mean seriously, it's a men's magazine. Why would men who look like adolescent girls with short hair represent a fashion label that makes clothes for fit men who look more masculine?
It's not very different in women's magazines, either. Models like Agyness Deyn, Ranya Mordanova, and Omahyra Mota, who look very androgynous with short haircuts, minimal makeup, and have flatter chests, walk runways all over the world and are deemed the ideal supermodels for haute couture and ready to wear collections. The confusing part is the people who buy the clothing that those models wear down runways don't look anything like the models at all. I don't think Jessica Alba or Angelina Jolie would be called androgynous looking, yet they are the ones buying the latest dresses from designers who love to use androgynous models. It's weird because most people don't think of men airbrushed in makeup and women with short hair, but the fashion industry features many of these "gender benders" in every photograph.

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