Next Year: Gender-Fluid Fashion Hits the High Street

Emboldened by celebrities and the designers they admire, a growing number of consumers are shopping in gender-specific categories. Silhouettes, fabrics, and colors no longer need to conform to traditional dress codes to sell to these consumers. For brands, the shift may be at a tipping point, prompting industry leaders to consider how best to act to shift consumer expectations.

Gender has long influenced fashion, and even amid the shift to haphazard, gender is embedded in today’s business practices. Therefore, introducing gender fluidity into product collections may require a hands-on upgrade to operating systems that have been used in the fashion industry for decades. The size, fit, and shape of a garment determine the key differences between men’s and women’s fashion, but there are more subtle distinctions as well. Buttons continue to feature heavily on different sides of men’s and women’s shirts, for example, a practice thought to date back to the Renaissance when upper-class women were dressed by servants, but upper-class men dressed alone.

The shift towards gender-fluid fashion is partly driven by changing cultural and social attitudes towards gender in different regions and generations. In recent years, many people have developed a greater acceptance and understanding of sexual orientations and gender identities, and today’s younger generations often view gender identity as a spectrum, rather than a binary.

Examples of these attitudes can even be discerned in many countries or regions where gender inclusion and sexual inclusion are less established. For example, in Kenya, local brands like Vivo and Sevaria are creating collections based on gender-inclusive designs and working with fabrics that traditionally appear only in womenswear, such as silks, but for menswear.

Exploring new categories

“Gender neutral is not a trend, it’s a reality,” said Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Loewe and founder of the JW Anderson brand, in 2021. “My whole philosophy is that you can’t tell people what to wear. It is not allowed to say: I want this to be bought by a woman or a man”.

According to research by fintech company Klarna, around 50% of Gen Z globally have bought fashion outside of their gender identity, and around 70% of consumers say they are interested in buying fashion from gender fluid in the future, with the younger generations leading the way. the way.

Another survey found that Gen Z respondents under the age of 20 are more likely to buy products that weren’t designed specifically for their gender, with 56 percent of the cohort saying they buy clothes that aren’t gender categorized at all. This point of view is likely to become more prominent in the marketplace as Gen-Z will soon become the largest cohort of consumers globally. (In the US, Millennials outnumbered Baby Boomers in 2019; Generation Z consumers are expected to outnumber Millennials in 2036.)

The combination of changing attitudes and the influence of pop culture has fueled consumer demand for gender-fluid fashion. On the fashion app Lyst, searches for terms including “genderless” and “gender neutral” increased 33 percent in the first half of 2021. In South Korea, the number of posts about genderless fashion increased the most double in 2020 on search engine Naver. This change is already translating into sales, as can be seen in handbags, a category that traditionally caters to women. Luxury resale site The RealReal reported that the growth of interest in Birkin bags has increased twice as fast among men as it has among women, and resale marketplace StockX said there is an even split between men and women among the consumers who shop within their handbag section.

Designer and luxury fashion brands have embraced their own versions of gender-fluid fashion by choosing androgynous models or dressing male models in feminine looks, and vice versa. In the fashion capitals, some brands have explored gender expectations in their recent casting and runway styling: Raf Simons styled male models in dresses and nail polish, while Maison Margiela sent both male and female models down the runway. from Paris with skirts and high-cut boots. . Meanwhile, in New York, emerging brands like Private Policy and Eckhaus Latta present gender-fluid collections each season with a diverse cast of models. The change can also be seen in footwear: Christian Louboutin has launched a capsule collection featuring high-heeled boots in men’s sizes.

Embracing gender-fluid fashion can be complex, especially when you factor in cultural differences between markets. Fashion leaders may consider creating diverse workforces to help strengthen their understanding of discourse and ensure that companies avoid token projects that may be perceived as lacking in sincerity or authenticity. Brands and retailers could also train store associates to help customers shopping across gender lines find the right fit, with an understanding of how sizes translate into gender items.

It is essential to align gender fluid fashion with the way consumers conceive of gender. In the past, some brands have responded to changing norms by introducing a third, distinct “unisex” category, often with smaller assortments of oversized, minimalist garments. Various commentators have criticized these attempts as being “boring” or “baggy” and lacking in authenticity. While unisex fashion has been around since the 1960s, having a unisex line today may not be accurate enough to cater to the perspectives of younger generations across a gender spectrum.

As fashion leaders look to meet the demand for gender-fluid fashion in 2023, they must consider how their marketing, product design, store design, and merchandising can evolve. One factor is appropriate, since sizing conventions in the fashion market are established based on gender. Even brands that have embraced gender-fluid clothing, like Gucci, still design some of those items based on women’s or men’s sizing conventions. Brands that are committed to offering gender-fluid fashion can develop new size charts, which target a broader range of customers. Retailers with physical networks can also address fit challenges by offering in-store alterations or custom designs.

Modernized merchandising techniques can help brands sell products to a broader range of customers. Online luxury boutique Ssense, for example, features men’s pieces in its womenswear offering based on “cut, fit, size or style,” according to Brigitte Chartrand, its senior director of womenswear buying.

Other brands have removed gender categories for all or part of their collections. New York-based brand Phluid Project does not segment its clothing by gender and creates designs using a custom sizing model. Uniqlo designed a “Made For All” collection that was marketed with both men’s and women’s collections, both online and in stores. Reselling platform Depop doesn’t filter its inventory by gender unless customers opt-in, and it recommends products based on a shopper’s past purchases rather than gender categories. These strategies give shoppers options to choose to browse genre categories as they wish and consider buying more products than they might otherwise have.

starting small

Brands that decide to make more room for gender-fluid collections could start with small changes aimed at their most receptive customers first. Younger shoppers, especially those under the age of 20, are the most likely to search and buy across gender lines. Marketing can be tailored accordingly, through casting and campaign imagery. When Uniqlo announced its 2022 collaboration with Marni, for example, its campaign featured men and women wearing a mix of pieces from the entire offering.

Some geographies may have a ready customer base, such as North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea, where perceptions of gender identity in fashion are more nuanced.

Fashion companies can consider the many ways they already engage with customers looking for gender-fluid products and use those touchpoints as learning opportunities. Brands that offer cosmetics and fragrances can also share what they’ve learned with their fashion teams. Gender fluid fragrances accounted for 51 percent of all fragrance launches in 2018, up from 17 percent in 2010, and more than 50 percent of men today say they use facial cosmetics.

Customer focus groups or employee task forces can help brands hone their understanding of what gender-fluid products their existing customers want to see. Collaborations are another way to test gender-fluid products, especially for larger brands that want to learn from smaller ones that have more experience serving customers across all genre lines. When Calvin Klein collaborated with Palace in 2022, for example, the collection of oversized denim, hoodies, and underwear wasn’t categorized by gender.

Similarly, brands can try different merchandising approaches in stores and online, eliminating or mixing gender categories and looking at how customers shop differently.

After building a knowledge base and product testing, companies can progressively integrate gender fluid products and strategies into their businesses. From the design process to major seasonal campaigns and store design, brands can leverage a variety of strategies to modernize their approaches and develop ideas around gender norms. These changes are likely to only become more important as Gen Z consumers mature and their purchasing power grows.

This article first appeared on The state of fashion 2023an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company.

Source: news.google.com