Rightholder illustrations   Nicolas Ruel   Image caption    On the model is a style from the men's collection of Jean-Paul Gautier in autumn / winter 1995-96.

Men reign on the podium as if they had borrowed clothes from a woman’s wardrobe, and an exhibition of works by designer Jean-Paul Gautier, who rethought the concept of gender identity, opened in Paris. Will androgynous styles enter the arsenal of mass fashion? Find out the correspondent.

Italy is famous for its handsome macho. The more recent Gucci show in Milan looked all the more strange: long-haired male models of odious appearance strolled around the catwalk in chiffon and lace, in blouses with large bows, with high waists and flooring that widened downwards. The rebel, for the first time in the history of this venerable Italian fashion house, so eroded the framework of gender identity, was the new creative director of Gucci Alessandro Michele.

There were other surprises. What did Gucci look like? The models were dressed eccentrically and looked like boys.

Gucci House is not alone in its preferences. A mixture of gender stereotypes can be seen in dresses by JW Anderson and Meadham Kirchoff, and in the recent men's collections of Saint Laurent, Prada and Givenchy you will find skirts, high-heeled boots, chiffon blouses and an abundance of pink shades.

The wind of change blew on the catwalk: transgender models are becoming increasingly popular.

We are familiar with the "boyfriend" style - when a woman wears jeans, sweaters, jackets and coats of men's cut, which are great for her and look as if taken from the wardrobe of her man.

Now it's time for the gerfrend style - at least for a select audience spinning in fashion circles. For a fashion enthusiast, being in trend now means being like a woman.

Fashionable women's clothing now bears the imprint of masculinity. Constant guests of fashion shows are dressed in flat shoes and modest outfits. For the past few years, Céline creative director Phoebe Philo has created restrained styles with a masculine character, and now other members of the fashion industry have followed her example.

New trends were reflected in advertising: for the DKNY brand, Cara Delevingne dressed in the same style as the young men surrounding her in the frame, and Actress Julia Roberts in a strict male silhouette became the face of the Givenchy advertising campaign. Another flagship of the gender-neutral fashion turned out to be London Selfridges department store, never lagging behind the latest trends. It opened a whole new department called Agender, where unisex-clothes are presented by 15 different designers.

Gender Revolution

The solemn culmination of the world tour of the exhibition dedicated to one of the trendsetters of androgynous trends in fashion, happened very much in time. The exposition of Jean Paul Gautier’s Fashion World: From the Sidewalk to the Podium opened in the Grand Palace in Paris, home to the famous Frenchman. For nearly 40 years, Gauthier had a huge impact on fashion, and he recently announced his retirement as a designer for a finished dress.

The designer's passion for various transformations, sometimes violating existing rules, led to the erasure in his work of the boundaries between different cultures, subcultures and traditional gender roles. When in 1985 he created skirts for men, a terrible hype arose. It was Gauthier, along with Anne Demelmeister, Martin Margiela, Helmut Lang and the Comme des Garçons brand, that made androgyny one of the defining characteristics of the fashion of the 1980s and 1990s.

The early works of Jean-Paul Gautier were so innovative that many of them were on permanent display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the world's largest museum of decorative and applied art and design.

Oriol Cullen, curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, told the BBC: “Gautier’s work had a place for many different ideas, non-standard models wore clothes on the catwalk, and it was all saturated with joy and positive. He was inspired punk and musical direction "new romance" ( david Bowie was the role model for the “new romantics” - Ed.), he went beyond the framework of gender stereotypes in society. All this was done with great humor. "

It seemed as if the designer wanted not only to entertain the public, but also to teach her an important lesson in terms of gender issues. Gauthier liked to break traditions, for women he sewed unusual clothes with a masculine cut. One of his muses was Edvig Belmore, the Queen of Paris Punk, who inspired the designer to create the legendary bra plus men's jacket ensemble as an outfit.

In an interview with Dazed magazine, published in 2014, Jean-Paul Gautier says: "I grew up surrounded by women, especially I talked with my grandmother.<...>  In France, there is an expression - disgusting, in my opinion - which sounds like sois belle et tais-toi ("be beautiful and shut up").<...>  I realized that this is very unfair. You see, a woman can be with brains and beautiful at the same time. And boys with all their attributes of masculinity are money, power ... Nonsense is everything. "

Dress codes

History knows many examples of wearing clothes designed for members of the opposite sex. According to the curator, Oriol Cullen, the most famous French diplomat, military and transvestite Chevalier d'Eon, who lived in the XVIII century. Half of his life was considered a woman, half - a man.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French surrealist photo photographer Claude Kaon, who was born as a woman, called herself an "gender" (that is, a man without sex).

But when and why did androgyny become a mass hobby?

If we turn to the past, we can see a pattern: often social upheavals were accompanied by fashion on androgynous styles. Kallen believes that the 1920s were particularly significant in this sense: "The female image was gender-neutral: the underwear of that time made the breast flat, as a result, the silhouette was cylindrical, and the hair was cut short." It was not accidental, she argues: "At that time, the formation of the modern world was taking place, many girls began to work and became independent."

Among the first movie stars whose image had androgynous features were the great Marlene Dietrich and Lauren Bacall. And during World War II, functional trousers, rough shoes and men's sweaters were loved by the participants of the Women's Agricultural Army - a British civil organization created to work in the agricultural industry instead of men drafted into the army.

In the 1960s, there was another peak of women's interest in men's clothing, and men - in women. This was associated with the development of counterculture, with the movement for the rights of women and with a change in social mores.

When the Rolling Stones group played in Hyde Park in London, Mick Jagger was dressed in the "men's dress" by British designer Michael Fish, known as Mr Fish. On the other hand, the women's tuxedo, invented by Yves Saint-Laurent in 1966, became a symbol of male style in women's clothing. Here’s how Saint-Laurent himself commented on this issue for Women’s Wear Daily: “The women's tuxedo seemed more modern than the evening gown. It looked somewhat ambiguous.<...>  I created an outfit that looked equally gorgeous on both men and women. "

However, the image was defiant. Known history, as in the restaurant Le Côte Basque, involving evening dress, did not let the New York party girl Nan Kempner, dressed in the legendary tuxedo from YSL. Then she took off her pants, and they let her into the restaurant in one jacket: Kempner pretended that it was a mini-dress.

In the 1970s, celebrities such as actress Diane Keaton as Annie Hall (from the Woody Allen film of the same name) and singer Patti Smith contributed to popularizing men's trends in women's fashion, and artists Bol Bolt and David Bowie tried on female images. Bowie even appeared on the cover of The Man Who Sold the World in a dress by Michael Fish, following in the footsteps of Mick Jagger.

Where did the current fashion for androgyny come from? “The fact is that the new generation is trying to break the established framework,” Oriol Cullen believes. “In addition, this trend reflects the state of modern culture. Interest in feminism has reappeared, which also manifests itself in fashion. We, women, are lucky - we can easily trying on masculine images. The society is now paying much attention to the subculture of transsexuals. In general, sexuality is no longer such a hot topic as it used to be. "

Pioneers of the genre of feminine clothing for men, designers Edward Midham and Benjamin Kirchoff (brand Meadham Kirchoff) share a similar idealism. “We hope to inspire people to express themselves,” said Midham and Kirchoff, BBC, one of whose idols was the legendary gay writer Quentin Crisp. “Express your point of view, rebel, create, invent your own alternative worlds and ways to express yourself, their interests, their opinions and their sorrows. "

Perhaps dressing in gerfrend style is not an easy task for an ordinary guy. As usual, everything depends on their own attitude to such clothes.

According to Nicola Formichetti, the creator of the new unisex brand Nicopanda (among the eccentric outfits of this brand are corrugated boxer shorts, sweatshirt with a hood and a cape of tulle, pastel dresses in a net), "this is for free spiritually people who want to have fun."

Men dressed in women's clothes

Not all men in women's clothes are gay
  It's not about gays. For some reason, we have assumed that if a man has worn something from women's clothing, then he has a different sexual orientation or is out of order with his head.
  Some quite normal men, as it should be, to the female sex, have an irresistible craving for various female things. Sometimes this traction is so strong that it comes to the desire to wear women's things and wear them. All this comes from a combination of strong sexual arousal of a man and the subtle feeling of female beauty, as well as the beauty of women's clothing. Well, who would argue that women wear ugly things ?!

The various elements of women's clothing - panties, tights, stockings, skirts, shoes, and so on - everything is filled with extraordinary grace and has not only a pleasant appearance, but also pleasant to the touch.

Men, like women, are prone to sexual fantasies. In a state of intense excitement, when the erotic imagination is played out with extraordinary power, some of them begin to experiment with dressing up. Wearing women's panties or stockings, shoes or blouses, such a man presents himself as a woman. He wants to feel the charm, tenderness and mystery emanating from him, usually coming from many women. Instinct, forcing him to strive for the female sex, and a sense of his own sexuality excites his mind. Some men, dressed in women's clothes, prefer to masturbate, imagining themselves to be women, inventing female names for themselves, presenting the clitoris in place of the male sexual organ and so on.
  men in women's tights

Another category of men who love to dress in all female, uses it when having sex with a partner. Such a man, among other things, feels somewhat ashamed of what violates generally accepted norms. This shame, on a subconscious level, further stimulates his arousal, bringing in more emotional colors. Accordingly, the man gets more pleasure.
  So not all men in women's clothes are gay. Some of them so fills in their fantasies that they even go on changing sex. But, this delusion is fraught with very strong repentance. Since that which is lost cannot be returned again. And here you need to be very careful and correctly assess your emotional and psychological state. And best of all, first turn to a professional psychologist.
  But if you look at this phenomenon as a whole, then there is nothing wrong with such hobbies of some men, since it does not bear any social harm.
  There are men who love to wear lingerie all the time. The realization that something related to the opposite sex, tactile feelings from touching the body to the clothes make pleasant changes in the emotional background, prevent them from changing in a negative direction, prevent depression. If you like it, if it is pleasant and does not harm others, then why not make it the norm. Let yourself be worn.
Dressing up in women's clothes is sometimes used in role-playing sex games, when a man begins to behave like a woman, and a woman like a man. And this is also not bad, if only you like both. To some extent, such games even strengthen relationships in pairs, giving you the opportunity to feel each other's feelings, to understand the partner more closely and to bring each other more pleasure.

Question to the psychologist:

Good day! I would like to talk about the relationship with her husband.

About a year ago I learned that my husband met with the guys at the apartment when I was on vacation and there they drank, dressed like women and just talked. When I found out there was a very strong scandal, they wanted to get a divorce, I can not perceive how normal it is for a man to dress like that.

After that, we even went to a sexologist, he told us that if it did not go beyond the boundaries of the house, then there is nothing wrong with that, each family has the right to choose how to dress in sex and what to do, but at that time he dressed in bed and nothing more, although I did not like it, but I took it for granted.

But then he was replaced as one, and He offered to go with him to the thematic club, where everyone dresses like that and just see what and how, and then draw some conclusions. I could not agree for a long time, but then I thought that suddenly he would go there and realize that he was different. But alas, after that it seemed to be replaced. On his weekends, he began to paint himself alone at home, to dress, to be photographed, and to spread it on a page on VK.

I bought myself quite often, whether it is money or not, skirts, panties, dresses, stockings, shoes and much more. When I was off, asked me to help pick up something, to photograph it, I gritting my teeth agreed. Then he began to constantly sit in the VC and communicate with people like him until late at night, began to go to clubs in this form - alone, even when I was against it and we were at home with the child. For him it was not a hindrance.

As you lived this year, there were a lot of quarrels. But 1.5 months ago I went on vacation, he was on study leave, called me or wrote a message, I don’t remember anymore, they said they called me to the club, do you mind if I go, I said that it’s against and that we have it was an agreement - not to go separately. He said - well, I understood. As a result, I called him in the evening, he did not pick up the phone, called in the morning - he didn’t pick up the phone again, then the subscriber.

Then, closer to dinner, he called me and said that I was at the institute and the phone was discharged, but by my voice I realized that something was wrong. Then they told me that he was at the club, I told him, he confessed.

In the end, it turned out that 2 of these friends came to our apartment and then they went to the club. Were there naturally until the morning.

I told him right now that I don’t like all of this and that a normal man doesn’t walk around Moscow like that, and he likes it, that his photo likes, that the club looks at him, they can even touch him a little and he is pleased he himself spoke. He said that it relieves stress, it is easier for him and so on. He can not remove, because It will suffer without it, but I can not watch it all.

Instead of going somewhere with me, he sits in the VK and no news where. He got angry and began to collect documents for a divorce, together we are 15 years old, 7 of them have been married, my son is 4 years old.

What do I do, I do not know, swearing all day long, tears flow constantly.

Then he came home from work, we had to have a serious conversation about this whole subject. So he went to the shower and changed into a girl and lies with me, but this is not pleasant and disgusting to me.

Why is this happening, before he did not do it, not only I know, but he also said. Although, when we swear, he begins to say that I am guilty of this, that I devoted little time to him and so on.

I wanted to get a divorce, but at the same time I love him very much.

Help, tell me why this is happening and how should I be ?????

The psychologist Tetenova Yulia Gennadyevna answers the question.

Hello, Eugene!

You ask “why is this happening?” (I understand that this “why” refers to the fact that your husband “changes clothes as a girl”) and how should you deal with this? The first question has no definite answer. Yes, and there is no need to understand this. If this is important for your husband, then he himself will turn to a specialist with a question and will look for answers.

But it is obvious that he absolutely in vain, in a fit of anger, blames you for what is happening, blaming you for not spending much time with him, etc. Many couples do not have harmony in relationships, but this doesn’t cause men to change clothes. You must understand this and not blame yourself for what is happening.

Now let's try to deal with your second question: "how do you do?".

In your letter you have repeatedly repeated that you cannot accept what is happening, that you don’t like it all, it’s unpleasant and even disgusting, but at the same time you write that you love your husband.

You need to deal with your feelings. If you love your husband, are you ready to accept him as he is? Are you ready to put up with his “second” life, his frequent absence, the presence of friends from “that” life? Or is it all at odds with your idea of ​​men, about what should be family life? Answer yourself honestly to these questions. Be attentive to your feelings when making a decision.

Also, Eugene, you write that recently in your family there are frequent scandals on the grounds that your husband changes into women's clothes, but you have not written anything about what your relationship was before this situation occurred. The husband reproaches you for not paying enough attention to him, if this was the case, did you talk with your husband about the topic, is it possible to change his behavior, if your relationship improves, if you give him more time? What does he think about his need to change clothes? What does he want in family life in general? How does he see your future relationship? What is your role?

Talk to your husband, ask him all these questions. And, based on his answers, draw conclusions. Can you live as he offers you? Will you feel satisfied? Rating 4.40 (5 Votes)