Difference Between Fashion And Androgyny

“Clothing, as one of the most visible forms of consumption, performs a major role in the social construction of identity. [..] Clothing is one of the most of the most visible markers of social status and gender.” (Crane, 2000, p.1). Buckley and Fawcett (2000) draw attention towards how fashion articulates different aspects of identity out of which gender is distinguished like no other, because clothes are used as a visible social marker to show gender differentiation. Fashion has closely been associated with gender and hence, looked up to when talking about gender. Enwistle (2015) quotes Suthrell (2004:2-3) where she analysed cross dressing and said, “’clothing is unusual in artefactual terms because it allows us to play- temporarily or permanently-

It is made up of two words andro- male and gyn- female (Case, 1995, p.19). For most periods, androgyny was not given any meaning except for a ‘fad’ that appears in fashion every once in a while. It appeared in fashion 1920s, then after the First World War, it was popularised in the Sixties by David Bowie and Boy George through unisex fashion, in 1980s by punk movement and then in 1990s through the representation of androgynous models (Gligorovska 2011, p-10 and 12). Davies (1992, p. 34) argues about the adaptation of androgynous clothing amongst men and women. He suggests that androgynous clothing has been incorporated by women during times of great distress to exhibit power which is associated with men and masculinity. Women have tried to display power through fashion with military jackets, tattooing, jumpsuits, men’s footwear, suspenders, trousers, underemphasised breasts, no makeup, boy’s haircuts etcetera over time. He also asserts that men have only flirted with the idea of adopting clothing that suggest femininity irregularly and