Zara’s ‘Genderless’ Fashion Is Eerily Similar To Its Men’s Line
You make up your mind.
Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at the fashion industry’s attempt to be ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘open-minded’.
Having one Black model in a fashion show among 30 white ones doesn’t equal diversity, casting a slim model and calling her ‘plus size’ doesn’t tackle body image issues, and putting an ‘ungendered’ label on men’s clothes doesn’t make Zara the go-to brand for the LGBT community.
When I first heard Zara had released a collection called Ungendered, I got excited and imagined androgynous dresses, lots of gender-neutral prints and a variety of suits. But a few perceptive Zara fans have pointed out the line looks near identical to its menswear collection.
Fashion lovers are also questioning the validity of deeming a pair of plain jeans, a white tee or standard hoodie ‘ungendered’, weren’t both sexes wearing them already?
In fact, as it turns out, you can literally get a carbon copy of each piece from the Ungendered collection in the menswear section of Zara; just try and compare the ‘ungendered’ pieces on the left to the menswear items on the right…
1. Straight-leg jeans
2. Loose-knit sweater
3. Sweat pants
4. Plain white tee
5. Hoodie
Is it just me, or is this perhaps not the groundbreaking move we initially thought it was?
Most social media reactions seem to reflect this sentiment, with some suggesting it would have been better to eliminate any gender-based tags instead of creating a third, superfluous one.
If Zara actually wanted to release an 'ungendered' clothing line they could just take the words 'men' and 'women' off their current lines.
— CN Lester (@cnlester) March 5, 2016
Ultimately, I don’t think there’s a need for genderless fashion.
Instead, we should become more open to shopping in both the menswear and womenswear sections. In other words, just wear whatever the heck you want. It’s hardly revolutionary advice, but at least it makes sense.
Images via zara.com.
Comment: What do you think? Is there a need for genderless fashion? Would you wear Zara’s new collection?
