解 视 物 | 第一期 《 无性别时装 》
JSW | First Episode《 Agender Fashion 》

 

解  视  物  |  第一期  文本内容

 

《 无性别时装 》

 

“无性别时装”这个时尚界的热门话题,是在2016春夏男士时装周上首先被提出来。最具代表性的品牌之一Gucci 在春夏男装上,以1970年代女性着装为灵感,并延续了秋冬欧洲宮廷服的新剪裁,以蕾丝衬衫配高腰牛仔裤、绸缎夹克、蝴蝶结缎带、植物印花紧身西服套装等等款式,表现出男性的柔美感,整场秀以男女混搭的方式出场。 

 

这场秀让Gucci迅速地回到了时尚舞台中央,成为今年最炙手可热的品牌之一,同时也给GUCCI带来了非常大的经济效益。这个营销策略的成功,带动了整个时尚界对“无性别时装”的跟风。甚至淘宝上很多大众品牌的男装都各自推出了以淡粉色为主色调的男款服饰,可见“无性别时装”这个概念已经成为一个流行趋势了。

 

时尚界提出这个“无性别时装”的概念,是想要打破传统语境下男女两性之间的着装法则和着装禁忌,提出服装无需有性别之分。“无性别时装”在目前社会传统定义下标准男性形象范例上添加了女性时装的符号,从而产生一种新的时尚形象的范例,这种形象既不属于传统的男性形象范例,也不属于传统女性形象范例,而是一种新的标准的“理想化形象”范例。

 

时尚界提出男女同款概念,指的是设计出男女相似的款式。例如,从Kanye West与Adidas合作系列上,就出了很多男女同款的服装,几乎分辨不出是男装还是女装。其实男女同款概念也不新鲜,暗黑风格的时装一直都推崇男女同款,代表性品牌有,CCP、BBS、RICK OWENS。所以从男女同款这个角度来理解,“无性别时装”可以等同于“无性别意识着装”。

 

值得特别指出的是:“无性别时装”这个概念无论是从设计层面上还是造型层面上,与穿着者的生理性别和心理性别没有关系,也没有指向特殊的性取向,只是指个人对外表形象的喜好。我们常常会碰到一些常见误区,很多人会把中性化的穿着和同性恋倾向等同起来,或者认为无性别、中性化等同于雌雄同体,例如被时尚主流媒体称为雌雄同体风潮的代表人物David Bowie。“雌雄同体”的专业名称为“双性同体”,在生物学的描述中指同一生物体兼具成熟的雄性性器官和雌性性器官;弗洛伊德曾经提出“潜意识双性化”的理论,是指一个人同时具有男性和女性的心理特征和态势。

 

目前社会上大多数人对某个人是否是同性恋的判断常常会以个人的外在形象和性行为作为参考,这个虽然有一定的参考价值,但是实际分类其实没那么简单,这涉及到一个人固有的三种变量:生理性别,心理性别和性取向,这三者之间是相互独立又是相互关联的。

 

生理性别是指一个人的染色体性别,就是生下来的时候的生殖器性别。心理性别也叫做“性别认同”,是指人们对自己是男人还是女人的一种主观感觉。性取向是独立于生理性别和心理性别的特质,是指一个人在爱情和性欲上对男女两性有何种型态的永久吸引。永久性”是很重要的,因为一个异性恋者可能会发生同性性行为,一个同性恋者也可能会发生异性性行为,这一切的前提是:在特殊的境遇之下。例如,很多女粉丝喜欢中性化的女明星,并不是因为她们有同性恋或者双性恋的倾向,而是被偶像身上帅气的男性特质所吸引。

 

所以一个人是同性恋还是异性恋,通过偶然性行为和外在形象是无法判断的。同性恋者虽然有时也穿戴异性服饰,但是这是因为其行为可能会带有异性特点而喜欢模仿异性的生活,所以这点和“无性别着装”没有直接关系。

 

跨性别、变性、异装癖这三者也经常和无性别、中性化概念混淆。之所以有很多人会产生相关的联想,是因为它们在外在表征上会有一些相似的地方。

 

异装癖是最容易和我们今天谈到的“无性别时装”相混淆,因为两者都表现为男性穿着带有女性符号的衣服。但异装癖是指通过穿着异性服装而得到性兴奋的一种性变态形式,是属于一种心理上的变态疾病,患者主要在男性中居多,他们穿着女性的服装,由此引起性兴奋和达到性满足。

 

这类人群的生理性别和心理性别是一致的,他们并不希望成为异性,而且其性取向也是大众所认为正常的:指向的是异性。所以异装癖和“无性别时装”完全不同,前者是一种因为性行为手段异常而穿异性服装,而后者穿着含有异性设计元素的服装和造型只是个人着装风格的审美趣味,和生理,心理与性行为没有什么关系。

 

“跨性别”是一个集合名词,涉及的范围比较广,简单的概括,就是指那些对其出生时的生理性别没有认同感的人,这个群体可能会觉得自己属于异性或者是也不属于异性的另一种性别。这个概念比较复杂,其中比较有代表性的表现形式就是变性,变性这个概念则和“无性别时装”更好区别:变性,在医学上也称为易性症,是一种性别认同障碍,属于性身份障碍,就是生理性别和心理性别是不一致的,这类人群可能会产生变性的需求。他们在生理上具有明确的性别,但是在心理上觉得自己属于另一种性别。

 

易性症和上文说到的异装癖有一个很大的不同,就是异装癖是属于性变态的范畴,是一种心理疾病。而易性症事实上是先天性存在的,不能归宿到心理疾病类。易性症者也喜欢穿戴有异性特点的服装,但其目的只是为了更像异性,并坚信这种装饰包裹的是一个真正异性的灵魂。

 

另外,还有一个最近常常被提出来的名词是cosplay,它指利用服装、饰品、道具以及化妆来扮演动漫作品、游戏中的角色,也被称为角色扮演,是属于粉丝文化的一部分。Cosplay的coser所扮演的只是和固定角色有关,比如一个男性穿着他所扮演的女性角色的服装和配上相应的妆容,只是因为他扮演的是某个固定角色,和他本身的心理性别,生理性别和性取向都没有什么关系,仅仅是想靠近他所扮演的这个角色而已。

 

所以“无性别时装”的背后并没有指向特定的群体,这个概念的提出,反映了其积极的一面:如今我们处在推崇人文主义、个人主义的多元化社会,传统的男主外女主內的价值观也在不断反思和变革,这样的转变不只影响到了社会地位、职场,甚至对服装也提出了打破传统男女着装规范和禁忌。“无性别时装”是时尚界提出的一种新的形象范例/模式,这显示了我们正在迈向高度文明化的社会,如男女平等,也在一定程度上反映了多元化价值观并存的社会。

 

从另一个角度来看,“无性别时装”这个概念反映了时下集体特征的折射,即千禧世代的我们,特别是以80后为代表的年轻人群体的集体需求,追求个性、自由,而在着装思维上,趋同于无性别,旨在追求个人着装风格,不论男装女装一概接纳。如梁文道的《我执》一书中,有一篇讲述《模式与个人》时,说到流行音乐是一种集体的情感形式,当我们在听这些歌曲时,我们参与了集体身份的塑造。

 

正如哲学家大卫·里斯曼所言:今天最需求的,既不是机器,也不是财富,更不是作品:而是一种个性。作为千禧世代的我们热衷于追求的个性,真的给我们每一个人贴上了独特的标签么?还是只是标明了我们对某种范例/模式或是符号的服从呢? 

 

下期我们将继续讨论由“无性别时装”这个现象,引申出消费社会的基本概念,以及在消费社会下,时尚与个人主义、亚文化、反文化、艺术之间的关系。

刘圆圆 金晶

JSW | Text Content of the First Episode

《 Agender Fashion》

A hot topic in the recent fashion industry, “Agender fashion”, was first put forward in Men’s Fashion Week 2016 Spring/Summer. One of the most representative brands is Gucci. Inspired by women’s dresses released in 1970s, Gucci applied the new cutting method used in European autumn and winter court dress to the new series of clothes including lace shirt with high rise jeans, silk jacket, ribbon bow, and plant printing fitting suit. They fully demonstrated the beauty of men’s tenderness. In this show, the mixture of male and female models was innovatively adopted as the appearing method.

 

This show ensures Gucci a prompt return to the center of fashion stage and makes Gucci become one of the hottest brands of this year. It also brings huge economic benefits to Gucci. The success of this marketing strategy brings a big attention on the concept “Agender fashion” in whole fashion world. Even in Taobao, some mass-market brands have respectively released some men’s clothes with light pink as the dominant color. It’s obvious that the concept of “Agender fashion” has become a very pop trend.

 

By putting forward the concept of “Agender fashion”, fashion industry aims to form the trend that no gender difference exists in clothes by breaking the dress code, rule, and taboo followed by both male and female under traditional context.

 

“Agender fashion” is to add women’s fashion symbols to standard male image model under traditional definition? This image belongs to neither the traditional male image model nor the traditional female image model. It’s an idealized image model defined by a new standard.

 

Moreover, the concept of unisex garment is put forward in fashion industry referring to the similar clothes designed both for man and woman. For example, after the cooperation between Kanye West and Adidas, many unisex garments are released. No one can obviously tell whether it’s men’s clothes or women’s clothes. In fact, this concept is not a fresh concept. Unisex garment can be frequently found in dark series clothes. The most representative brands are CCP, BBS, and RICK OWENS. Therefore, from the perspective of unisex garment, “Agender fashion” equals to “Gender Blur Dress”.

 

At present, most people regard one’s appearance and sexual behavior as the criteria to judge one’s sex orientation. Although these criteria are of some reference value, the actual categories are not such simple. Three dimensions including biological gender, psychological gender, and sexual orientation are involved. They are mutually independent and correlated.

 

Biological gender refers to one’s chromosomal gender, which means the gender of one’s genital organ. Psychological gender, also called gender identity, refers to one’s subjective feeling that whether one is male or female. Independent from biological gender and psychological gender, sexual orientation is a kind of mental state referring to the “enduring” pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite gender, the same gender, or both genders or more than one gender.

 

The “Enduring” is very important because a heterosexual may encounter homosexual behavior and a homosexual may encounter heterosexual behavior. Of course, special circumstance is the prerequisite of the above two conditions. For example, female fans love the neutral-gender style stars not because they tend to become homosexual or bisexual. They are just attracted by the male characteristics of their female idols. Thus, occasional sexual behavior and external image shall not be the criteria to judge one’s sexual orientation. Some homosexuals may wear the clothes of the opposite gender just because they prefer to imitate the lifestyle and the behaviors of the opposite gender. Thus, it has no direct relation with the “Agender Fashion” clothes.

 

Some other concepts including transgender, gender change, and transvestism are frequently confused with the concepts of asexuality and neutral style because of similarities of external representation among these concepts.

 

Transvestism is the most confusing concept in the discussion of “Agender Fashion”. The two concepts can both be used to modify the man who wears clothes with female symbols. However, concretely speaking, transvestism refers to a kind of sexual psychopathy that one can obtain sexual excitation from wearing the clothes of the opposite gender. Additionally, it’s a kind of mental illness with man being the dominant patient. They prefer to get sexual excitation and achieve sexual satisfaction by wearing women’s clothes.

 

For them, their biological gender is consistent with their psychological gender and they don’t hope to change their gender. Moreover, from the public’s point of view, their sexual orientation is normal because they love people of the opposite gender. Therefore, transvestism is totally different from the concept of “Agender Fashion”. The former refers to the abnormal sexual behavior of wearing the clothes of opposite gender while the latter refers to the styling and clothes with symbols of the opposite gender. Agender Fashion only refers to one’s dress style and aesthetic taste. In addition, it has nothing to do with physiology, mentality or sexual behavior.

 

Transgender is a collective noun with a wide range of types included. It can be briefly summarized as those who have no self-cognition of his born biological gender. Thus, they are likely to regard themselves as the people of the opposite gender or another gender independent of the opposite. This concept is relatively complex with gender change being the most typical representation form. It’s easy to tell the difference between gender change and “Agender Fashion”. In medical science, transsexualism is defined as a kind of gender identity disorder. In essence, it refers to the condition that one’s biological gender is inconsistent with psychological gender. Thus, this group of people may have the demand of changing gender. Although they have definite biological gender, they still regard themselves as the people of the opposite gender.

 

Gender identity disorder is obvious different from the transvestism mentioned above because the latter is a mental illness belonging to the category parasexuality. On the contrary, gender identity disorder is an inherent state that cannot be categorized into mental illness. People of this kind also prefer to wear the clothes with the symbols of the opposite gender, but their aim is to act as the people of the opposite gender and they firmly believe that a true soul of the opposite gender is wrapped in such clothes.

 

In addition, on this basis, it’s easy to understand the recent buzzword cosplay that refers to the art form that avails clothes, accessories, stage property, and makeup to play the roles in cartoon and games. Thus, it’s also called roll play and it has become a part of fan culture. We must understand that the coser only plays a fixed role in cosplay. For example, a male coser may wear women’s clothes and the relevant cosmetics due to the requirement of a certain role. Therefore, it has nothing to do with his psychological gender, biological gender, and sexual orientation because they just want to vividly play the role with the help of the clothes and makeup. 

 

So, the concept of “Agender Fashion” doesn’t point to any specific group of people. The proposing of this concept reflects the positive attitude in fashion industry. At present, we live in a pluralistic society featuring the promotion of humanism and individualism. The traditional gender concept that men plays the key role in the society while women are confined to the family chores witnesses constant reflection and transform, which not only influences the stand of male and female in society and in their careers but also breaks the traditional dress code and taboo. The proposing of this concept is a good way to show that our society is advancing to a highly civilized society featuring the equality of men and women. To some extent, it also shows that our society is a society with diversified value systems. 

 

From another perspective, the concept of “Agender Fashion” is the reflection of the collective demand of the current people especially for the younger generation after 80s. They seek for individuality and freedom and prefer to wear gender-free clothes. Thus, it shows that the current younger generation prefers the dress with their own personal style without considering whether it’s men’s clothes or women’s clothes. As described in  Chapter Model and Individual  in the book  AtmaGraha  written by Liang Wendao, pop music is a kind of collective emotion pattern. We are involved in the shape of collective identity when we hear these songs.

 

David Riesman said that what we really need today is not the machine, wealth, or works but a kind of individuality. As for the current people, does the pursuit of self-individuality stick unique label on every one of us or just show that we comply with a certain kind of example/model or a symbol? In the next episode, we will move on to the discussion about the basic concept of consumer society on the basis of the phenomenon of Agender Fashion and the relationship among fashion, individualism, subculture, counterculture and art.

 

 

By JinJing and LiuYuanYuan