Fashion is an artform, one in which we’re coerced into participating. Anything you wear is making some kind of statement. Even if you wear something that tries not to make any statement at all, that in itself is a kind of statement. So, how I feel about fashion is about how I’d feel if I were forced to draw a picture every day, for my entire life. I hate it.
You might guess that I wear clothing that is pretty generic, and which says as little as possible. That’s not entirely true though. My dislike of fashion causes me to particularly dislike clothes shopping. My family picked up on this, so they know I really like being gifted clothing. So what I actually end up wearing is determined by a number of factors that have more to do with my family than with me.
Through a lot of college, this meant tourist T-shirts. My parents love traveling, and buying souvenir T-shirts is one of the things that they do. I’m usually not fond of these shirts, because I don’t like traveling. The shirts suggest that I’ve been to places that I haven’t been to, and which I would not wish to visit.
The current pattern is a lot of plaid flannel. I like this. It’s plain, it’s semi-formal enough for nearly any occasion, and best of all, it’s warm. I’m very skinny, so I get cold easily, so I almost always wear jackets in addition to flannel.
Something that took me a while to realize, is that plaid flannel is little bit of a guy thing. It’s less commonly worn by women. So there you go, my gender presentation is masculine, I guess.
In general, masculine clothing is more generic, tries to stand out less, tries to be less expressive. This is one particular bit of gender bullshit that actually works well for me. If you’re a woman and want to wear something that doesn’t stand out, I’m guessing you have to avoid things that are so generic that they stand out as such.
Although, there are plenty of ways that masculine clothing is actually more expressive or performative than we give credit for. Suits, ties, slacks, formal shoes, these are the bane of my existence. And if you want to learn about other kinds of expressive masculine wear, try looking up drag kings, who surely understand it better than I.
Speaking of which, I don’t like fashion, and I’m a gay guy, isn’t that a thing? In my experience with gay/bi guys, they’re more likely to be attentive to fashion. I think it’s partially a deliberate cultural marker, and partially because they want to be attractive to guys, who might (?) have more visually-oriented attraction than women do.
Oh, and then there’s camp, which is the flamboyant aesthetic that people might be most familiar with through mass media and pride parades. I’ve known gay/bi guys with campy aesthetics, but also many who have it not at all. It really depends on the space. So, if you’ve only had experience with a few gay/bi spaces, be careful not to overgeneralize.
I don’t really care what fashion other guys adopt, although I’m a little bit miffed that the primary cultural marker for being gay, is through some artform that I hate. In any case, I have no desire to appear attractive to other guys.
Did you know that there’s also ace fashion? There isn’t really, but people do find ways to express themselves at events. There are T-shirts with quotes (“I don’t want a relationship I want a spaceship” says a friend’s T-shirt). There are organizational T-shirts (I have one from the SF Bay Area group). You can also just wear clothing or scarves that use ace flag colors (purple, white, gray, black). There are also some more obscure cultural icons (cake, hearts and spades, a black ring, etc.).
I wear some of that some of the time, mostly for special events. But I feel uncomfortable with it. I don’t know why, I guess external appearance is just a site of anxiety rather than empowerment for me. So that’s why even at ace gatherings I tend to be there with the same plaid shirts.
I used to hate fashion, I hated shopping for clothes. I believed that fashion was a waste of time and money, I tried to ignore clothing as much as possible in my daily life. It took me a long time to figure out why.
I immensely hated shopping for clothes. I went to some clothing store, saw a bunch of clothes all of which seemed ugly for me, realized that I need to wear some clothing and all the clothes I have are already worn out. Ultimately, I bought something that I considered ugly just because all the clothes available for sale were ugly. Thus I wore the most bland and generic things imaginable, usually jeans and dark sweaters. Those were what I considered the least ugly options among female clothing.
I was in front of a fashion store when I finally realized that I wanted to live as a man. I was looking at the mannequin in the window, dressed in an elegant suit. I realized that I wanted to wear those clothes. The next thought that crossed my mind was the sad realization that no female clothing looked even remotely like the suit I was looking at. This is when I started wondering about whether I could be transgender.
After switching to male clothing, I fell in love with menswear. And I started to enjoy shopping for clothes. It turned out that I didn’t hate fashion. What I hated was female fashion. All female clothes are designed to make the wearer appear more feminine. The reason I used to hate fashion was because I didn’t like appearing more feminine. And the reason why I like male fashion so much is because these clothes make my body appear more masculine. Even if I wish I had narrower hips or more masculine face, a nice men’s suit still makes my body appear at least somewhat masculine. Hence my love for menswear.
Nowadays I own more clothes than I need. The overwhelming majority of my clothing is from second hand stores, so I’m not spending that much money or harming the environment by creating demand for more stuff. So it’s OK. I enjoy male fashion. It is fun to wear cool-looking clothes.
As a guy who owns way too many fancy and attention-catching dress shirts, I have to disagree. Back when I lived as a woman, I used to wear jeans and dark sweaters that looked as bland and generic as possible. Now that I live as a guy, my wardrobe is much more expressive. Regardless of whether you dress as male or female, it is possible to pick either bland or expressive clothes. Sure, picking expressive and attention-grabbing clothes is somewhat easier for women, but it can be done also with a male wardrobe.
I absolutely love formal menswear. Largely because it makes me look more masculine than casual male clothes. For example, suit jackets are designed to emphasize shoulders and make them look wider. A men’s T-shirt will never make me look as masculine as a suit and a tie.
One of my biases is that I find it hard to take seriously anyone who obviously spends a lot of time on their appearance; make-up, fancy hairdos, carefully trimmed beards, etc. I make allowances for those whose jobs require ridiculous apparel (suits, ties, high heels, etc). Not that most people would give a toss what I think of their “fashion statements”…
That goes for the women I find attractive as well.
That’s funny, my opinion is the opposite of Andreas’s. I despise men’s fashion intensely. I find it all incredibly boring. As a result, I’ve kind of defaulted to jeans and plaid, every single day, because that’s the most inoffensive combo I can find.
(And men’s formal wear is the worst offender: it’s extremely limiting and everything looks exactly the same!)
I would love to be more expressive, more creative with my fashion. But there don’t seem to be any options for that among men’s clothing.
One of my favorite classes in college was Fashion Design (in fact, I think that’s the only college class I still have the textbook for). However, I like fashion a lot more as a spectator than a performer, and I’m also primarily interested in historical fashions, not contemporary fashion. Much as I love looking at pictures of Rococo dresses, I don’t want to put on 18th century-style corsets, panniers, and petticoats and walk about.
I’ve never really understood fashion. I’ve always put functionality and comfort first, though looks matter do matter to me as well. It’s just that I have my own ideas about fashion.
Sometimes I have dressed to make a statement. In the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod high school I attended, the dress code for boys was collared shirts and “nice” pants (i.e. no jeans). The intent was that we’d wear polo shirts and khakis, and dressy shoes.
So I went out and got the loudest, most garish button-up shirts I could find. Lots of oranges and reds, with a bit of purple and yellow, in shiny fabrics. I wore these unbuttoned, usually over a heavy metal band t-shirt. Pants-wise, I wore black parachute-fabric cargo pants that zipped off at the knees, the pockets bulging with mysterious contents. Steel-toed work boots were my footwear, black and scuffed. Top it all off with a couple of rings (a big, chunky grey metal monstrosity with a dragon on it, set with onyx, and another ring I made out of scrap metal) and a leather dog collar. I was a chronic source of embarrassment for the school, and proud of it.
My fashion hasn’t really changed much since then. My shirts are more subdued, and I button them now. I still wear bright colors sometimes, but not in such eye-searing combinations. None of them shine. I had to stop wearing the collar, and the rings just looked silly, so they’re gone too. My pants still have many pockets, but they’re made of better quality fabrics. I still clomp merrily around in the same kind of boots.
Lately I’ve been looking into hats, but I haven’t been able to find anything to satisfy me. I’m looking for something tallish, with a wide, slightly-floppy brim. I may have to make it myself, and if I do that I’m putting bones around the brim.
Oh, and I absolutely despise suits.
Rob Grigjanis @#2
That’s prejudice. It’s OK for people not to care about fashion and their appearance (the way you presumably do). But it should be also OK for people to care. Everybody should be free to have whatever fashion preferences they are comfortable with, and judging people because of how they look is highly problematic.
Anyway, I guess you wouldn’t take me seriously then. I don’t use any make-up, and I mostly ignore my hair. I spend very little time on my appearance, for me getting out of the home in the morning is super fast. But I do pay attention to what clothes I wear. All the items in my wardrobe are carefully picked, I pay attention to how everything looks on me, whether it fits well. I don’t spend more time on my visual appearance than the average guy, instead I just pay some attention to it.
The main reason why I care about clothes so much is my gender dysphoria. That’s the only way how I can make my body look more masculine. If I had been lucky to be born with a male body, I wouldn’t care about male fashion nowhere near as much as I do.
I also consider fashion an art form. Clothes can look beautiful, and I love art in general. I work as an artist.
Then there’s also the matter of accepting one’s body. Giving up on your appearance isn’t a healthy attitude. I’m way too familiar with thoughts like, “My body is ugly no matter what I do with it or what clothes I wear, I might as well give up on it and pretend that the visual appearance of my body is irrelevant.” Having fun with manipulating your visual appearance is OK. And it can be really fun. Of course, I know that there are people who are happy with their body’s appearance and just don’t care about fashion. There are also people who are unhappy, because they obsess over their looks and worry about imaginary imperfections. It’s just that I’m way too familiar with the attitude that, “I hate my body, it’s ugly, I won’t ever look in the mirror and just wear the most bland and baggy clothes I can find.”
A lot of different views here!
I don’t find fashion ugly exactly, nor do I have any particular opinions on those who spend time on fashion. It’s really that fashion makes a statement, and I don’t want to make any statements. Being a spectator of fashion seems potentially more interesting to me than being a performer–although still not really my thing, I at least don’t hate it.
Andreas @6:
Yes, that’s what I said. And it’s OK for people to do whatever they want as long as they’re not hurting anyone. That I find it hard to take some folk seriously (implicitly, I meant at first meeting) is my problem, not theirs.
Similar to Andreas Avester, my pre-transition clothing was entirely functional. I wore solids in the most dull and drab colours, to show no personality. I was hiding from the world, existing and not living.
Post transition, I’m as loud as it gets, no fear or shame of what I wear in public. Saturday was Kaohsiung’s Pride Parade (Taiwan’s third of the fall) and I was out in full Trans colours, pink, blue and white. Most days, though, I love my simple knee length dresses with prints and patterns, but especially anything in purple. I’m obsessed with the colour.
This item about women’s clothes appeared yesterday, talking about women who choose to dress colourfully and not conform to conventional expectations in the workplace. And they’re right, it’s about expression, not fashion.
I still have to work “male” because employers won’t hire me as a woman. But that doesn’t stop me from expressing myself on the job (t-shirts, leggings, nail polish, eyeshadow, etc.), no longer afraid of what others think. Work is the only thing stopping me from dressing properly every day.
Intransitive @#9
That’s cool.
The “no fear, no shame” line goes also for me.
Back when I perceived female clothes as “something I have to wear,” I hated them. I disliked their impracticality, I disliked how feminine they were.
Nowadays that has changed. I now perceive female clothes as “something other people wear.” When I look at a beautiful dress, worn by a person who, unlike me, is a woman and likes such clothing, I actually see it as beautiful. Now that I’m no longer forced to dress as a woman, I see female clothes as something that can look beautiful when worn by other people.
Andreas Avester, @ #10:
I think this is also the problem that a lot of guys have with menswear – they only wear “smart” clothes (suits, shirts, ties, etc) because they’re compelled to, so it’s inevitable that they resent it. They also spend as little as possible on them, so they end up buying crap, which only reinforces the dislike.
invivoMark, @ #3:
If you can’t find any options for creativity and expression in menswear, you either have very different ideas of those concepts to me, or you’re not looking hard enough. Admittedly mainstream US menswear is depressingly conformist and bland, but there’s a lot more out there than that… Do an image search for “Luca Rubinacci” for a start.
The problem I have with clothing choice (I think the term “fashion” is not quite right here, since it implies changing popular fads in particular rather than the general field of apparel options) is that I would quite like to make a statement with it, but I have yet to discover any statement I could make that would feel like the right one. I suppose my internal uncertainty over who I really am and how I really relate to the rest of the world comes across quite prominently here. There are certainly clothing choices I recoil from, aware that the statements they would make about me are not ones I wish to project, but I have never discovered any choices that communicate a statement that I feel actually is “me”. I often ask myself “just who am I?”, and I can never come up with a positive answer that feels satisfying or substantial. The via negativa of crossing off things I most definitely am not is the closest I can get. But you can’t just get by on what you’re not wearing – you actually have to wear something.
Which is perhaps further emphasised by the fact that I really quite like the idea of costumes. Dressing up for a theatrical production is something I find exciting, because then the point of the clothes is not to communicate “me” but to communicate something else entirely. I have a very strong idea of what I need to communicate with a costume, and so I can turn effort and imagination into realising it. I quite like the whole aesthetic of classic fantasy, particularly the costumes of wizards and elves, though the statements such garments would make in a real-world context are not at all appropriate.
But I’m not the sort of person who wishes there was a way of making no statement at all. On the contrary, I feel a need to project myself, to show how distinctive and authentically “me” I am. I’d like to make a statement. I just can’t decide which one is the authentic and appropriate one that would sum up who I am. I often have to wear formal clothing for work, which I don’t like very much as it feels like I am being made to wear a costume that projects a statement I have not got behind. This character I’m being made to play is not one I can give my all to. It’s a bland and boring character. And besides, I’m not playing a character – I’m supposed to just be me.
So what do I wear when I have the choice? Well, generally cheap tracksuit trousers and T-shirts, with the occasional cheap hoodie or thin jumper for warmth. Why? In part because I find it light and comfortable, but mostly because that’s what I’ve always worn. That’s what my parents dressed me in as a child, so if anything is the clothing that’s authentically “me”, it’s that. I’ve basically been wearing a version of the same thing for three and a bit decades. Other types of clothing seem alien. A deliberate choice to dress as someone other than me. I’m not hugely enamoured of the statement my usual garb projects – most think it a sign of laziness, slovenliness or even poverty. A sign I don’t care about my appearance, for whatever reason. Which chafes a little, since the real reason I wear it is authenticity to myself, although I do often think that I’d like to be completely above worldly vanities, with all the superior airs that would entail.
As for gendered clothing, I’ve never really placed much stock by performative displays of gender. “Masculinity” and “Femininity” seem artificial and pointless to me, arbitrary constructs with little value either in the pursuit or the rejection. I’m not hugely bothered by being perceived as male by society – indeed, it would take considerable cosmetic effort for me to achieve anything else – and I benefit from society’s assumption that male is the default to the extent that my usual garb is perceived as giving no strong gendered messages at all. To me it seems faintly ridiculous to make gender identity an important pillar of one’s image and personal identity, much as it would be to make left-handedness or brown-hairedness an important pillar, although I am aware that it is important to many people, particularly those who have been oppressed over it.
Likewise, I try not to make my sexuality an important part of who I am and how I present to the world. I don’t feel the need to communicate that I am gay to the general public, and would find it disagreeable to have that front and centre when dealing with others. I find strong displays of gendered behaviour in men rather off-putting actually, both masculine and feminine. I tend to see the one as pathetically and unimaginatively conformist, the other as gratuitously indulgent. But I recognise that this is an area where people have vastly different frames of reference, and I would not want to impose mine on others any more than I want them imposing theirs on me.
cartomancer @#13
I sort of agree. When it comes to gender identity, I lean closer to “agender” rather than “male.” Gender is just not a part of my identity.
Yep, how people perceive my gender is important for me only because I have been oppressed because of it. If I lived alone on a deserted island, I wouldn’t care about it at all.
I don’t really have a male gender identity, but when it comes to my lifestyle preferences, I strongly prefer to live as a man. I want to use a male name, male pronouns, male clothing. Even some of my hobbies are stereotypically masculine. And I strongly dislike being perceived as feminine (fragile, in need of protection, dainty, delicate, nurturing, and so on).
It feels unfair for me that the society expects me to have my body chopped up by surgeons and I’m expected to take expensive hormone injections in order for me to “earn” the right to be treated as a man. I’d prefer if people respected my preference to be treated as male regardless of how I look like.
Anyway, back when I lived as a woman, my female school teachers and university classmates and even strangers offered me unsolicited fashion advice. Since I skipped make-up and wore the blandest female clothing imaginable, all the women felt like it was their duty to help me discover the joys of femininity. They advised me to wear more dresses, use make-up, wear heels, etc. I have been forcefully shoveled into female-only spaces against my will often enough. Women have tried to talk with me about cosmetics and nail polish (even though I never used any). I have received jewellery and fragrance and make-up as gifts on a regular basis. The fact that I didn’t use any jewellery or fragrance or make-up apparently signalled to every women who knew me that she must give me some of those things as gifts, as in “Andreas doesn’t appear to own any jewellery, and that’s a problem that must be remedied.” I did own plenty of this crap (I never bought this stuff, everybody else kept giving it to me as gifts). It’s just that I hated using or wearing it.
For me dressing as a man is the most effective way how to make all of these people who used to enforce femininity upon me to finally shut up and leave me be. When I show up in the public in a suit and with a tie, it’s obvious that my clothing choice was very deliberate. Thus people become much more reluctant to offer any unwanted “advice.” And then there’s also the signalling function. Even though I cannot pass for male, I still manipulate my appearance to look as masculine as possible. The message I send is “don’t treat me as a woman.” At least some people (who aren’t transphobes) respect this message.
And yeah, I also think that male clothes can look really cool, and great-looking clothes can be fun to wear.
I recently wrote about identities in general and how the society routinely tries to enforce mandatory self-identities upon people. This includes also gender identities, as in “if you were born with a female body, you must consider yourself a woman and it must be a core aspect of your identity.” That post is here: https://andreasavester.com/why-humanity-should-stop-enforcing-mandatory-self-identities/
I am NOT fashion forward in any way. I tend to jeans and solid black or “gym rat” (Under Armour, Nike, etc) tee shirts. My place of work has become even more casual over the years, so jeans, black jeans, and solid polos or sweaters is it except for formal presentation nights.
But I do have a weird love of two kinds of clothing: Cycling clothing (I am an obsessive, but purely recreational, cyclist) and outerwear (jackets, coats).
The first is problematic because I am both plump AND muscular, and cycling clothing is often designed for skinny 119 pound Italian guys! The second is “off” because I live in coastal California, and we really don’t need heavy winter coats most of the time!
I did recently donate a large collection of unused coats to the local charity…and a couple more are headed that way that I don’t know why I originally bought them!