Pride parades and events serve to both advocate for queer rights and celebrate queer identity. Stay true.The LGBTQIA+ community historically has experienced significant discrimination and forced to hide their identities, often living their lives in the “closet.” Being a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community is an important and revolutionary act of self-love and civil rights.
So you can focus more on just being your authentic self. Yet it doesn’t require you to take on either of those social roles. It’s not masculine or feminine, it’s both. It’s not lesbian, tomboy, gay, butch, girly, or manly. Androgynous fashion is about embracing your own identity. Because it’s bigger than fashion, it’s life. It needed to be a platform where gender non-conforming, non-binary and LGBTQ+ individuals really have the freedom to explore, represent, express, or find their true essence across the whole gender spectrum.
It’s not just about women wearing suits and men wearing heels or skirts. To me, being an androgynous brand means breaking the patriarchal boundaries that society imposes for each gender role and embracing both in a non-discriminative way. Fashion is genderless regardless.īack in 2012 when we first launched our brand VEEA, we were providing menswear inspired designs to androgynous women. So there are prejudices and lack of compassion towards one another. There are stereotypes about how lesbians, gays, non-binaries, gender-fluid, and or transgender should be dressed. Fashion conformity not only exists between men and women styles, but also within the community. And at times we even receive discrimination or get pushed away to another section or fitting room.ħ.
Most of the time we receive weird looks from sales staff if we want to try on something they think is supposed to be for the opposite gender. It’s hard to really find what we want that will fit because of the way style and size has been divided. Shopping has become such a pain and can be so frustrating which makes us feel invalid, anxious, and singled out. Those who likes to dress more on the masculine spectrum with a female anatomy are stuck with very limited selection, ill-fitting button-ups from large wide sleeves, shoulder seams that sit at the wrong spot, extra fabric gathering in the arms, around the waist, hip hugging pants, oversized clothing and T-shirts. On the other end, those who like to dress more feminine with a male anatomy are stuck with completely nothing.Ħ. We have been settling for t-shirts and whatever we find in the women's, men's and boy’s department in hope that once we bring it home it’ll fit because we couldn’t properly try it on. High-end fashion designers who are offering androgynous styles are over priced and are still divided by men and women’s category.ĥ. They never really truly push the envelope.Ĥ. However, unisex and gender-free clothing largely refers to oversized basics, loose silhouettes, neutral colors, T-shirts, and hoodies for everyone. Some brands are jumping on the market to offer more unisex or gender-fluid clothing. This divide has limited us to shop and express ourselves freely.ģ. Current sizing systems are divided into men's and women’s designs, styles and fit. There has never been an inclusive androgynous clothing brand that truly designs style and fit across the whole gender spectrum without compromises.Ģ.