Jill Fairchild’s Closet: Fe-male-ity
Since when did men become women? What’s going on here? Is this what fashion is all about – reversing the sexes so there is such a blur you can’t even tell which sex is which? Maybe it’s the next phase after metrosexuals, when real men began discovering their feminine sides. Perhaps once having started that, there was no stopping it and suddenly they found themselves not only cooking, cleaning and indulging in skin care but dressing like women too.
My second day of NYFW started like this: So I’m sitting by the fountain at Lincoln Center and along comes a tall striking blonde. You would think by her walk that she was auditioning for a runway go see surrounded by a sea of cameras and camera crews. Who is she? I wondered. She’s got style, great legs and exudes that “smoking hot” kind of attitude while working her mini and knee high boots. Why does she look so familiar?
And then I remembered: It was the woman from the cover of New York Magazine. Her name? Andrej Pejic. Yes, SHE was a HE. I have been called naïve, blind and numerous other things, but in person, I swear that until she – I mean HE – opened his mouth and a deep voice boomed, you could not tell he was a man. I don’t even remember seeing an Adam’s apple.
Now let’s get to my point: How do you think the great couturiers like Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent would feel about such a blurring of the sexes? Sure, Chanel and Saint Laurent put women in pants, but there was no mistaking they were women – and that men were men.
Those days seem long gone, certainly at New York Fashion Week. Pejic is in a class of his own, but at the end of the day more and more men are dressing like women, sporting cakes of makeup, baring midriffs, stacked in high heels, and doing whatever it takes to break the rules and look more feminine. Some, like Pejic, have pulled it off successfully. So much so the he walks the runway for both men’s wear and women’s wear.
Is this the start of the next phase of male sexuality – fe-male-ity?
Scary thought.
Style on!
Jill
