When people seriously talk about the OGs of contemporary fashion culture, the vast majority of them mention the names of male creators, but no one can deny that Yoon Ahn has become a woman who cannot be bypassed, a "dark horse", and even a designer who can be admired by both male and female consumers.
At this season of Milan Fall/Winter Fashion Week, Ambush's new collection has been impressively released. Based on the needs of people in real life, the brand has built a "meta-universe" with both retro and romantic colors, slim women's clothing and tough men's clothing mix-and-match interpretation, and uses fashion language to express the integration of gender boundaries. Yoon Ahn, one of ambush managers and a dior Men jewelry designer, is also a widely recognized female designer in the trend circle. Whether it is the clothing series she created for girls in collaboration with Nike, the shoes that she worked with Converse, or the co-branded collection with Uniqlo, it will set off countless topics as soon as it is launched.
Yoon Ahn
The success of Ambush and Yoon Ahn has shown that female creators can have the same energy to play with fashion trends.
On the consumer side, women are becoming a force that cannot be ignored in the trend category. According to the "2021 Trend Clothing Consumption Trend Report" released by CBNdata, women account for more than 60% of the overall trend consumption; the market growth rate of unisex styles in trend brands is as high as 340%, which is 2.5 times that of the overall clothing market; among them, the growth rate of female consumers buying neutral style clothing is as high as 468%, which is 2 times the growth rate of male consumers. All kinds of data prove that "they" are supporting the "half of the sky" of the trend kingdom, and in fact, the challenges and prejudices faced by women in the trend circle may be deeper than the "size".
Fashion culture is born from basketball culture, hip-hop culture, skateboarding culture, graffiti culture and other street cultures, tracing its historical origins, men do have more advantages than women. Ambush's website presents a history of women's development in basketball culture: in the 19th century, men believed that women must always maintain a dignified temperament, so women often played in wool skirts, so female players often tripped, which further contributed to the claim that women were "not suitable for playing". It wasn't until 1971 that women's basketball games were officially popularized, and European and American reports still described women's basketball as "vulgar" behavior. Nowadays, the public has become accustomed to the existence of women's professional basketball players, but for the average lady who loves basketball, their needs are seriously misinterpreted or underestimated.
Ambush Fall/Winter 2022 collection
Veteran sneaker Jessica Lawrence has been collecting rare sneakers since she was six years old because of her love of basketball, and she once published an article in VOGUE UK, "The Undervalued Women's Toe", sharing what she believes exists in today's fashion circle "male gaze": in the fashion brand or sneaker advertising, women are either extremely successful professional athletes, or appear as sexy hot girls (the ideal spouse of men), while women who really love this culture are ignored.
In fact, the women's Nike Dunk Disrupt has sparked some consumer discussions. Unlike the acclaimed women's sneakers such as air Jordan 1 UNC "Blue Chill", Air Jordan OG retro and Adidas Ultra Boost 4.0, Nike Dunk Disrupt's women's models have added a "snake-like" thick-soled design to the design that has been "perfected", which is regarded as a stereotypical influence on female consumers. Jazerai Allen-Lord, one of the most influential women in the sneaker space, points out that female consumers don't thank gender signs with conventions such as pink, sequins, and booster pads, they just need better design, color matching and functionality.
Women's Nike Dunk Low
The concept of "genderlessness" in today's fashion is derived from the English "unisex", but this is not a new word, as early as 1968, the New York Times used the concept of "unisex". That same year, a columnist in the Chicago Tribune tried to explain the "age of unisex": "Boy or girl?" This is not asking about the gender of the newborn baby, but asking you to distinguish the 'unknown object' passing in front of you. ”
As the social environment becomes more inclusive, more and more consumers are beginning to jump out of the "men's" or "women's" mindset and start to choose their favorite clothing. According to the "2021 Fashion Clothing Consumption Trend Report", consumers' pursuit of clothing comfort is no longer limited to materials and weekend scenes, and loose silhouette clothing without obvious gender characteristics is gradually daily, especially loved by young people after 95, of which female users who have purchased men's fashion products have accounted for up to 88%.
With the prevalence of "neutral style", more and more women will not regard the men's clothing area of offline stores as a "taboo place". Yiling, founder of Canal Street Jianning Street, a well-known fashion buyer in Shanghai, said that the ratio of men to women in the store is 4:6, and there is no special distinction between men's and women's clothing areas, and It has become a "new trend" for Gen Z girls to like to consume men's clothing.
Canal Street
Helena Yeung, director of X Factory, a young power fashion culture platform under Yingzhan Group, said that most of her clothing comes from the men's clothing area, but simply feels that men's clothing design is more suitable for herself, not because of some kind of "trend feminism", but she also observed, "There will not really be people who pay attention to a woman's motivation for consuming men's clothing, let alone cast a different eye, at the moment, only women themselves can imprison women's imagination."
In fact, as the first female editor of hypebeast Asia, Helena Yeung has almost witnessed the "evolutionary history of equal rights" in the trendy world. Before 2013, fashion was popular among men as a niche culture, and Helena often received some "internet hates" under her column. Everyone will assume that women are not the wearers of sneakers, so they do not understand sneakers. But the problem is that some of the most well-known women's fashion commentators are men with big bellies, and they may not be able to wear those slim haute couture.
Over the past decade, Hypebeast has grown into an international trend platform for gender parity between men and women, and now has Hypebae, a media outlet for female audiences. Helena told WWD China: "Hypebae is more of a 'self-pleasing platform' for contemporary women than a dressing medium that teaches women how to become more popular, and whether it is the language used to styling and photography, women's own stories and needs are put first." ”
Hypebae
Sun Jiayi, founder of genderless fashion brand Sophiesun, Yiiin and INXX design consultant, said that the origin of trend culture does make men once have more "trend discourse", which is indeed not a friendly premise background for women, and now its popularity has made this word neutral, women can not only control the trend, their joining is also enriching the definition of men's clothing in trend culture.
"Culture as a spiritual culture, leading people to understand the world, transforming the world, this influence is especially in the modern social structure, whether male or female, can receive the same information at the same frequency, gender differences will gradually weaken." More is what you need to love, focus, confidence and persistence, and love does not need to have a gender concept, you just have to give. Sun Jiayi said.
"Definitely, in fact, the women in the fashion world are varied, not only a kind of hot girl style," i-D China editor-in-chief Akiko Rushu Jiazhen: "Hailey Bieber's classic street wear is mostly sweatshirt sweatshirts and jumpers, Paloma Elsesser's brother is one of the world's top skaters, her family has a lot of trend DNA, and her usual wear is also very casual chic." More and more women are not being kidnapped by traditional definitions. ”
Helena Yeung adds: "This is no longer an era when women can be judged by their appearance or clothing. Feminists of the past rejected seductive dress, so they wore large jackets and pants as a way to seek equality between themselves and men. Today, streetwear has lost its status as a counterculture, and women who wear trendy men's clothing do not necessarily have to flaunt certain values, they are more likely to simply enjoy the fun of clothing. ”
As women pour into the fashion consumption track, a new generation of female trend shapers is ready. Sun Jiayi explained that in the 50s when the "godfather of the trend" was born, social resources were scarce, art was not the main social demand, and women's education was more worrying, so in the early days of trend culture, various reasons led to women themselves being more constrained by society than men. "These have changed only after men and women have equal levels of education in modern society, and the most obvious thing is that many women are now working in the multi-branch of the trend culture, holding positions, and achieving good results, directly changing the gender impression symbol of the trend culture, which is no longer a male-dominated world."
Nigo, known as the godfather of Japanese trends, is now the new artistic director of Kenzo
Interestingly, in 1993, nearly 30% of street brand Stüssy's sales came from women, so the brand decided to launch its first limited women's collection called Stüssy Sista Gear. Since women don't mind the "gender of clothing", what is the significance of many trend brands or sneakers that have launched women's clothing lines?
Stussy's ads in the eighties
Une Yea, one of the founders of menswear brand Staffonly, said that in Staffonly's fans, the ratio of men to women is about 6:4, and the brand will start to add some women's styles from 2021. "As two female menswear designers, we all have a female perspective in our work, and we often change our thinking to explore the differences between the sexes. Exploring women's clothing is a very natural thing, in addition to the expectations of the market, more importantly, the future of fashion should be a bigger concept than clothing. Within our means, develop the concept as deeply and broadly as possible– not limited to gender, not to a particular medium, not even to a particular dimension. ”
Therefore, compared with gender, unique cultural traits, attractiveness, values, and hobbies are the main factors that trend fashion can gather a large number of young people. As female consumers and female designers increasingly gain a voice in the trend field, this field dominated by the "male gaze" will also be increasingly tilted towards the female group. WWD
Written by Di Huang
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