Nonbinary fashion takes to the catwalk
New York's Men's Fashion Week has opened… without any men in sight.
Instead, the opening fashion show featured many androgynous, nonbinary and genderfluid models wearing masculine-of-centre, or 'traditionally male' styled clothing.
Indie clothing label Krammer & Stoudt featured nonbinary and genderfluid models including soon-to-be DIVA cover star Rain Dove and nonbinary-identifying model Terra Juano or "TJ", as well as Madison Paige, Arta Gjonbalaj, and Merika Palmiste.
“There is this evolution happening — as opposed to a revolution — of people recognizing themselves outside of gender specificity,” ​said Courtenay Nearburg in the New York Times, one half of the married couple behind the ​Krammer & Stoudt clothing label.
“Krammer & Stoudt has a loyal following among nonbinary people, LGBTQ women and straight women,” she wrote.
“Often we are asked if it’s ‘okay’ for these people to buy our clothes. Of course it’s okay.”
Guy Trebay, who wrote the New York Times' piece, commented that it was "the first men’s wear show in this observer’s memory in which not a single model was male."
“The practical reason for doing this is that people like TJ and Mads and those in their generation or younger are not comfortable confining themselves to a gender definition any more,”​ Ms Nearburg continued at the event on Monday.
“We’re deliberately not casting feminine-presenting men because we’re doing a masculine show," she continued.
"It’s still men’s wear we’re dealing with here. We wanted masculine-presenting women, androgynous women, gay women who consider themselves female, nonbinary women, because we wanted to demonstrate how that space is opening up at a culturally regressive time.”
Finishing, Nearburg added: “You look at people like TJ and Madison and they are just so badass and cool."
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