In 2014, fashion model Gina Rosero was invited to speak at the White House about the problems of transgender people in modern society. Shortly before this, her TED lecture, in which she spoke about her decision to change sex, collected 2,6 million views. How can you explain the unexpected popularity?
Thanks to the ideology of diversity (diversity), the current Western society pays special attention to all categories of the previously “offended” – including people whose biological sex does not match the psychological one. And fashion, with its programmatic attention to new trends, immediately responds to all changes in society – and for a couple of years now, more and more transgender models have triumphantly walked the catwalk: Saskia de Brau, Carmen Carrera, Hari Nef … every year their number is growing.
In fashion, androgyny has occasionally manifested itself before – just remember the type of “la Gаrҫonne” of the 1920s, Marlene Dietrich, who adored trouser suits, or the angular teenager Twiggy. Among the celebrities of recent decades, beautiful androgynous – David Bowie, Tilda Swinton, Annie Lennox. (By the way, David Bowie released the song The stars are out tonight in 2013, in which the theme of androgyny is played up – in the video clip he starred in the company of Tilda Swinton, Andrej Pejic and Saskia de Brau.) However, if earlier these were marginal tendencies, then now the demand for transgender models is steadily increasing.
Transgender model Andrea Pejic is the new face of Make Up Forever
The most famous of them is Andrea Pejic, a former Bosnian man (formerly named Andrej) who underwent a sex change operation in 2014. Prior to that, Pejic managed to perform at the shows of men’s and women’s collections of Jean-Paul Gaultier, who entrusted him with the final role of the “bride” in 2011, starred on the cover of French Vogue and in advertising push-up bras.
Many predicted the end of Andrea’s career after the operation, because now, having become a woman, he has lost the uniqueness of the transgender model and has become one of many (and, therefore, doomed himself to tougher competition). However, recently, the green-eyed spectacular blonde Andrea took a bold step: in an interview with Vogue in 2015, she frankly told the world about her operation: “My goal is to show the world that I am not a fake”, “After the operation, for the first time I felt whole” – she said. To wrap up her nationwide confession impressively, Andrea raised $63 through Kickstarter to film a documentary about her transformation. Now Andrea is the new face of Make Up Forever.
Among brothers or, rather, sisters of Andrea in transgender roles, a great variety of roles reigns. Erica Linder, who bears a striking resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio, has walked both men’s and women’s shows and launched her own unisex clothing brand. There are also cases when women move into the male “camp”: Elliot Sanders showed women’s clothes for a long time, but then cut off her blond curls, tightened her breasts and became a model in men’s shows. According to Elliot, she decided to take this step to prolong her career. When she appears in public with her husband, they are often mistaken for a gay couple.
In Russia, the popularity of transgender models is not so great, but this trend is successfully represented by the red-haired Danila Polyakov, who easily transforms into a man or a woman on the catwalk, simultaneously combining the professions of an international class model, TV presenter and dancer.
In 2014, the series Transparent was released – a story about a man who realized his feminine essence
The “softening” of gender norms is also reflected in clothing design: now in many collections of both venerable designers (Mark Jacobs) and young ones (New York brand Vaquera, Vejas, Gypsy sport), the unisex trend is clearly visible. Even mass-market giant Zara released a selection of gender-neutral Ungendered items in 2016. In men’s collections, more and more things with a feminine bias appear and vice versa – ladies boldly usurp men’s wardrobe items. All these changes are, of course, wider than just the processes in fashion.
The androgyny trend is partly supported by Japanese popular culture: it is no coincidence that many characters in the Japanese manga and anime genres have androgynous appearance, and Japanese rock star Gackt became famous for his stage experiments with images of femininity in the style of Visual Kei1.
Amazon.com launched the Transparent series in 2014. This is a story about a man who realized his feminine essence and at the age of 70 reveals the secret of his transformation to his former family, including three adult children. The film was a phenomenal success – starring actor Jeffrey Tambor and director Jill Soloway received a Golden Globe Award, and in 2016 the series is already nominated for an Emmy Award in all major categories.
In the same vein is The Danish Girl (2015), whose protagonist is a 1920s transsexual played by Eddie Redmayne. The slogan of this film – “Find the courage to be yourself” – speaks to the real theme hidden behind external games with gender roles: after all, in the end it is about inner freedom, about openness of consciousness to everything new – and this applies not only to heroes, but also the audience.
1 Visual Kei is a direction in Japanese rock music. Performers often cultivate a rich theatricality, androgynous imagery, preferring spectacular costumes, lush hairstyles and accentuated makeup.