Towards the Androgynous Ideal: Fashion and Sexual Identity

Against all odds -in any case against all we were taught -, fashion appears, as I have tried to make it clear elsewhere, as a very good tool for conducting sociological survey, as well as a faithful reflection of the relations between the Western world and the other civilizations on the one hand and of the way the Western world relates to time and death on the other hand.Fashion images are portrayal of deep societal movements, but they can also initiate social changes.They are very important, indeed, in the contemporary redefinition of the sexual identities, as well as in the new representations of sexuality.In these fields I should even say that the part they play is a fundamental one.They have both sociological and psychological dimensions, which have seldom been closely studied, if, actually, they have been studied at all.There is no doubt that the most obvious and visible characteristics of the thirty last years in fashion is the reconsideration of what we may call the sexual dimorphism of the Western way of dressing.This way of dressing which is based on the opened system for women and the closed system for men, was born in the Middle Ages and reinforced in the nineteenth century where austerity was the rule for men, while only women had the right to wear colour and to indulge in some fantasy.