Early this morning, Acne Studios debuted its Fall 2015 womenswear campaign. The ads star creative director Jonny Johansson’s twelve-year-old son, Frasse, in pastel pink coats, heeled boots, and high-neck blouses. Casting a preteen boy for a womenswear ad might seem surprising at first, but when you consider the industry’s recent blurring of gender lines, a boy—or man—in heels or a skirt doesn’t feel all too out of place.
Johansson himself sent out men in heels at Acne’s Spring 2016 menswear show. J.W.Anderson’s menswear collections have featured dresses for guys, and Riccardo Tisci regularly advocates kilts at Givenchy men’s. Male models have adopted traditionally female garb on women’s runways, too: Jelle Haen stepped out during Proenza Schouler’s Fall 2015 show in a black coat, nearly blending in with the artsy women who filled out the rest of the house’s lineup.
True, in today’s society it’s more subversive to show a male figure in traditionally female garb—women have been wearing pants and suiting since the early 20th century, after all—but we can’t help but wonder, Where are the women in men’s ads and on men’s runways? Not women wearing women’s clothes in men’s shows, and not women who appear in menswear ads as sexy visual stimuli, either. We mean women who sell menswear just like one of the guys.
There are some blazing the way. Menswear designer Craig Green put women on his Spring 2016 catwalk in his men’s designs after noticing that his garments were being bought by female consumers. At Alessandro Michele’s first Gucci men’s show, Emilie Evander and Marland Backus appeared in the lineup with no distinction between them and the male models. Public School also put a woman in its Spring 2016 menswear presentation, model Kris Gottschalk, whose buzz cut gives her a masculine edge. Generally speaking, though, advertisements for menswear have yet to feature a woman as anything other than an accessory.
If womenswear customers are being sold Fall looks on the backs of men, why shouldn’t menswear consumers see theirs on women? Why doesn’t fashion’s current fascination with gender blurring go both ways?
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