Fashion is inherently political.
You only have to go back to November of last year when Harry Styles, resplendent in a periwinkle Gucci gown and jacket, made the cover of American Vogue. He was the first non-woman to appear solo on their cover, let alone to do so while wearing a dress. The image is representative of a burgeoning exploration of gender fluidity and non-binary dressing in mainstream culture but, of course, he is hardly the first man to wear a dress.
“When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play,” Harry said in the accompanying interview. “I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing. It’s like anything – anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself.”
The image reopened a divisive can of worms around gender expression – right-wing conservatives voiced disapproval; Candace Owens wrote on Twitter, “Bring back manly men.” Prior to the early 18th century, though,
