For this project I wanted to focus on gender in fashion and how recent movements within society have influenced the fashion industry. We are currently living in a society where roles and stereotypes are being broken, we are no longer confined to stereotypes, creating a more fluid, free-flowing environment. The idea of fashion being free from gender ‘norms’ is an idea that has been growing over the years and has now become a reality for a lot of fashion houses and brands with unisex clothes becoming more popular. In society and fashion there has always been this idea of masculine and feminine but now they are merging together to create an androgynous look, throwing out the stereotypes of gender norms and instead allowing people to wear what they want to wear, in turn allowing people to express their identity more and be themselves. I feel that this movement and project I’m planning to do is important more now than ever as issues surrounding gender and identity are so prominent within Gen-Z, with more than one in 10 millennials identifying as transgender or non-binary, its important for these young millennials to see images and models that represent them and their identity.
GUCCI
A lot of fashion houses and brands are embracing these changes in society and one of the major ones being popular luxury brand Gucci. In 2013 they launched their ‘Chime for Change’ campaign, co-founded with Beyonce and actress Salma Hayek, with Irregular Labs. It is a campaign that “aims to inspire participation in a collective community, bringing people together across borders, and generations to unite in the fight for gender equality.”, publishing a biannual report. Their latest ‘Irregular Report’ focuses on the theme of fluidity, creating a graphic and interactive zine with data taken by surveying 2,013 Genz Zs aged 15 to 24 – including opinion pieces, images, and interviews to get an idea of young people’s attitudes towards gender and fluidity.
“My aim is to send a clear and loud message about the fact that the entire Gucci community is gathered together standing for gender equality.”
http:/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFUvLNL7E8Q – A short film made by Gucci called ‘The Future is Fluid’, showcasing different young peoples views and beliefs on gender, specifically within fashion. This film explains what gender means to Gen-Z all around the world and in a press release from Gucci about the film they explain that“Jackman’s style blurs the line between fact and fairytale, telling a story of a generation demanding to live in a world that is free.”
Equilibrium is a website created by Gucci in which they use to showcase the things they are doing revolving around activism. In this website you can see actions they and other brands are taking towards the plant as well as the people. Within this website is where you can find their chime for change campaign, with their zines and a collection of other articles within the fashion world surrounding gender equality and fluidity.
As part of the chime for change campaign Gucci, with Irregular Labs have been releasing online and interactive zines surrounding different important topics within Gen-Z. Their latest zine ‘Fluidity’ focuses on gender in fashion and being gender-fluid. Outside of this Chime for Change campaign, Gucci have taken this gender fluid approach in their recent runways and collections too under the influence of creative director Alessandro Michele. Their recent collections have featured unisex clothes that have been photographed on gender neutral models, all under a project called MX. On the MX website Gucci introduce this collection as “Gucci’s collections set out to deconstruct preconceived binaries and question how these concepts relate to our bodies. Celebrating self-expression in the name of all gender equality, the House presents MX.” Then going on to explain the idea of MX is “Playing with the constructive nature of gender, the MX project underlines the performative nature of what we wear, presenting masculinity and femininity as relative concepts.”
gucci’s MX collection website. 
Gucci’s most recent project as part of their MX collection has seen them teaming up with Italian independent magazine, Frankenstein, to create a zine/comic book called ‘The Incredible Story of Nokia, Gemini and Athon’. This magazine is made up of illustrations from a range of different comic artists, including Melek Zertel, who each illustrate and represented the curated pieces from the collection. Through illustrations of fantasy worlds, gender fluid characters the narrative created revolves around the idea of self-expression, exploring gender and presenting masculinity and femininity as relative concepts. The collection and the comic encourages everyone to challenge all socially constructed boundaries surrounding gender and instead promotes gender fluidity within the fashion industry and everyday life.
