De-Gendering Fashion in Mainstream Media

Abstract

This chapter examines several examples of de-gendering fashion in mainstream media, music, entertainment, and social media, with a particular focus on the representations of (Gen Z) masculinities in the years 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. I use the methodologies of cultural and media analysis to examine the intersections between fashion, gender, mediation, media representations, as well as power dynamics, to gain a better understanding of cultural patterns, developments, and innovations. While de-gendering fashion has been part of fashion culture from the beginning of time, while non-binary activists have been calling for gender-neutral fashion not only as a fashionable renaissance, but also as an “anti-violence imperative” ( Vaid-Menon 2019 ), and while many cis and heterosexual male celebrities and musicians have always been wearing skirts and dresses simply because they can, this chapter investigates the cultural changes manifested in fashion and culture that took place in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they were reflected and represented in the media.

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