Hi guys! Long time no see, this blog post is more of an op-ed than the previous research pieces I’ve written this year. I just had some opinions and thoughts on a specific topic which led to this! I hope you enjoy!

Harry Styles

If you have social media you’ve see the pictures of Harry Styles in a dress, and whether you’re 100% supportive and accepting of the concept or not, it’s not insignificant. People of all age groups and all backgrounds are talking about how Styles is a trailblazer for androgynous fashion. How he is courageous and forward thinking and the future of men’s fashion.

And I agree it’s relevant and impactful for a male aligned person to wear female aligned clothing in a media setting.

But it also isn’t unnoticed that the hype Harry Styles is getting has less to do with his editorial spread and more to do with him being a white man with a western media outlet.

Androgyny in fashion, especially in magazine editorials, has been prevalent, powerful, and steady in east Asian culture for close to a decade.

(The men I mention in this post are Chinese and Korean, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a heavy presence of genderless fashion in Japan or South Asian countries, these are just the specific examples I knew of.)

Kris Wu – Harper’s Bazaar cover July 2019

Kris Wu – Wu Yi Fan:

Kris has stepped out of his classic hip-hop persona in both music and fashion after his solo debut in 2014. Wearing intricate and often traditional androgynous outfits at award shows, on tour, and editorial shoots.

Jo Kwon – Vogue Korea cover 2014

Jo Kwon:

One of the most well-known, gender- ambiguous idols of previous and current generations. Kwon made his debut in 2008 in kpop group 2AM. He not only sports androgynous looks on fashion covers but there are also a multiple videos of Kwon dancing in heels, wearing skirts and dresses in public settings, and generally saying fuck it to preconceived gender roles.

Wang Yibo – Marie Claire cover 2020

Wang Yibo is the biggest entertainer in China. The household name is notoriously known for an androgynous fashion sense, being seen in “women’s” clothing at every major award show, photoshoot, and public appearance. Since his debut in Korean boy band, UNIQ, the 23-year-old has been wearing skirts, heels, and dresses as staple fashion choices.

G-Dragon – Vogue Korea cover 2013

G-dragon – Kwon Ji Young:

G-dragon is a household name in Korean media, beginning his musical career in 1994 and making his solo debut in 2009. Ji-young has been a trend setter for just about everything in modern Korean pop-music. G-Dragon is noted for his androgynous appearance, with the Korea JoongAng Daily calling him “a notable star fashioning genderless style”, noting how his image deviates from the fixed gender type of men and women.

Vogue Magazine stated how his androgynous or gender-bending appearance defies a “society that maintains traditional, patriarchal values and a noted adherence to manufactured beauty ideals.”

Androgyny has been a well-known and accepted concept in east Asia dating back to late-imperial China. Late Ming China saw a gradual disintegration of gender norms in social life for a variety of reasons, some being economically, politically, culturally, etc. This concept is deeply rooted in almost all east Asian philosophy and it isn’t revolutionary or new to see the lines between men and women blurred.

In a more specified example of modern-day fashion, designers like Lyan Lee Yiyang (pictures below) are the front runners for post-gender fashion creating space and identity for the queer community in mainland China.

This notion of androgyny or blurred gender lines being a western ideal or an Americanized concept essentially stems from colonialism. Taking what other countries have already done, already created, and crediting a white man, showering him in praise. There is a significant divide between what westerners perceived as “end-all media” (aka media made in the western world is the only real “important” media or seen as worthy of getting screen time) and what is actually portrayed across the globe in every aspect of consumer based content – movies, reality tv shows, music, fashion. This internalized perception of the world is heavily xenophobic (and specifically Sinophobic) in a deep-rooted way many of us don’t recognize in ourselves, due to the normality of it in America’s everyday life.

There is nothing wrong with praising Harry Styles for his editorial wardrobe in terms of fashion, but please recognize it’s not the first time this has happened, and the concept didn’t originate in the United States.