Andy Warhol in tuxedo and jeans. Franco Moschino wearing a necktie under his black leather biker jacket. Giorgio Armani with a hooded sweatshirt undre a Prince of Weals check jacket. Ray Petri in Military bomber jacket and pinstriped pants. These are all images from the eighties. And each of those images , in its own way, dialectically juxtaposes the two terms that have defined and still define male fashion, its birth and its evolution: sartorial tradition and sportswear.
From Giorgio Armani to Jean Paul Gaultier and from Gianni Versace to Yohji Yamamoto, the theme of the oversize garment was constant, all the way through the eighties. Not only beause it satisfied the desire for comfort expressed in sportswear, but also becuase it responded to precise social change. the generation that emerged from the protests and rebellions of the sixties and seventies had developed a revolutionary taste for the outsized, through dressing in secondhand clothes.
In 1980s men were wearing flamboyant clothes, make up , long hairs and women were wearing musculine colthes with shorhair. there was a bisexual vibe to the subculture generally, regardless of the individual’s sexual orientation.
Grace Jones: Nightclubbing (1981)
Grace Jones with androgynous look, with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes.
“pull up to the bumper” by grace jones 1981
The gender lines were further blurred in her concept tour, A One Man Show, and throughout her music. Sting wrote the song Demolition Man for her, which featured lyrics that perfectly matched her fierce image.
Eurythmics: Touch (1983)
The dominatrix mask, the flexed muscles and the orange, boyish hair contrast with her red lipstick and nude flesh.
Anne Lennox in 1984
Who’s that Girl??
Annie Lennox, dressed as a gender-bending Elvis Presley
Mid 1980s
MODERN DAYS ANDROGUNOUS
Love Magazine- Androgyny Issue
Photgraphy: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott
Jennifer Lopez recently posed in boxing gear for the March issue of V Magazine in a series of racy images shot by famed photographer Mario Testino.
chanel-spring-2010-androgynous
References:
Frisa, M.(ed.) and Tonchi, S.(ed.) (2004) Excess: Fashion and the underground in ’80s. Italy: Edizioni Charta.
Polhemus, T. (1997) Street Style: From sidewalk to catwalk. London:Thames and Hudson
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/jennifer_lopez_said_knock_you_out_zkoFpC4PVns53Nr35KyqLI (Accesses: 28 February 2012)
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