Jumble Dressing, Pastiche and Androgyny

1980s Google Images of Androgynous Dressing

Google Images of Androgynous Dressing 2015

A couple of days ago I was looking through photos from the late 1980s. When I first started to wear vintage, androgyny was cool. I would wear men’s trench coats or suit jackets and over-sized shirts over a pair of leggings or a black pencil skirt, a necktie in my hair as a headband. I felt both whimsical and confident in androgynous vintage looks like these.

What comes around goes around, as far as gender-bending looks go. Seeing the 80s photos reminded me of a recent New York Times article “Women Who Cover Up (Even as the Temperatures Climb).” Fashion & Style reporter Amy Sohn interviews young New Yorkers who “choose not to dress for a man’s gaze”. The article features a slide show of the 20ish set dressed in black, tights, loose-fitting shirts and coats, maxi skirts and dresses, wide-legged trousers. Said one New Yorker, “Sometimes I feel like dressing up like a boy, pretty androgynous, and sometimes I feel like dressing like a girl,…I don’t follow one particular trend or subculture. I just kind of jumble it all together.”

This “jumble style” was also how vintage style was initially interpreted in the 1980s. 1980s vintage was influenced by Punk subculture – ripped tulle skirts, topped with a black jacket, and torn men’s long underwear, dyed black (the original leggings). Similar to the sartorial savvy person in the New York Times article Angela McRobbie described late 80s vintage style as “pure pastiche,” that “plays with norms, conventions and expectations of femininity, post-feminism.” McRobbie also discussed 1980s androgynous style as “never unambiguously butch or aggressive, it was slim, slight and invariably ‘arty.’” When I look at 80s images of androgynous style (featuring pop culture icons like Grace Jones, Boy George or even Annie Lennox) I see parallels to the androgynous dress featured in Times. Both time periods feature colorful hair, loose-fitting coats, black stockings, bow ties and vintage items. Compare for yourself in the photos above (from Google images).