Arguably, there has never been a Swarovski Canada Rings better time to explore gender identity: from those who identify as neither male nor female, to those who identify as both  and all those in between. More and more high-profile personalities are publicly rejecting the stereotypes that come along with being assigned male or female at birth  from designers Reed, Charles Jeffrey of Loverboy and Edward Crutchley to hip labels such as Art School and One DNA, from models Lily Cole, Ruby Rose and Cara Delevingne to actors Elliot Page and Kristen Stewart. In 2019, Pose star Indya Moore became the first non-binary person to be the face of a Louis Vuitton campaign, while Laverne Cox, who plays trans prisoner Sophia Burset in Netflix drama Orange is the New Black, became the first trans person to be on the cover of British Vogue.  

Gender-neutral clothing has a long history. Across the world and the millennia, items such as tunics and togas, kimonos and sarongs, have been worn by both sexes. Momo Amjad of The Future Laboratory  a strategic foresight consultancy based in London  cites several examples of third-gender communities with Swarovski Bella Earrings a long past. Among them are the traditional M

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 people in Native Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures, the pan-gender roles of nádleehi people in the Navajo Nation, and the eunuchs, intersex people, asexual or transgender people known as the Hijra across South Asia.  

"Clothing was not always split along gender lines," explains Stevenson. "In feudal England, fashion followed class status and land tenure. Male and female dress across class stratifications Swarovski Necklace Singapore was very similar. It was only through the breakdown of feudal society into a market society  where men started to dominate the workforce  that clothing shifted into male and female categories. Male fashion revolved around shifting notions of the suit, while female dress remained aspirational and flamboyant; a marker of her husband's success." And it is largely since the early 20th Century, and the rebirth of the debate around gender equality and female inclusion in the world of work, that Western fashion has been marked by, as Stevenson puts it, "overt and repressed desires to emulate the clothing styles associated with the opposite gender".

Now it is normal to see women in suits and, increasingly, pussy-bow blouses for men, for instance at Yves Saint Swarovski Purple Necklace Laurent and Gucci. But the recent attention to non-binary style is more than stylistic experimentation, news that will be balm to the more than one in 10 millennials who now identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. "The new wave of non-binary is intimately bound up with significant shifts in society's expectations around gender roles, and our understanding of gender equalities," says Stevenson. "If society is no longer organised around a gender binary, we no longer need these distinctive categories." In this brave new world, the role of fashion cannot be understated. "When a platform such as fashion invites 'The Other' to be presented, it opens doors," says Sissel Kärneskog, a non-binary "humanwear" artist."The LGBTQIA+ community have always been experts in expressing themselves with fashion but, until now, it has mostly occurred behind the scenes," Kärneskog tells BBC Culture. "So, every time the border of the binary gets crossed within a 'normalised' context, it is beneficial for those who might feel intimidated to express themselves, and for the rest to get a greater understanding."

Christopher John Rogers, who has dressed Michelle Obama and Lizzo, and whose label won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award, would agree. "It's not about a girl wearing a suit or a guy wearing a heel, it's about you feeling yourself and feeling the fantasy and the look," Rogers told The Fader in 2018. "It's about queerness in terms of you fully embodying the nuances of yourself when dressing up." Amjad goes further: "Everything is non-binary fashion. Prescribing a definition or seeking to contain the meaning within some parameters goes against the very nature of what it means to be non-binary  to live beyond the boundaries that society draws." Central Saint Martins graduate Swarovski Pink Necklace Patrick McDowell's latest collection, for instance, is titled Catholic Fairytales, and features a crystal papal robe and long stockings.

The sari, a traditionally modest and 'feminine' garment, is being re-interpreted and re-energised by a new wave of fashion fans. Zinara Rathnayake meets some of them, and finds out why.One of the oldest forms of clothing, the sari, has been integral to the lives of many south Asians for centuries. The garment has long been seen as the embodiment of traditional, conventional and 'feminine' beauty. But recently, younger people are subverting this  stereotype, reclaiming the sari in a more contemporary way.