But today’s fashion inspiration has a strong root in traditions. Even before the western trends took over, national dresses of different nations across the world were gender agnostic and all about comfort.
At the Berlin premiere of his 2022 film Bullet Train in July, Hollywood actor Brad Pitt stole the show as he came dressed in a brown linen kilt paired with a creased pink shirt. However, he received both flak and support for his choice of fashion. While some criticised the creased, untidy look, others praised him for wearing a skirt.
This was not the first time the two-time Academy Award winner was playing along the gendered lens of fashion. He was way ahead of his times, when in the 1990s, he made a case for androgynous fashion by posing in mini body-hugging dresses on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine—at a time when ‘androgynous’ was a term not even heard of too often.
In recent times, the flagbearers of androgynous styles—Ranveer Singh, Jim Sarbh, Ayushmann Khurrana, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber and Billy Porter— have often donned bright coloured clothes, skirts and jewelry pieces like pearls, gowns and nose rings to set a bold statement.
Modern western trends introduced gender agnostic fashion like jeans, jackets, shirts, T-shirts and so on and high fashion led to mass adaptation of fashion trends across the globe.
But today’s fashion inspiration has a strong root in traditions. Even before the western trends took over, national dresses of different nations across the world were gender agnostic and all about comfort.
Pitt’s Scottish inspiration for the premiere is a reminder of how traditional dressing has always been very androgynous in nature. The wrap-around knee-length skirt called kilt emerged in fashion in the 16th century for men to wear on formal occasions. Today, it has also become a part of informal clothing and even been adopted as women’s wear for certain sports events in that part of the world.