My Genderless Weekend

It was cold in South Florida last weekend!  Ok, cool, but it was 58 degrees last Saturday morning. I can feel the eye rolls through the internet screen. Oh, but don't feel sorry for me because we all pretend winter when that happens and break out our sweaters. 

H&M's Genderless Offering 

On the fashion runways "Genderless" is all the rage. Several designers have gone to the extreme with hairy leg men wearing chiffon dresses and high heels. Others have neutered women wear to be baggy sweats and jeans that men have been wearing forever; calling it genderless. If that is the promised "Genderless" revolution then I am having no part of it. 

According to the Campfire Capital site: Gender is a hot topic in the broader culture and retailers are tapping into the phenomenon with their own definitions of gender, through unisex, gender-neutral and androgynous lines.

For example, last year, way ahead of unisex catching on in the U.S., U.K. store Selfridges opened a pop-up retail experience called “Agender,” featuring sexless mannequins in clothes by Gareth Pugh and Haider Ackermann. It was a bold move, but mostly a marketing experiment [ploy]. As fashion writer Katherine Whitehorn pointed out in the Guardian, ordinary pants, shirts or sweaters are all genderless already.

Just to push the envelope a little this past weekend, I grabbed my Polo Flag sweater (unmistakable boat neck), skinny girl jeans and white slip on shoes. Would there be a reaction? The morning was breakfast out, a trip to my mall's Macy's, and a weeks shopping at the market later that afternoon.

No one cared, and, as far as I could see, no one noticed. I would love to say this was just an androgynous look, but there was a bit more to it than that. A very normal day in spite of the "bitter cold". 

A South Florida weather update:  Tomorrow, March 5, the high temperature is expected to be 91 degrees.  Back to the shorts and t-shirt.  

Is how others will react holding you back?  

Hive Full Of Honey - Calamity Jane (1953)

Calamity Jane (Doris Day) rides into Deadwood, Dakota Territory as shotgun messenger on the stagecoach. When boasting of her stagecoach's hazardous journey through Indian Territory the men laugh at her exaggerated account of an attack by the Sioux. No one is laughing when survivors of an Indian attack come through and relate that the man Calamity has set her sights on, US Cavalry Lt Danny Gilmartin (Philip Carey) was killed. When Calamity presses the survivors for the way Gilmartin was killed they admit they don't know and fled in fright. An enraged Calamity rides into the encampment of a Sioux war party with her six shooters blazing to rescue the captured Danny.

Meanwhile, the local saloon bar, the Golden Garter, sends for beautiful women to appear on the stage and entertain the residents of a town with few females. The saloon owner is surprised when his latest booking, a Frances Fryer, arrives in town and turns out to be a man named Francis Fryer (Dick Wesson). Fryer is reluctantly persuaded to perform a stage act in drag, and during an increasingly confident performance his wig is lost, revealing him as a man. The audience begin to storm out. Calamity, thinking quickly in all the panic, vows to get them the one woman they are all drooling over: singer Adelaid Adams (Gale Robbins), who is in Chicago. Francis Fryer points out that Adams wouldn't be seen dead in that town but Calamity is still determined to bring her. Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel) laughs at the idea and tells Calamity that the night Adams steps on the stage, he will come to the opening dressed as a Sioux squaw lugging a papoose. (Wikipedia) 

_____________________

Thus goes the movie - A little bit of movie cross dressing from the past...

Dick Wesson in Calamity Jane 1953