Androgyny Is In (But was it ever really out?)
Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year; has been since I was a little theater kid ghoul and I have a feeling it will be ‘til the day I myself am in the grave. I’m usually planning weeks or even months in advance, but this year I procrastinated to the nines, leaving me just a few days to figure out what the hell I was going to be.
So there I was, scrounging the depths of Pinterest for a worthy look that I could recreate with what I had in my wardrobe and makeup collection when I stumbled upon the most iconic idea ever: it was colorful, fun, flamboyant, and androgynous as the day is long, bitch.
It was David Bowie, in all his eccentric glory. And I was obsessed.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
While I’ve always had an affinity for fashion and beauty, only recently have I really started to let go of my preconceived ideas about both. I’ve leaned into what I’ve come to realize is a more androgynous style.
And in researching Bowie, I have found a kind of freedom I’d only just glimpsed before; because I’ve now realized that androgyny isn’t just limited to clothes. It can be expressed through beauty as well.
From the dandy days of 19th-century Britain to the golden era of the Roaring 20s, androgyny has always existed in beauty, between– or perhaps even outside of– the gender binary. Only recently has it become more mainstream and trendy to blur the lines, especially when it comes to makeup and other beauty practices.
But, androgyny has always been around, appearing on the fringes of society as well as amongst the newest, most exciting trends of the eras.
Two hundred years ago, for example, it was unheard of for men to employ a daily grooming routine, especially one including a bath. In those days, these kinds of beauty habits were strictly feminized. And a man dipping their toe in the proverbial waters would normally have been regarded as quite bizarre.
However, the Daddy of all dandies, one George Bryan “Beau” Brummel changed all that, with a highly stylized, clean look that started a beauty revolution. He introduced extravagance and pampering to the masculine, became revered for his highly stylized appearance and mannerisms, and set about inadvertently changing everything for the men of the era.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Society continued to shift its views on what is considered “masculine” and “feminine” over time, and with the next century came even bigger dives into androgyny. The 1920s, for example, brought about the flapper; and with her, a “boyish” bobbed haircut for the modern woman.
Then, as early as the 1950s with stars like Little Richard, the hair and makeup horizon began broadening again for men, particularly for men in music. From there, hair got longer and more (quote-unquote) “feminine”, and makeup was experimented with at unprecedented rates.
Enter Bowie, the icon, and others like him: Prince, Mick Jagger, and so on. Flamboyance was in, and they didn’t care who knew it. It was a huge dive into androgyny, playing with gender expression and sexuality, and a massive shift in how people engaged with social norms in general.
Women started experimenting with androgyny more around this time as well. One of the best examples is Joan Jett and her very bad reputation.
Jett hammered out her own unique style, embodying a very androgynous, more traditionally “masculine” appearance through her clothes, but also in the ways she styled her hair and makeup. Nothing about her was hyper-feminine, like the styles of many other women of the era.
And, while there’s nothing necessarily bad about hyper-femininity, Jett knew it didn’t fit who she was. Or, rather, she didn’t fit into the confines of that predetermined definition of femininity.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
These many examples of folks playing with beauty, makeup and hair, and all the other little details, may seem less impressive today because of how androgyny has become more normalized. But, for the time, these people and their choices in how they did their hair and makeup, and even how they groomed themselves, were revolutionary. They paved the way for a world where people can express themselves freely, in any way they please.
Thank God for that, cause my little queer ass wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have such historic figures modeling that truly anything and everything is possible when it comes to self-expression. Plus, I wouldn’t have gotten to absolutely rock the Bowie lightning bolt, which would’ve been the real tragedy (let’s be honest).
All jokes aside though, the world and the people in it are, day by day, growing into a society that embraces differences more excitedly than ever before. And so androgyny is more in than ever, and will continue to bring innovation not only to fashion and beauty but to humanity at large. And bitch, I am so here for that.
Strike Out,
Olivia Shea Garvey
St. Augustine
