What is unisex clothing today?
Unisex clothing is designed to be worn by both women and men. At Nabou, we have made this principle the starting point for our denim jackets: unisex cuts, designed without distinction between men's and women's collections, and handcrafted in our workshop in Paris.
But unisex clothing is far from being a contemporary invention. From antiquity to the present day, the boundaries between male and female wardrobes have never stopped evolving.
When our culture takes over the unisex wardrobe
Today, major fashion houses and ready-to-wear brands offer numerous collections "genderless" or mixed.
Take, for example, this unisex sweater offered by the brand Ami Paris.
Or this denim jacket from the brand A.P.C.
Some celebrities no longer hesitate to adopt the codes traditionally attributed to the opposite gender. Among the famous singers, Harry Styles became the first man in 2020 to appear solo on the cover of Vogue US in a dress. We regularly see him wearing dresses, pearls, or lace blouses on the red carpet, attributes traditionally associated with the female gender.
The singer Billie Eilish has built a deliberately genderless style: she always wears very loose clothing, having explained that she wanted to prevent her body from being commented on or sexualized - a worthy representative of unisex clothing.
How is an unisex cut constructed?
Female and male outfits have markers specific to each body type. For example, women's clothing will mark the waist and hips, and will be constructed with darts around the chest to create shape. Conversely, men's clothing will have broader shoulders and a more developed back cut, with less curvature.
It is precisely by removing these markers that unisex patternmaking is constructed: rather than embracing them, mixed clothing will erase the specificities of each gender. Designing an unisex cut therefore consists of creating a balance that allows the same piece to work on different body types. This can involve a straighter cut, an intentionally elongated shoulder line, more ease, or even a common size chart.
At the origin of mixed clothing: the concept of gender
At the end of 2021, the word "iel" entered the digital version of the Petit Robert: it is a new personal pronoun that designates people who do not recognize themselves in either the female gender or the male gender - aka non-binary people.
This little 3-letter word was the starting point of heated debates on the origins and definition of gender. In sociology, it is a concept that allows the categorization of the human species into two categories (men and women) based on their biological sex. It codifies our social relations through language (for example, when we use "he" or "she"), but also through our ways of dressing: depending on whether we are a man or a woman, we will dress according to the standardized conventions of our gender.
But - big revelation - this has not always been the case: for centuries, men and women wore the same outfits, which were largely unisex.
When did fashion start to make a distinction between genders?
And yes, until the 13th century, clothing paid little attention to the difference between men and women and presented itself as a mixed object. During antiquity, the Greeks and Romans wore tunics and togas, close to a long shirt. In the Middle Ages, clothing continued to be mixed, with long and loose tunics whose length adapted depending on gender: to the ground for women, to the knees or calves for men.
It was in the 14th century that the distinction became clearer between men's and women's clothing: technical advances allowed the creation of two-piece clothing, with the doublet on top (a short padded jacket) and the hose on the bottom (the ancestor of socks and tights). Unfortunately, this revolution only concerned men, and ladies continued to wear long dresses to cover the entire body. Gradually, these dresses became more fitted at the waist and low-cut at the chest to accentuate female shapes.
At the end of the 18th century, a historical turning point occurred for men's clothing: the bourgeois men of Europe and America abandoned the bright colors, silk ornaments, and lace of previous centuries in what is called the "Great Male Renunciation". Men's outfits then borrowed the codes of the dandy, and the three-piece suit, sober and dark, finished marking the distinction with women's clothing - we are far from the idea of unisex clothing.
The counter-culture and emancipation movements of the 1960s broke gender codes and reintroduced the concept of unisex fashion: women adopted short hair, flat shoes, and above all, pants, which became unisex. Audrey Hepburn popularized cigarette pants and Yves Saint Laurent presented the first tuxedo for women in 1966. At the same time, pop music icons like Prince or David Bowie promoted the androgynous silhouette and participated a little more in erasing the boundaries between female and male gender.
Nabou: unisex denim jackets designed in Paris
At Nabou, our jackets are designed from the patternmaking stage as unisex clothing. We do not develop a men's version and a women's version of the same model: each jacket is based on a common cut and a single size chart.
Our cuts notably favor relatively straight lines, a cut that leaves room for ease, and slightly elongated shoulders. Our jackets were designed as common pieces, which everyone can borrow and freely integrate into a mixed wardrobe.
We use denim, a twill-woven textile with cotton threads. It is a material that appeared in the 19th century which was first used for workers' workwear, and which does not belong to any clothing gender (unlike the suit or the dress). The fabric allows us to offer a palette of neutral colors, ranging from black, to gray and blue.
