Androgyny in K-pop 

 

Clothing as symbols of Gender Qualities

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‘We expect men to dress to “look like” men and women to “look like” women’ - Annie Woodhouse

 

There is a general expectation of what men and women should wear – the most traditional one is that men should wear trousers and women should wear dresses. Such expectation is instilled in our mind since young when we saw girls wear dresses and boys wear pants in cartoons, and when girls wear dresses to school and boys wear pants to school. We began to associate girls to a certain set of clothing while boys another set, and the association is reinforced over time to an extent that certain clothing actually symbolizes a certain gender in our mind; for example, trousers symbolizes male while dress symbolizes female in our mind. Just as Marjorie Garber exemplified, we are so used to associating trousers to men and dress to women that even when women wear pants, they will not go into a male washroom that has a door label of a figure wearing pants (14). Since young, we have learnt that the labels are not to be taken literally but should be understood by their connotations of gender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Due to this strong association of clothing with gender, the way people dress comes to connote their ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’. Just as what Joanne Entwistle mentioned, clothing is a ‘crucial feature in the production of masculinity and femininity’ and it adds ‘layers of cultural meanings’ on human body; for instance, male suits can add the meaning of ‘masculinity’ to the male body (141). Clothing is associated to masculinity or femininity, which in turn relates to qualities like toughness and power in men and softness in women, so when women put on androgynous fashion, they appear to be tough and empowered, whereas men soft and tender.

 

 

Androgyny and Androgynous Fashion

 

What is Androgyny?

The term “androgyny” derives from the Greek words andros and gyne meaning male and female, suggesting a state intermediate between masculinity and femininity. Feminist Carolyn Heilbrun defined androgyny as ‘a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes and the human impulses expressed by men and women are not rigidly assigned.’ (144) Androgyny blurs the gender boundary and an androgynous being can possess both feminine and masculine traits. Androgyny may be used to refer to a one’s behavior or attitude having characteristics of both gender or refer to the ambiguous feeling one has about gender identity. Besides, though androgyny is frequently associated to same sex sexual orientation, according to Carolyn Heilbrun, the term androgyny itself does not imply homosexuality or bisexuality (144). Being androgynous may mean one’s refusal to be constrained and desire to experience new possibilities. As she noted, “androgyny suggests a spirit of reconciliation between the sexes; it suggests, further, a full range of experience open to individuals who may, as women, be aggressive, as men, tender.’ Androgyny deviates from normality for it transcends the duality of gender differences imposed by the society; putting on an androgynous look could show one’s intention to play with gender boundaries, which in turns shows the desire of breaking free from restraints imposed by the society (143-144).

 

Androgynous Fashion

Nowadays, the gender boundary in terms of clothing is becoming obscure. In twentieth century, the increasing independence of women came along with the emergence of the androgyny fashion style. Androgyny fashion plays with gender boundary, blurring the distinction between masculinity and femininity by adding elements that are associated with masculinity into women’s fashion, and vice versa. The androgynous style emerged in the 90s, during that time, women fashions became more ‘chic and casual’ and ‘semi-masculine’; various fashion designers like Calvin Klein promoted androgynous clothing and uni-sex look (Entwistle 171). In recent years, gender ambiguity in fashion is all the rage in the fashion’s world. Androgynous fashion can be seen frequently in shows and magazine covers, for example, we can see a lot of designers bringing tomboyish styles to the runway in 2013, as well as fashion designers have been attempting to put androgyny in men’s fashion (Singer).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides, in recent years, fashion brands began using androgynous models. One example is Andrej Pejic who is now gaining a huge success in the fashion world. He worked with top brands in fashion shows like he walked the runways for both men’s and women’s collections for designer Jean Paul Gaultier and the men’s shows for Marc Jacobs in Fall/ Winter Paris fashion show 2011. Daily Telegraph’s fashion director Hilary Alexander commented that Andrej Pejic has an obviously beautiful face and has the perfect figure for modeling high fashion looks, and that the success of Andrej Pejic might be ‘a reflection of the times’ when people are more accepting of transgender personalities (Hauck, “Andrej Pejic”). Echoing what Carolyn Heilbrun mentioned about androgyny, by playing with gender boundaries, Andrej Pejic is open to a full range of experience and creates a lot of new possibilities in the fashion world.

 

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Androgynous Look in K-pop

In ‘Rock, Fashion and Performativity’, Noel McLaughlin suggested that under the popular music context, one need to distinguish between ‘naturalized androgyny’ and ‘performative androgyny’. While ‘naturalized androgyny’ should be used to refer to androgynous artists who have ‘come out’ and are finally ‘fit in’ to the gay/lesbian category, ‘performative androgyny’ refers to artists who incorporate the concept of androgyny in their performance. ‘Performative androgyny’ is dissonant and there is a space between subject and construction (272). K-pop idols who can be categorized as ‘performative androgyny’, though at a small number, can be seen in recent years. Two famous examples are Big Bang’s G-Dragon and f(x)’s Amber. Their gender representations are very different from that of other typical K-pop idols. In the K-pop realm, most girl groups like Girls’ Generation, Kara and 4Minute use feminine sexuality to attract males and serve as the object of male gaze in their music videos and lyrics, but f(x) succeeds in deviating from the trend, and the credit should go to Amber (Epstein & Turnbull 318, 329). On the male idols side, though there is a trend of displaying soft masculinity through their kkonminam appearance, which may symbolize an evolution in representation of masculinity (Epstein & Turnbull 316), not many male idols put on androgynous look as frequent as G-Dragon does. Both of them abandon common representation of femininity and masculinity displayed by other K-pop idols through putting on androgynous look, thus opening new possibilities of gender representation in K-pop.