Although the idea of fluidity in fashion is not new, there is something novel about the current fixation on it: the trend is more substantial and more politically engaged than ever. The fashion industry, which always reflects the current generation and society, is fuelled by the global movement towards inclusivity and increased awareness of and sensitivity towards the experiences of gender non- conforming individuals.

This element of increased representation is part of what motivates Leonard Cheong, designer and founder of Singapore based, gender-fluid Athflow label Finix Wear. The athleisure and street-casual designs are born from Cheong’s experiences of living in Singapore; his love for a versatile, comfort-first style; and his own queer identity.

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The brand aims to spotlight the transitional lifestyle nature of athleisure wear rather than the functional aspect. In terms of fit and sizing, Finix Wear’s designs cater to an inclusive customer base, often cut in voluminous silhouettes, and featuring minimalistic colours and patterns, disrupting the industry’s standards of gendered dressing. One of the signature pieces is a yukata robe-inspired jacket in fabrics suited to the Singapore weather. “This was something that I couldn’t wear when I was younger growing up, because it [Singapore] was a very conservative society; it was always your parents telling you what a boy should wear. I definitely had to suppress a lot of my style,” Cheong tells Tatler. “But it didn’t stop me from experimenting.”

As for what his brand stands for, he says, “For me, it was [about] breaking away from labelling and allowing people to have that freedom without stopping them from wearing [a garment]. That’s where I feel like the words ‘genderless’, ‘gender-neutral’ and ‘gender-fluid’ are giving the power back to individuals and saying you can define your own style.”

In this case, however, there was a deliberate desire to serve his community. Not only are Cheong’s designs inclusive, so are his models: he casts a diverse range of people of different genders, races and sizes as the faces of his brand: “I started my brand to rock society in some way ... to [show] a different perspective of what the gender-fluid community is,” he says. “This is LGBTQ+ activism as well.”

While, as Petersson puts it, “fashion is first and foremost one of the most creative forms of self-expression”, it is, of course, also rooted in business, and assumptions that a brand designs only for a particular community will affect the bottom line. “We have to be very careful about how we position gender-fluid fashion, because every time we talk about it, people could assume that those collections are [particularly] for [LGBTQ+] communities—but they might not be,” says Kennis Chan, director of Fashion Asia, a Hong Kong government-founded fashion initiative and incubation programme. “From a designer’s perspective, that may not be fair, because they are not actually designing their merchandise for that particular community.”

Cheong has had that experience. “When you establish your brand as genderless, people automatically think ‘Oh, are you a brand for gay people or the LGBTQ+ community?’, [even] when you didn’t even define [it as] that,” he says. “People here [in Singapore] really dress more to blend in rather than to stand out, and I think that creates a kind of confusion and that discomfort—‘Oh, I’m straight, so I don’t really associate with that [gender-fluid style].’”

Kennis Chan says that, in order to help buyers to imagine their designs on people of different genders, some brands, including Hong Kong labels Ponder.er and Demo, curate two lookbooks, each featuring the same designs on either men or women.

But many designers are leaving it up to the customer to interpret “who” their clothes are for. Demo, known to Hongkongers as the go-to brand for singer Hins Cheung and boyband Mirror’s concerts, has been pioneering gender-fluid looks since 2014. “On red carpets, women[’s fashion] have many variations and can go dramatic; while what is available for men is just well-made bespoke suits. Why can’t men have evening wear?” asks Derek Chan, the design half of the brand. Since Demo’s inception,
he has been incorporating details typical of evening wear, such as embroidery, crystal embellishments and luxe fabrics, onto menswear cutting; or perfecting typical menswear details on womenswear.

Demo’s Sir Orlando / Lady Orlando collection—a flamboyant capsule presented during the autumn-winter 2023 Paris Fashion Week, which will be followed by a ready-to-wear collection, hitting stores this month—offers two interpretations of Orlando, the gender-bending title character of writer Virginia Woolf ’s 1928 novel. “I wanted to challenge myself as a designer to translate it in two ways,” says Derek Chan. “Also, as someone who is very interested in gender studies, [to ask], in a modern society, how should we identify gender?”

The designer explains why he prefers to use “gender diversity” over other terms: “A lot of items can be made gender-neutral—think a T-shirt or sweatshirt from Uniqlo— but [something Demo is going for] is adding the characteristics of both or all genders onto one piece of clothing.” Instead of simplifying design, as is the case with many “unisex” items, his approach is about adding more design, so the wearer can truly express themselves and explore their own style. 

This has led to a diverse customer base, of individuals who see themselves reflected in the brand’s goals. “One example is a gay couple who came to us to customise our Métier collection for their wedding,” Mite Chan says. “Of course, we don’t only cater to gay communities, but seeing moments like this make us happy: men [who want to dress more dramatically] have many possibilities.”

While 2016 LVMH Prize semi- finalist Motoguo, a Malaysian brand founded by Moto Guo, Kinder Eng and Jay Perry Ang, is known for its playful gender-fluid aesthetic, there’s a straightforward agenda behind it. “Our focus is on creating clothing that we are proud of for everyone and anyone; the outcome of “gender fluidity” qualities is simply the outcome of our approach,” the trio tells Tatler by email. “Our commitment lies in constantly pushing ourselves to offer inclusive options and ensuring that our clothing is accessible and appealing to a diverse range of individuals, regardless of their gender identity.” Their care-free attitudes, colourful prints and dramatic silhouettes have been embraced by Asian pop stars such as Nana Ouyoung and Waa Wei and the costume teams of western shows like Emily in Paris and Euphoria alike.

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Even traditional menswear labels are open to change, says Alan See, co-founder of classic menswear brand The Armoury, explaining that the more old-fashioned practices lend themselves perfectly to genderless dressing—although he acknowledges it may take time for this concept to be accepted. “Classic menswear revolves around a lot of artisans, including tailors and shoemakers; and the idea of being able to customise an item with the help of a craftsman to fit any gender would actually be more relevant than ever. However, in a world full of ready-to-wear and off-the-rack, it will take a while to educate and really coax patience out of product- hungry customers.”

Statistics prove that a desire for gender-fluid fashion is huge. According to a survey of Gen Z conducted by fintech company Klarna and Dynata in 2022, approximately 50 per cent of online shoppers worldwide have bought fashion items that are not traditionally associated with their gender. Additionally, roughly 70 per cent of consumers express an interest in buying gender-fluid clothing in the future. This trend is not limited to high-fashion runways, but is also evident in everyday shopping, as online searches for “gender-neutral” fashion continue to rise annually. According to McKinsey’s The State of Fashion 2023 report, fluid fashion is going
to be one of the key themes this year as consumer attitudes about gender identity and expression shift. This reality is causing many brands and retailers to blur the lines between “men’s” and “women’s” clothing and reconsider their product design, marketing strategies and in-store and digital shopping experiences.

So where does gender-fluid fashion fit in a store or on a website? “The main obstacle is to some extent the systems we have in place, which are built on legacy including gendered floors in stores, and of course online, with menswear and womenswear still showcased in that way,” says Petersson.

Traditionally, the budgets of a retailer’s fashion buyers are split into two, and the addition of gender-fluid brands may cause hesitation and ultimately no spending at all. “I remember there were showrooms telling us to be certain about the positioning of either womenswear or menswear; if you position as gender-fluid, [buyers] might get confused,” Mite Chan says of taking Demo to Fashion Week before the 2020s. He and Derek Chan were advised, “If you meet menswear buyers, you can say it’s menswear, and vice versa with womenswear.”

Globally, designers and retailers agree the visibility and availability of gender-fluid fashion in showrooms indicate progress, with mainland China being one of the most open markets in Asia. Labelhood, a self-styled cultural community that connects creative designers with young Chinese consumers through events, retail experiences and brand incubation, is very aware of the momentum. “Younger generations here are equipped with a global vision in terms of dressing and labelling; everyone is very open to it. [Gender-fluidity] is a status quo here,” Tasha Liu, the company’s co-founder, says.

As a retailer who stocks designers from China and around the globe, Liu has had plenty of opportunities to observer customer behaviours. “In our menswear boutiques, brands which branched out [initially] as menswear designers are gaining popularity with female consumers, leading to those pure menswear brands being more gender-fluid,” she says, citing Asian designers Ponder.er and international labels Hed Mayer and Bode as examples.

This is far from the case across the continent, however. Embracing gender-fluid shopping can be complex, considering the cultural norms and traditional values which heavily influence consumers’ preferences. In Singapore, where mandatory military service may
create expectations that men should adopt a typical masculine image, there is also a lack of support for gender-non-conforming creatives. Cheong, who comes from a Chinese-Peranakan family, says, “Singaporeans are still not ready for these kinds of Western values... my brand has struggled a lot in that [respect] because [people make] a lot of associations [about it].”

In Malaysia, meanwhile, trends tend to be conservative because the majority of the population is Muslim; Motoguo’s Guo and Ang tell Tatler, “The fashion scene in general tends to be slower-paced compared to major cities [elsewhere], and the concept of gender-fluid fashion is still relatively niche.”

It is also important that marketing is adapted to represent the brands accordingly, through the individuals cast to model them. From luxury houses to high street brands, androgynous and gender-fluid models are increasingly being cast for the runway and in campaigns. “It snowballs into seeing a rise in representation across the board— including of gender expression— leading to more youths today celebrating their identity as they shed expectations of who they feel they’re ‘expected to be’,” Tim Tan, head booker of Misc Management, a Singapore-based modelling agency representing 60 talents across different gender expressions, sexual identity and body types, says. “But [such representation] has still been quite lacking in Asia. Brands and media are still very wary of featuring gender-fluid individuals, despite their western counterparts doing the same.

“Especially in Asia, where conformity is often rewarded, we see confusion and push-back when I pitch my gender-fluid models for certain jobs or campaigns. We get a lot of comments like ‘The look is great but it’s not for us’, which is something I also communicate to my models in full transparency as we navigate this together,” Tan adds. “The industry is also in an interesting place now, where we see an increased receptiveness, but perhaps more consistency in continually working with gender- non-conforming talents would help bring it to the next level, instead of a one-off diversity casting.”

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Almost everyone Tatler spoke to mentioned the need to create fluid shopping spaces, both digitally and physically. Cheong mentions popular Singapore department store Tangs, where men’s and women’s categories have been merged onto one floor due to limited real estate, a move which has inadvertently created something of a fluid space. “Maybe the way forward is breaking down those gender structures and making it safe for consumers to just shop how they want, whether it’s the women’s or the men’s section, or whether it is across both,” he says. And the shops have a responsibility to catch up. “There are [gender-neutral] brands, consumers are open-minded and keen, but retailers might not be quite there yet,” says Mite Chan. “There is not really a retail space that stocks or exposes people to a lot of gender- neutral pieces.”

Petersson insists that retailers are aware of this need. “I hope that as re-platforming is becoming a necessity for many online [retailers], showing a more open mind to how the categorisation is built out needs to be a consideration,” she says. “From a physical perspective, we would love to see more experimentation with how stock is displayed—you already see it in smaller boutiques. However, department stores taking a braver stance here in particular would be welcomed, as they generally have so much space to play with.”

The idea is not to completely disrupt the traditional women/ menswear divide, however, but to be more inclusive and open up conversations. Selfridges in London curated a one-off space dedicated to its Agender line and genderless shopping experience back in 2015, and Maison Margiela has been classifying fashion as “women”, “men” and “all gender” on its e-commerce site. “I think it’s a matter of purchasing behaviours: the ‘womenswear’ and ‘menswear’ sections are designed to make the shopping experiences easier for directional consumers, or those who clearly know they want women’s or menswear,” says Liu of Labelhood. Her shoppers, she says, are “more sophisticated and elevated”, adding: “Within different layers of the consumers, there is the top consumer group who doesn’t care about the categorisation; of course, there is a majority of consumers who still prefer the common way of categorisation. Every concept store should know its customer and serve that purpose.”

It’s also a retailer’s responsibility to convey the right message for the brands that it carries. “It’s not for us to put people in boxes they may not identify with, and it’s the retailer’s responsibility just as much as the individual brand to tell the brand’s story,” Petersson says. Kennis Chan says, “It really depends on how the department store wants to position the designers; but again, it would
be good if we could see a booth like Selfridges had, in Hong Kong. If we could have an area that showcases all the gender-fluid collections, that would really help the designers from that perspective.”

Perhaps ultimately, though, it comes down to consumer demand. After all, if customers actively speak up about what they want, they will incentivise buyers and retailers to invest in this segment, and we can all be a little more free to dress according to our personality, not our gender.

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