Vogue just released their August cover story about Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik and people are understandably pissed.
The article says that Hadid and Malik are “part of a new generation embracing gender fluidity.”
Uh, what? Gigi is a self-identifying cis woman and Zayn is a self-identifying cis man. Where are you getting “gender fluid” from?
The article then continues to include some dialogue between the couple in which they discuss sharing clothes regardless of if the items were made men or women. They recall an Anna Sui shirt that Zayn borrowed from Gigi, to which Zayn says,
“Yeah, I like that shirt… It doesn’t matter if it was made for a girl.”
And Gigi replies,
“Totally. It’s not about gender. It’s about, like, shapes. And anyway, it’s fun to experiment.”
To be clear, when Gigi says “it’s not about gender,” she is referring to the shirt, not her nor Zayn’a gender identity.
Not once do either Zayn or Gigi even hint at the idea that they are gender fluid, only that they sometimes like to experiment with their styles and perhaps even dress androgynously.
It’s not their fault that Vogue chose to focus the entire article around the idea of gender fluidity. For all that we know the story was pitched to them as, “Hey, want to do a fun photoshoot where you both dress up in menswear?”
Androgynous fashion is “in” so we wouldn’t blame them for thinking it would be a fun spread.
It was Vogue who chose to make the entire story around gender, which can be a completely separate entity from the clothes you wear.
Shame on Vogue for trying to monetize gender identity and what they see as being “cool.” Shame on them for confusing gender expression with style. We expect better from the fashion giant.
