Zendaya is one of many designers breaking the clothing gender norms, and she’s doing it for personal and societal reasons.
In an adorable Q&A for Glamour, Zendaya and Black-ish star Yara Shahidi discussed her clothing line Daya by Zendaya and why it was so important to keep it gender-neutral.
Zendaya told Yara,
“It’s the future of fashion, right? I was lucky to have parents who let me wear what I wanted to wear and let me shop where I wanted to shop. Nine times out of 10 I was shopping in the boys’ section. I wore cargo shorts and hoodies. That was my uniform. And it’s different being a girl. We can wear guys’ clothes, but the second a guy wears girls’ clothes, it’s like…”
Which Yara finished with, “What is he doing?”
But the inspiration for her gender-neutral line came from experiences other than her own. She said,
“My sister is a thicker woman. She just had a baby; she’s got hips, a booty popping in these streets. Why should she have to go to a different section to get clothes?”
For Zendaya’s sister and some many others, gender normative clothing can be restrictive and frankly pointless. Daya by Zendaya tries to address that and offers a completely gender-neutral, size-inclusive clothing line with prices as great as $8.
