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Go to your local Topshop or H&M at the moment and chances are you’re going be contemplating some very snazzy trouser suits, be it velvet corduroy, gingham or fluorescent. That’s right — once the go-to ensemble of jaded boardrooms, legal dramas and Hillary Clinton — the suit has strutted its way into the mainstream. Yet, even at a time when matching two-pieces are two-a-penny in high street stores and cultural attitudes around gender and sexuality are rapidly changing, the trouser suit as worn by women still signifies a disruptive fashion choice. Ever since Marlene Dietrich famously stepped out in a top hat and tails in the early 1930s, a woman donning a suit has been shorthand for shocking self-assertion — an unexpected expression of power and agency that still continues to the present day.
This is just one of the strands discussed at a major new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that explores the complicated entanglement of fashion and gender. Taking into account cultural shifts in terms of changing gender roles, increased rights for the LGBTQ+ community and racial equality, the exhibition, Gender Bending Fashion, is a timely reminder of the role clothes play in maintaining social conventions, and equally, their potential for subversion. Across three sections, “Disrupt”, “Blur” and “Transcend” with references to gender-bending icons including David Bowie, Prince, Janelle Monae and Tilda Swinton and designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, the exhibition suggests the possibility of a fluid relationship between gender and clothing, where conventions are upended and established associations are left at the door.
As an item of clothing, the trouser suit comes with heavy connotations of its own, but because of its entrenched association with heteronormative masculinity, it still offers a radical opportunity for gender non-conformism when worn by people other than cis-gendered males. Here, are some of our favourite examples from the recent decades of badass women donning suits — proving that normative gendered fashion is most definitely a thing of the past.
Grace Jones on the cover of Nightclubbing
The revolutionary impact of the suit on contemporary women’s fashion can pretty much begin and end with Ms. Grace Jones. Memorably donning a boxy blazer on the cover of Nightclubbing — not to mention the slate grey, cropped ankle pantsuit she wears in the video for the album track, “Pull up the Bumper” — Jones put the power into ‘power suit’. Combining her angular suits with a cropped hair and heavy sweep of magenta blush and ruby lips, Grace Jones’ brand of gender-bending fashion paved the way for a new dawn of gender-fuckery fierceness.
Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City
Still from Sex and the City. Photo: courtesy of HBO.
Back in the late ‘90s, when Sex and the City first made its way onto our screens, Miranda’s buttoned up shirts, skinny ties and wide open collars were seen as stern and serious. Nowadays, Miranda, as played by Cynthia Nixon, is widely regarded to be the real style icon of the show with her Balenciaga-esque take on layered casuals as well as her no-nonsense city-chic business attire widely emulated by the Insta generation.
Rihanna at the 2015 Grammys
Who can forget the imposing silhouette that Rihanna cut at the 2015 Grammy Awards in a oversized, double-breasted black two piece? Arguably, the recent suit trend can be traced back to this moment, when a smouldering Ri-Ri slunk about the stage, hair slicked back, diamond rings twinkling from her fingers, begging us to understand her recklessness (surely the definitive proof of female BDE also). Within minutes of her appearance, it was obvious: suits were the Next Big Thing — if Rihanna does it, it’s got to be, right?
Lady Gaga in the video for “Million Reasons”
Still from Millions Reasons (2016). Lady Gaga.
Living as we are in the age of millennial pink, Gaga’s candy pink cowboy number worn in the video for “Million Reasons” constitutes the sartorial statement we’d all been waiting for. Topped with a coordinating stetson, acres of blond extensions, stilettos and Western details, the outstanding look compelled us to consider whether we are taking enough risks in our fashion choices, hell even our lives. If that wasn’t enough, don’t forget the voluminous Marc Jacobs’ gunmetal suit she wore at the Women in Hollywood event in October as she made a harrowing speech on sexual assault and the necessity for women’s support networks in the industry.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the cover of TIME
After gracing the cover of TIME magazine this week, the Democratic congresswoman is reminding us of the political prowess of the pantsuit. While she’s wearing the suit to adhere to dress code conventions, Ocasio-Cortez is somehow giving the office staple a new lease of life. On TIME, she’s wearing a high-necked navy blazer with her trademark red lips, demonstrating the real democratic potential of the trouser suit.
Gender Bending Fashion runs through to 25 August at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.