Day 3: Hari Nef
On day three of her Tumblr Takeover, model, actress and writer Hari Nef turned her attention to fashion editorials in her continued exploration of the trans aesthetic.
On day three of her Tumblr Takeover, model, actress and writer Hari Nef turned her attention to fashion editorials in her continued exploration of the trans aesthetic.
fashion and the trans aesthetic
by harinef | part iii: editorial archive
hannelore knuts, boyd holbrook, harry kinhead
missy rayder, rj, karen elson, elise crombez
“asexual revolution” by steven meisel
styled by alex white | w magazine october 2004
listen: i’m tried of imagery that interrogates “gender” for “gender’s” sake. i would, however, be remiss to neglect steven meisel’s “asexual revolution” in a discussion of the trans aesthetic in fashion.
“asexual” is a powerful tagline. white’s styling, for the most part, eschews drag-y clichés to chip away at normative gender aesthetics rather than reinforce them. take the image above: hannelore looks androgynous as ever, missy’s serving high femme, karen and elise could have just walked off a set for american vogue (if you cropped the photo, anyway). oh, and the boys look like boys. indeed: the “asexuality” of this image emerges from gender performance, not gender aesthetic. from left to right: he holds her breasts; she holds his “breasts;” he holds his “breasts;” she holds her breasts. to conclude, a question: what’s a breast? if everyone can replicate this gesture, does this mean that everyone has breasts? does anyone have breasts? the binary body dissolves into a gestural index. “asexual?” maybe. trans? for sure.
fashion and the trans aesthetic
by harinef | part iii: editorial archive
“crossing” by thomas schenk
styled by joanne blades | dutch september/october 1999
pussy boys are the new wave of men’s fashion imagery. the most feminine menswear out there is lauded as the most contemporary. male models have never been thinner, their hair has never been longer, their walks have never been daintier. their hands are on their hips: upside down, and one at a time.
my generation of fashion bloggers loves dutch. its imagery, which must have seemed quite subversive nearly two decades ago, aligns with current tastes. take this image from fall 1999: it doesn’t look like a tear from a menswear editorial, yet there’s little to tell you otherwise. if the subject is androgynous, his androgyny springs from a question of “what’s going on?” rather than “that’s a guy?” a g-string cuts into a hip lean enough to be “male,” supple enough to be “female.” or is it a jockstrap? mongolian lamb is fab, but well within the bounds of bowie’s “glam” masculinity (another tireless reference point for today’s designers). needless to say: i love this image. schenk and blades offer plenty of gender signifiers, but no easy conclusions.
