The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The author has shared a YouTube video.
You will need to accept and consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies by our third-party partners (including: YouTube, Instagram or Twitter), in order to view embedded content in this article and others you may visit in future.
To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.
During VOICES 2019, performance artist and designer Alok Vaid-Menon urged the fashion industry to ‘de-gender’ itself and reframe its definition of beauty. At this year’s edition of VOICES, BoF’s first physical gathering since the start of the pandemic, Vaid-Menon sat down with Harris Reed, a recent Central Saint Martins graduate who has emerged as one of the industry’s brightest rising stars and is vocal about pushing gender-fluid fashion to the mainstream. This year has seen several breakout moments for Reed, including dressing Harry Styles for the cover of Vogue and Iman for the Met Gala, as well as a major profile in the New Yorker and a powerful London Fashion Week debut.
Reed and Vaid-Menon spoke about concrete opportunities for industry stakeholders to de-gender fashion. While many fashion companies want to be seen working with gender non-binary people, few are baking their gender-free principles into their businesses beyond one-off collaborations.
“Companies want the aesthetics of LGBT communities but don’t really care about our lives. We’re always the moodboard,” said Vaid-Menon.
ADVERTISEMENT
De-gendering, when it’s done right, works, according to Reed who wants to see brands and retailers stop dividing selling spaces into men’s and women’s, both online and off. He cited Black Friday sales of over $1.3 million for his partnership with jewellery brand Missoma.
“We’re creating art that people feel like they can live their lives [in] and be authentic [to] who they are,” said Reed at BoF Voices.
This podcast is made in partnership with Klarna.
In the fourth session of BoF’s annual gathering, Harris Reed, Simon Whitehouse, Rafat Ali and others discussed the future of travel, the future of work and the future of gender-free fashion.
Designer Harris Reed and author Mohsin Zaidi sit down with BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks to share their takeaways from the second day of BoF’s annual gathering for big thinkers.
The Rome-based couture house’s bet on Rome’s most bankable design talent could help it punch above its weight.
The duo behind Skims are taking a minority stake in the luxury cashmere label, with an eye on scaling the cult brand.
After headline pieces — sometimes formerly owned by celebrities or featured on TV — sell for blockbuster prices, they can end up pretty much anywhere, from museums to collectors’ closets.
Serre, who grew sales by 20 percent in 2023, has been named Pitti Uomo’s next guest designer. She’s using the opportunity to show her men’s collection for the first time.