Lately I've been thinking a lot about androgyny; the extreme yet ambiguous subjects it entails, it's place in the fashion world, and how our society reacts to it. Within this post are some very interesting takes on the subject from a sociological and fashion point of view derived from Adorned in Dreams by Elizabeth Wilson. The photos are from a photo shoot I did recently with my favorite model/muse Janely Rodriguez and coincidentally fit well with the theme, in my opinion at least. The makeup is by the fucking incredible Kayla Carcone whom I recently did another project with that I will be posting behind the scenes shot's from soon enough.
In the meantime let us discuss the chaos that is androgyny.

“Today androgyny has ceased to be sacred. Modern fashion plays endlessly with the distinction between masculinity and femininity. With it we express our shifting ideas about what masculinity and femininity are. Fashion permits us to flirt with transvestism, precisely to divest it of all its danger and power.”

“Peter Ackroyd, writing about transvestism, takes an entirely different view, and suggests that what lies behind the social construction of gender is not a fear of passivity, but the fear of and desire for the ‘chaos of androgyny’, which he says is sacred:

'Cross dressing has often been the sign of an extraordinary destiny. In many shamanistic cultures, transvestites are regarded as sorcerers or visionaries, who, because of their double nature as men dressed as women, are sources of diving authority within the community….It is not surprising that this double nature should be seen as a sign of the sacred, when we consider the androgynous or at least bisexual nature of the deities [that] are worshiped….Androgyny, in which the two sexes co-exist in one form and which the transvestite priest imitates in his own person, is an original state of power.'"

“In these ‘liberated’ times a man in a skirt causes considerable anxiety and hostility. The counter-culture of the late sixties flirted with the idea…but in general in order to wear a skirt a man has to define himself as a transvestite, that is, a sexual deviant.”

“…outrage dressing, ambiguous as it is, may on occasion express simply—ambiguity. At first glance the androgyny of rock stars such as David Bowie shocks. New boundaries of boldness have surely been set when a man wears make-up, or a woman shaves her head…gender and desire are ultimately unstable. The rigid sexual identities we cultivate, and which are popularly experienced as ‘natural’ and given at birth, are really functions elaborated by the nineteenth-century sexologists; they merely imprison the waywardness of lust, constraining us in sexual and social roles.”

“Suzy Menkes (The Times, 1 May 1984) wrote about the 1984 fashions for ‘androgynous undies’ and masculinity in women’s dress, suggesting that these were ‘the ultimate fashion statement about the sexual revolution’. Suzy Menkes goes on to reveal, however, that this form of ‘cross dressing’, which is opening up the way to ‘gender-bending’ unisex departments in exclusive fashion stores, is simply a new fad and that—significantly—the market it is aimed at is the market of affluent heterosexual couples for whom androgynous dress symbolizes not an attack on gender but merely a reaffirmation of middle-class togetherness.”

What are your thoughts on 'the chaos of androgyny'?