Is Style Gendered? Talk to Literary Society, 20 May 2022, by Navaz Batliwalla

 

That apostle of 80s gender agnosticism, Boy George, famously serenaded the chameleon of his ambiguous sexuality :

I’m a man without conviction

I’m a man who doesn’t know

How to sell a contradiction

You come and go,

You come and go. 

At this stage, George O’Dowd had not yet been convicted and was advancing the thesis that his particular brand of gender fluidity was the product of a deterministic Fate, his karma. 

Using a relaxed interview format Lit. Soc. Committee member, Mark Russell, explored, rather than tried to sell, the contradictions imposed by gender stereotyping and the attempts to escape from it in the world of fashion.  His interlocutor and the Lit. Soc.’s guest speaker was his friend and fellow denizen of the fashion world, Navaz Batliwalla.  As Mark teased out Navaz’s biography, we learnt that her earliest fashion memories from her Kensington Market childhood were the Punk images of the late 70s which retained a subconscious hold through the 80s despite the ubiquity of hyperfeminist big hair, make up and shoulder pads (Sue Ellen, J.R. Ewing’s wife in Dallas, anyone?).  Despite a dalliance with 50s American glamour illustrated by her youthful self in Minnie Mouse attire, Navaz confessed to being consistently attracted to the garçon manqué or tomboy look and from there to the androgynous.  When her initial ambition to be a fashion illustrator was thwarted, she sidestepped into fashion writing and pulled off an early coup with the publication of her first photo shoot by The Guardian.  During a 7-year stint as editor of Teenage magazine she branched out into online communication with her Disneyrollergirl blog.  This proved a professional lifeline when her magazine fell victim to the financial crash and closed in 2008.  While the fortunes of magazines declined, bloggers became the rising stars of a world characterised by short attention spans.  The blog, amplified by judiciously manufactured events, sustained her brand and she remained alert to the emergence of niche magazines.  In 2014, capitalising on the catalogue of images and ideas on her Pinterest (a digital pinboard) and having identified an androgynous leaning sub-group lurking behind the dominant hyperfeminist look, she graduated into books.  The New Garçonne extolled the Gentlewoman style, a soft-focus masculine feminism which rejected prettiness and male gaze femininity.  With a smile, our speaker recounted the clash between her artistic liberty and the unyielding imposition of commercial discipline in the march to publication; number of pages, costs, pricing, photo faces to be unrecognisable.  To her surprise, the last demand gave the photos a pleasingly timeless quality.  Now battle-hardened, Batliwalla authored a second book, Face Values, which brought new beauty rituals and skin care secrets into our ken.  She was encouraged to bring male subjects into this work and break with a tradition of couching beauty in exclusively feminine language. 

The interview proceeded to address duality and the interweaving of the masculine and the feminine with Navaz adducing the example of the pop star, Harry Styles, formerly of the highly commercial boy band, One Direction, who, in his flamboyant way, has become the poster child of genderless dressing.  Tossing some red meat in the direction of the Court Hall audience, the main course in this food for thought repast, Navaz invited us to consider if we are heading for the metaverse years, alluding to the immersive digital future of the internet.  Here we learnt that we could all have an avatar – a 3-legged dog, ourselves as a member of the opposite sex or whatever – which we could dress digitally (with no adverse environmental impact!).  The mirage of a 4^th Industrial Revolution blurring distinctions between digital and physical worlds shimmered before us, the internet of things! 

Our guest discussed some studies from the field of Psychology showing subjects’ conduct could be altered by clothes associated with specific behaviours e.g., lab. coats or military uniforms which segued neatly into clothes empowering the wearer and the idea that you are what you wear.  On the other hand, some deem clothes oppressive - women’s corsets and high heels or men’s suits and ties.  Navaz prophesied change in the previously acutely gendered world of couture, citing again the gender-fluid Harry Styles and his new line of nail varnish for men and the prominence of Lipstick Brother in the expanding Chinese male cosmetics market.

In a lively Q&A, the Winchelsea audience demonstrated an enthusiastic engagement with the avant-garde topics presented although the closing slide of David Beckham in a sarong may have left the odd traditionalist uncertain as to his ability to embrace this version of the future.

William Doherty

Comment on above by Shirley Meyer:

This is a brilliant review of what was an interesting talk in an often “hard-to pull-off” format.

Obviously, a bit nervous at the start, the couple quickly relaxed and the interview became quite conversational. It was engaging, as it covered many aspects of my own youth, searching for my identity and then seeing my own daughters grow up and go through a similar process in an era when hints at gender fluidity, through tailoring, has become, and, is now, much more acceptable. The women’s trouser suits of the 1960’s and 70’s were not the same thing, in my view, but were more of a statement about emancipation and equality, rather than androgeneity.

My only regret is that Navaz Batliwallah had no copies of her books for sale!