Kei genderless Fashion

Japan’s Genderless Fashion:

Japanese fashion is always ten steps ahead of the rest of the world; whatever trends you might think you’re ahead on Japan probably thought of them 5 years earlier. Thus, my best advice would be to admit defeat, stay on top of Japanese fashion, and praise this style nucleus for its unparalleled innovation and ability to negate widely accepted conventions of dressing.

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Video courtesy of Dispatch by Circa

Within the last two years the streets of Tokyo’s ultra trendy Harajuku district has developed an ever-growing population of what the mainstream refers to as “jendaresu-kei” otherwise known has “genderless style.” The term mainly refers to biological males who blend both male and female style to create a more androgynous look. What makes genderless kei so unique is that the men who adhere to this trend do not identify as cross dressers, are not necessarily gay, and have no desire to look like women; they are merely abandoning gender norms and in turn creating a standard of beauty that is not assigned to any particular gender. The trend is noteworthy because many popular voices within the movement have stressed that most of the men who dress in Kei are not transgender; they are comfortable with their biological sex and do not wish to identify as women. Genderless style is a fashion statement completely unrelated to sexuality. The trend is about rejecting conformity to stereotypical masculine fashion and instead separating biological sex, the gender your were born with, from gender which members of kei view as the “accessorized body.”

The standard look of genderless kei includes men/boys, usually of a smaller stature and young face, who wear makeup, nail polish, colored contacts, highly accessorize, and strut the streets in extravagant clothing. The bright colors and deliberate matching of accessories is meant to create a new type of male fashion that completely discards societal norms of masculine style using gender neutrality as its main melody.