The history of clothing is more unisex than you might think

A model walks the runway for the Triarchy collection during Toronto fashion week in Toronto on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. (Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Throughout history, clothing and accessories have played many different roles in society. They can be an expression, an identification, or just plain protection.

Many items of clothing are also much more unisex, or used to be, than people might realize.

For example, many might associate high heels with women or with a “feminine” appearance. But a high heel is defined as a shoe with an upward-angled sole and, while more subtle than a stiletto, riding boots and cowboy boots worn by people of all genders technically qualify.

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Riding is one of the purposes that high-heeled shoes were invented for, to prevent the rider’s foot from slipping through the stirrups on horseback, according to Robert Shannon, an associate professor in the department of drama at the University of Alberta.

“If we go back in the historical record, we have many societies where dress is interchangeable between genders, or how they construct genders,” Shannon said.

“Across the human body, the things that hold garments up, shoulders, waistlines, etcetera, seem to be fairly common.”

The history of clothing

Fashion tends to start with something that’s functional, Shannon notes.

Looked at from a non-riding sense, high heels make people appear taller and change the appearance of the calf. Historically, this is something men and women wanted to do, often because of beauty standards at the time.

“Men, certainly in the Victorian era, become very dull, very sort of uninteresting, and the female-presenting members of society are then adorned in silk and satin and very high end and very showy kinds of fabrications in their garments,” Shannon said.

“Complete opposite in the 18th century, when men and women are wearing the same kinds of fabric, same kinds of textiles, very showy, very opulent. There’s lots of lace, there’s lots of buttons that all of these things are there to sort of demark status in society, but it’s very ornate and very fancy.”

Edmonton owes its existence, in part, to fashion, because Fort Edmonton started due to the fur trade. Europeans wanted fur for their clothing, and now, centuries later, a thriving city of millions surrounds that trading post, according to Kathleen Todoruk, wardrobe development and production coordinator with Fort Edmonton Park.

“The Queen wanted them for the hats, that’s why her guards wear the beaver pelt hats,” Todorok said.

“Europeans wanted to wear more furs when they came to Canada because of the environment - it’s bloody cold.”

Eventually, function turns to fashion and power, wealth and status are other things clothes can convey. The crown declares the monarch, no matter the gender, or, in the case of the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, the traditional club beard declares the Egyptian ruler.

Throughout history, garments and gender were not as tied together as they were in recent centuries.

“As societies rise in affluence, then we tend to see lots of experimentation about how we prove the opulence of our class or our position of power,” Shannon said.

“As we move down in social classes, people are wearing almost the same thing, leggings, clogs, all of these things are a utilitarian kind of garment. They’re about keeping warm, they’re about keeping protected, they’re about keeping dry.”

Corsets are another article of clothing that used to be popular with men and women.

Some may be using a corset to achieve an hourglass figure, but others might be using it as a support mechanism to hold up several heavy skirts, as used to be the fashion, or to support the breasts, as corsets were invented hundreds of years before bras.

“If you disperse the stress of multiple petticoats to keep warm over an object that moves across the lower torso, it is far more comfortable, it’s far safer, it’s far healthier,” Shannon said.

Even something as simple as back problems were something people of both genders would wear corsets to help with.

He also points to the Minoan civilization, a Bronze Age culture centred around Crete, where men and women appeared to use large belts, similar to corsets, to suppress their waists.

A corset is a compression garment, which is something olden- and modern-day athletes use.

“Very high-performance sports rely on very sophisticated kinds of compression garments, which are not there to shape the body, but to support the musculature while it is doing particular activities,” Shannon said.

Equipment athletes of all genders wear tends to be largely the same, with a few exceptions, because the point is to protect the wearer, no matter who, or what body part, is underneath.

Speaking of sports, men participating in the Highland Games tend to wear kilts, a type of wraparound skirt famously worn by Scottish and Irish men.

The origins of the kilt date back to the 1600s, according to Lochcarron of Scotland, a tartan manufacturer.

The kilt has evolved over the years, but has always included a skirt-like element and men of the highlands still wear them, though usually on special occasions these days.

The femininity and masculinity of clothes

“Gender is changing. It is deconstructed into many facets, many ways of thinking about it, many ways of identifying it, many ways of living with it,” Shannon said.

“So garments are also having to answer those questions.”

Clothes and accessories are inanimate objects, they have no care for the concept of masculinity and femininity, only people do.

“There’s a tremendous psychological aspect that comes along with fashion and clothing and how we wear it and what we wear and what we want to say to the world, just by not even saying a thing, but what we adorn ourselves with,” Todoruk said.

There have been times where ruling classes have tried to limit fashion in the general public, declaring certain colors, fabrics or styles couldn’t be worn by lower classes.

“These (rules) have never worked because fashion is too pervasive, it’s too powerful,” Shannon said. “The need to identify the people with whom you agree, the people with whom you share values, is too important, it’s too necessary.”

Others have been targeted because their appearance went against what those in power thought was the standard for a man or woman at the time.

An example of historic suppression Todorok points to is the macaronis of the 18th century, who were men, not pasta.

In the late 1700s, it was common for aristocratic men to go on a tour of Europe as part of their coming of age, and Italy was a notable stop on many trips.

There, a number of young men adopted the fashion and attitude of the macaroni group, which could be defined as overemphasised and exaggerated, and brought it back to their home countries.

“At one point when (the trend) was happening, they were susceptible to being arrested and jailed because somebody in power decided that it wasn’t acceptable, and now it was dangerous,” Todorok said.

“It’s funny, the social stigmas that are attached to so many articles in fashion today and it blows my mind that people are still thinking that way in our day,” she added.

“Often, I just kind of sit there going, ‘Huh, that’s kind of sad that you’re not opening up your world to to see where it all comes from,’ and they’d probably be very surprised to know that often what they have in their own lives, their own closets, has an origin that would really shock them and make them realize that it’s not as myopic as you think.”

Clothes and fashion in a modern world

“Fashion is one of the engines of society, because fashion continually changes,” Shannon said.

“This engine of society changes appearance, changes what we value, and it’s a very complex set of signals about who you are, where you come from, what you identify with.”

Fashion is still an important identifier in the modern world.

Gone are the days, for most, when everyone knows who everyone else is in the village. Given the availability and accessibility of travel, you might not even know who your neighbours are anymore.

“These (clothes) are ways in an ever increasingly dense population for people to understand who is who,” Shannon said.

“It’s incredibly important, once you move past a certain size of society and you have societies where there’s a lot of movement in and out … that they be able to identify themselves so they can find their others.”

For example, in a hospital, being able to identify staff could be the difference between life and death for someone. In a store, being able to identify an employee can help you find what you’re looking for.

While both at extreme ends of the importance scale, clothing - fashion, technically - can help people navigate these types of scenarios.

Humans are social creatures and socializing with others can have physical and mental benefits.

Shannon refers to the ability of fashion to show people “their others” which can be as simple as seeing someone wearing a shirt with a band logo that you also like on it.

“It’s a way of signaling, it’s a way of finding belonging and meaning and value,” Shannon said.

Fashion lets you be who you want to be

As technology advances, colours, textiles and styles become more widely available.

Before the rise of the internet, pattern books were a way for people to make their own trendy clothes and the height of fashion was often dictated by the major industry players in London, Milan and Paris.

Now, the internet has made the whole of history bare for all to see and afforded people the opportunity to find old, modern or new styles that fit them.

“There are any number of people who are living in other periods, people who dress like it’s 1940, people who dress (in styles) anywhere from the 18th to the 19th century,” Shannon said

There’s also an environmental aspect to vintage fashion, wearing or transforming old clothes keeps them out of landfills.

“We’re now, even today, seeing a resurgence in furs and hides, because we’re realizing that man made is not sustainable, and it’s going to sit in the landfill for a long time,” Todorok said.

At Fort Edmonton Park, Todorok says some of the employees identify as non-binary and says it’s been interesting to see the ways they choose to express how masculine or feminine they might feel on any given day.

“It’s really wonderful to see them adorn themselves and take on this persona that they feel very comfortable with and very strong about, and go into a world that isn’t always accepting, and that tells you the power of the clothes and also tells you a power behind your psychological viewpoint of themselves,” Todorok adds.

“You can go onto a website and buy almost anything your heart desires today, and that’s for a reason - we’re allowing ourselves, and we’re allowing other people, to finally say what they want to say with freedom.”