Fashion and androgyny

As a teenager I didn't like fashion. I thought it was silly to waste effort and money in commodities like clothes.

I was lying to myself because I liked it. Very much.

I enjoyed watching défilés on fashion channels, and I stayed hours watching and listening to critiques' opinion about different collections. I didn't tell this to anyone, I didn't share my thoughts about other people's style, mostly because I was the first one not to put into practice what I was seeing. I just thought many things wouldn't look good enough on me, that there are things I look good in and others I don't.

From a certain perspective I am a fashion snob. I think looking good with your clothes on is something anybody can achieve, any shape your body is: fashion is a matter of taste, that's all. I like to mix clothes of different types and style and still I don't respond to any fashion rule or definition but one: androgyny.

Tonight I was watching a movie I simply adore: "Annie Hall" by Woody Allen with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton and I just stopped the dvd player to say: woha, that's stylish" right while watching this scene on the left.

The whole outfit is just really tasteful and cute. You can tell she's wearing male clothes but she's so sweet and she wears them so naturally her femininity is perfectly preserved making her incredibly intriguing and interesting.

I couldn't be the only one to like this kind of style and there I found a definition: androgyny. Androgyny in fashion started with (or even before) Marlene Dietrich dressing as a man, and then it continued to distinguish and inspire both actresses and fashion designers like Audrey Hepburn and Coco Chanel. During my small and totally random research I stumbled in an article on knol treating "the appeal of the androgynous woman", by dizzy li. It was truly insightful for me to read this article, mostly because I realise I am an androgynous woman. My approach to fashion is much more similar to the one described in the article:  

...a woman who's androgynously inclined would feel just as happy about herself putting on the first thing she sees out of the shower and heading for the door. The refreshing absence of effort can be appealing all by itself.

 This doesn't mean that the clothes who have been chosen are random, just that it's easy to put them together because both the clothes in the wardrobe and the woman respect one and only rule: simplicity.
Androgyny walks side to side with good style and by blurring the edge between what is said to be masculine and feminine it brings creativity and unconventional breeze to anyone around. How cool is that?