The queercoding of Emily Prentiss’ clothing!
For many queer people dressing have been a way of communicating with each other and been vital for finding your people.
So let’s look at the queer coding within Prentiss’ fashion.
We find out through Garcia, that Emily dressed in the goth aesthetic in high school.
For a long time the goth image have been linked with the queer community since it doesn’t comply with the majority in terms of gender expression.
Emily being goth explains to the viewer that Emily probably shared views with the goth/emo/punk community since they are all linked.
When working for the FBI one have to dress a certain way, however rebellious people always seem to find a way to display their personality through small things they add to their uniform.
Once we meet Prentiss it doesn’t take long for her to express herself through among other things her makeup. Compared to the other women Emily’s makeup in the earlier season seem way darker. This can be a bit of crumbs from her goth youth.
Through out most seasons Emily is spotted wearing her belt pushed to her right side. This can be interpreted as a way of breaking the heteronormativity of the man dominated society that is the FBI.
If you really lean into the queerness of Prentiss you can add the flagging of carabiners to this. Since she is often in the field and therefore cannot risk hanging on to stuff a carabiner wouldn’t be suitable for her work, yet a belt buckle pushed to the side could be Emily’s way of flagging.
Emily is seen wearing cargo pants multiple times when in the field. And cargo pants have for a long time been used by people working in blue collar jobs, and of obvious reasons it has through time mostly been a pant used buy men and can therefore be seen as a more masculine piece along side the loose fit that can hide feminine curves.
With her cargo pants Emily always wears her black leather military boots. The shoe brand Doc Matins have for a long time been a must have in a queer wardrobe. The thick boot that Emily wears can therefore very easily be associated with the queer flagging of doc martins.
In the newest season in episode 6 (message in a bottle) we get to see Emily in her casual wear. A used fbi sweater and loose fitting jeans, taking a closer look upon the jeans we can easily see that her jeans are cuffed.
This is among queer people a stereotypical fashion statement of (mostly) bisexual people.
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