Les Girls Les Boys: Androgyny Without Representation
When I heard āgender-fluid lingerieā, my first thought was an almost-impossible one: wait, is a mainstream lingerie designer launching a brand that accommodates genderfluid peopleās needs? And then I thought: what would that even look like?
But then I saw the current collection and the website on which itās housed. Itās not so much that Iām disappointed as that Iāve returned to my usual level-of-appointment over the state of lingerie made for trans or nonbinary or genderfluid folks. The lingerie that is actually made with our needs and desires in mind tends to be made by us. And this isnāt it.
To start: on the Les Girls Les Boys website, the front page splits into āShop Les Girlsā and āShop Les Boys,ā which immediately suggests less fluidity than I expected. The logo on the site is an artfully arranged jumble of the letters in āles girls les boys,ā suggesting a kind of lazy orgy of genders. Yet rather than matching that logo with an artfully arranged jumble of lingerie, the suggestion is made right away to choose a side.
On the Les Girls side are lace bodysuits and bralettes. On the Les Boys side are briefs and sweatpants. Some specific items are shown modeled on both men and women, such as a pair of white boxers. Some items are in both sides of the store, like t-shirts and socks. Some items in the Les Girls side are loosely inspired by masculine styles, but taken in a very feminine direction such as Henley bodysuits and feminine-styled āboy briefsā.
However, I noticed pretty quickly that all the āfluidityā in the store flows in one direction: masculine and masculine-inspired pieces crop up in āLes Girls,ā but there isnāt a similar smattering of more feminine pieces in āLes Boys.ā For example, the girlsā side features masculine-styled sweatpants, but there is no accompanying lace bodysuit, or even any lace detailing, on the Les Boys side.
In case you think Iām making something out of nothing, I counted the term gender-fluid in no less than three publications. Rees herself is quoted in W Magazine saying, āThe younger generation really doesnāt care about what is traditionally meant for men and what is traditionally meant for womenā¦they all share clothes, no one cares about traditional gender marketing, itās about diversity and itās important that fashion reflects that.āAnd yet the fashion of Les Girls Les Boys reflects a strong gendered split. So does the website. Itās chockablock with gendered marketing strategies, from the dividing line down the middle to this mailing list popup I captured, which asks me to give not just my e-mail address but my specific preference of targeted advertising: les girls or les boys?
This collection is not the prize I thought it might be, and itās left me with lingering questions about what it means to be marketed to. Thereās enough in this collection that I like that itās almost like seeing myself in a funhouse mirror (i.e. so this is what someone far removed thinks someone like me looks like). Which, of course, happens all the time to marginalized folks. Mainstream fashion sees something they like, and they manufacture it and sell it to a mass market. The process of making it appealing to the masses changes it.
