The androgynous meaning and interpretation has changed in ways both subtle and dramatic over the years.
The 1910s
Before Coco Chanel, it was unthinkable for a woman to wear pants. But the designer also associated with the little black dresses and chic lipsticks was a feminist first, telling TIME Magazine she believe every woman should dress how she felt on the inside, not how society told her to dress.
The 1930s
Hollywood further spread androgyny to the wider world as a form of glamor and fashion with the help of treasured starlets like Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Hepburn. These spearheads expanded into full suits with ruffled button-down dress shirts and bow-ties.
The 1960s
The 1960s were marked heavily by the images of career mothers and housewives. Then Yves Saint Laurent came along and shook that up like a hurricane. His version of that revolution was a more unisex fashion that looked neither excessively male nor female.
The Late 1960s
Rock stars the likes of Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie took the androgynous revolution in a new glam direction by donning psychedelic, space-alien-like wear like glitter makeup and catsuits, giving rise to the “Peacock Revolution.”
The 1980s
With Grace Jones on one end and Prince on the other, the male and female genders met somewhere in the middle in the era of go-go boots and jumpsuits. The commonality that linked all androgynous interpretations together in this era seemed expressable in a single, three-letter word, starting in “S” and ending in “X.”
The 1990s
Anyone can wear a baggy sweater and ripped jeans, the ‘90s showed. And unwashed hair and a frown looks equally genderless on a male or female head. At the same time, the nihilism of the last decade of the 20th century also lent to a brazen experimentation in gender-bending where the androgynous meaning resembled an intentional clashing of extremes.
The 2010s and Beyond
Finally, the world has entered the era where all the previous expressions of androgyny have come together as tools in a grab bag from which designers, fashionistas and everyday folks can freely mix and match.
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