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Dressed: The History of Fashion
Dressing in Beauty Beyond the Gender Binary with Alok Vaid-Menon
00:37:08
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- [00:00]
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- [01:22]
April Callahan
Trust listeners. Please enjoy this episode from the Trust Archive of over 500 plus shows. You have very patient with us and we assure you Dressed will be back with all new content in the form of Season eight very soon. We have so many wonderful things up our sleeves that we cannot wait to share with you, but until then, please consider heading to dressedhistory.com where you will find information regarding our upcoming fashion history tours of Paris and New York, which are both open for registration and selling fast. And while you are there, also consider signing up for our upcoming online course offerings which include what Women Wore to the Revolution coming your way in May. More from Dressed coming your way very soon. With over 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
- [02:16]
Cassidy Zachary
Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast where we explore the who, what, when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts.
- [02:25]
April Callahan
April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary. Welcome to Part two of our conversation with performance artist, author, designer, public speaker, scholar and poet Alok Vad Menon.
- [02:39]
Alok Vaid-Menon
My beauty is so tremendous it has to be edited out of magazines and movements, whitewashed from history, evacuated from sermons, streets and schools just to prove that it does not exist. My beauty is so tremendous that they try to confine it, build health and science, fashion and finance as gates around it. But my beauty, you can still peek through and see it. My beauty is so tremendous there are no words for it. Or rather the words they are too ugly for my beauty. My beauty is so tremendous that they had me believe for so long it was not there. So when I finally found it here and all the places I was taught to hate here and my body, not theirs, I finally figured it out. My beauty, My beauty is so tremendous that the men, the men will have to kill me for it. But my beauty, my beauty will still be there when I am gone. My beauty will still be here when I am gone.
- [03:37]
Cassidy Zachary
What you just heard was Alok's opener for their talk on genderless fashion at the Business Fashion's annual Voices Summit in 2019. And this is just one of dozens upon dozens of examples in which Alok uses both the spoken and written word to share their beautiful message about moving beyond the gender binary in the clothes we wear and the lives we live.
- [03:59]
April Callahan
And as I mentioned in our previous episode, Alok is one of the most important voices working in and with fashion today. And I want to emphasize with fashion because not only are they in outspoken advocate for fashion as this invaluable tool, right for the expression of our self determined identities beyond the gender binary, but Alok also sees fashion as this incredibly important entry point into a myriad of topics, historically and today. They really use fashion as a lens to understand and study the vast complexities of our shared human experience. Its trials and tribulations, yes, but also its vast beauty and diversity. And today's episode is a potent reminder about the power and significance of the dress body to our individual and shared human experience.
- [04:44]
Cassidy Zachary
As a look established in Tuesday's episode, the traversing of gendered clothing is nothing new. And as long as there have been societal gender coding and policing and dress policies, there have also been people who dare to defy it. One of these such people was designer Rudy Gernreich, who in 1970 so 50 years ago put forth his vision of a future in which, quote, clothing will not be identified as either male or female.
- [05:16]
April Callahan
Rudy was perhaps ahead of his time, but Alok is not. And I would argue that what Alok is proposing through both their G gender fashion and Nothing Wrong hair campaigns is the future and the future is now. We all have something to learn from what they have to share with us today. And we are so pleased to welcome Alok back to the podcast. Alok, thank you for joining us again today on Dressed. Alok, welcome back to Dressed.
- [05:42]
Alok Vaid-Menon
Thanks. I'm so excited to be here.
- [05:44]
April Callahan
We are so excited for part two of our conversation because we are talking about your De gender fashion movement today. Before we talk about the degender fashion movement, can you share some of your own experiences being confronted with the gender binary and gendered clothing? How were you inspired to ultimately defy these societal conscriptions?
- [06:05]
Alok Vaid-Menon
I often say that fashion was one of my first languages. I was brought up in a world that didn't ask me who I was, but that told me what I should be. And fashion was how I could dislodge what people thought about me. And actually I found my voice through my style first. And I think that's why so many of us love style is it's a mode of communication that's actually about asserting this is who I am on my own terms. And so before I had the language of trans or non binary, I was taking my mom's blazers from the 80s and pairing them with my dad's old khaki pants. And I was telling my story in a way that felt more true and just than words can. And so I've always understood fashion as a creative force to storytell and to self author and self narrate. The deep tragedy is when we put social judgment and the realm of fashion. Fashion should be a place of reckless pursuit of imagination. What I love about fashion is it dwells in the realm of fantasy. It's not meant to be practical. Every time I'm watching a couture show, I'm just like, this is so extra. And I love that. And to be told, Express yourself, 50%, not express yourself, period, is deeply soul crushing. And that was my experiences of navigating gendered fashion is people would say, why are you wearing a dress? To which I would say, why not? I think reframing things as why not creates such a realm of possibility for all people. Why are you dyeing your hair? Why not? You know, and people would just get so upset because they wanted to say, oh, this is you becoming something. Is this you saying that you're a woman? Is this you saying. And I'd say, no, this is just me liking a color or me liking a silhouette of something, or me liking what my body looks like in the mirror in this. And there was no room for that in this world. So the only place I could do it was on a stage. Because as I was saying in the last episode, people in this country are comfortable with transgression on the stage where there's a beginning and an end. But when you bring that commitment to, I'm not even going to say drama. I'm going to say being alive when you insist on being Alive and not merely existing. Meaning when you get dressed for yourself and not the uniform that this world wants to put you in, people will always say that you're not enough or too much. And so some of my first memories exploring my fashion were being told, you only can do this on the stage. And then I said, you know what? This is what makes me feel joy. And so I didn't just get ready for the stage. I started getting ready for the world. And I started dressing up to go everywhere. And I had a gown in my closet, and I was like, I am wearing this to get almond milks in the bodega. And I had a mini skirt. And I said, I am going to find a way to style this during the polar vortex. And it became about actually getting dressed as a way to find happiness and joy, to allow me to make life worth living. And so much of what I get upset about when people speak about my work is they dwell on my critique and they are malnourished in my commitment to creation. I am not just trying to resist gender norms or to defy convention. I'm trying to create a more hospitable, loving, caring, kind, just beautiful, eccentric, zany, gorgeous world where people are allowed to experiment, unfurl, unfold, and figure out new speculative forms of themselves and be rewarded for a deep spiritual interrogation of everything that they've been told is true.
- [10:23]
April Callahan
And what a more beautiful world we would live in if people were able to express themselves, especially through clothing. I mean, it would just be absolutely incredible. So, Alok, what is the de gender fashion movement, and why is it an important step, but also an imperative step in moving beyond the gender binary? Because I think imperative is really important distinction. We have to do this.
- [10:50]
Alok Vaid-Menon
We have to. So here's the thing. I'm not just doing this because I think it's going to be good for everyone. And to any men who are listening to this podcast, climate change means the skirt is the garment of the 21st century. Because you wearing that suit, as it continues to get hotter, is not a cute look. I'm saying this because this directly relates to my safety and the safety of the people that I love. When I walk down the street, people look at me and they say, why is that hairy man wearing a dress? And then because they call me a man in a dress, which I'm not, they dehumanize me. And because they dehumanize me, violation against me isn't said to have happened or occurred. It's something that I asked for myself. It's why Did I dress up like that? It's me soliciting attention. It's my fault. If we lived in a world where we degendered fashion, instead of saying, why is that a man in a dress, people instead would say, nice dress because they would have seen people who looked like me before that encounter. If we understand that the historical project has been one of disappearing us, it seems to me that the only way forward is such reckless and unabashed and such flamboyant and flagrant visibility that we can never be disappeared again. So what that looks like for me is telling every fashion, beauty and advertising conglomerate in the world, you are directly responsible for violence against me and my community because you have kept so long our image outside of public imagination, made it such that we are some freak abnormally, not just another variation of beauty. What if people were actually taught that they could express themselves? Then when they saw us expressing ourselves, they wouldn't take their repression and their jealousy out on us because they would have already expressed explored themselves. So it is first and foremost an anti violence mechanism where people will begin to treat trans and gender non conforming people as a non event. That's all I'm asking for people. I want to be able to drink water in public without fearing that people will take photos of me or laugh at me, or throw trash at me. I want to be able to be appreciated for my artistry, for my creativity, without fear of persecution and violence. Then the second reason that the degendering of fashion, and I want to be very clear, for those of you who might be new to this conversation, this is not the same thing as a drab, gender neutral fashion collection. This is about stopping to market any clothes as men's or women's clothes, any products as men's or women's or products, and saying, you get to interpret what this means, which means you and I could buy the same dress. And to me it could have nothing to do with gender. And to you it could have to do with your identity as a woman. And that's totally fine because we get to determine what fashion means to us, not these companies, is that I think that degenering of fashion will actually be a creative renaissance that will allow people, for the first time in a long time, I think, to be able to express themselves that once again, I'm not just fighting for the end of violence, I'm fighting for the creation of a world of beauty. And this is a real paradigm shift for me. So thanks to my therapist. But I realized I was settling when I Said, don't hurt me, that's not enough. Now my political ambition is so much greater, and that is recognize our tremendous beauty. And what I mean by that is that beauty is about looking like yourself. We've been taught by these coercive systems that there's one way to be beautiful. But the intervention that I'm trying to make with degender fashion is there's only your way to be beautiful, and that your role on Earth is to share that resonant and spiritual beauty with everyone. Because we love you, because you're unique and different and individual, and fashion is your fingerprint. You know, Ocean Vuong, one of my favorite writers, says the unique thing about humanity is that we're one of the only species in the world that has found a way to document our fingerprint for human history. And he says through a novel, and I'll intervene and say through an outfit that they're going to look at photos of me from 2021, the alien species, 150 years from now, and be like, this is a treatise on what it meant to be alive on your own terms. And so degendering fashion is also about asking all of us spiritually and creatively, do you know who you are outside of what you've been told? And what would you dress if you came from that place, what you found beautiful and sonorous and romantic, what would happen then? And so I see it not just as a political project, but a spiritual and creative one that's about giving power and agency back to people to express themselves on their own terms.
- [16:00]
April Callahan
Yeah, and I think everyone listening to this podcast should stop, or maybe not stop, finish listening to the podcast, but after, maybe ask yourself these questions, you know, especially people who struggle with their own identities, how much of who you are is what sustainability society has told you to be, and how much of it is who you are. And finding ourselves is a lifelong journey, but expressing ourselves through clothing is such, it's such a beautiful way to take that journey. You're basically just saying self determined identity. But what you're proposing in our society today is actually quite revolutionary because it's going against hundreds of years of social conditioning. It runs counter to a fashion industry built on the very concept of gendered clothing. So how do we both as individuals, but also as a society, move past this gender binary? In clothing, yes, but also in the world within which we exist. I mean, in many cases, the gender binary is literally written into the very language people speak.
- [17:00]
Alok Vaid-Menon
Well, it's a good thing I'm a poet because my job there is to create new language. And what I will say is that we can and do and will live impossible lives. That I'm not supposed to exist, and I do. And that's a quiet miracle. This conversation is not supposed to exist and it does, and that's a quiet miracle. We're not supposed to have access to the history that we do, but we do. And that's a quiet miracle. So it strikes me that we have to become bilingual. Both and how vociferous the oppression is, but also how resplendent our resistance is. And I'm not interested in just having a conversation about how hard it's going to be. I want to talk about how glamorous it's going to be, darling. And that's the legacy that I come from is street drag queens posing for cameras as they're getting arrested by cross dressing laws. Is Sir lady java turning away 50 police officers. What kind of power does that take? What kind of resolution does that take? To be arrested 20 to 30 times, but to have a dogged and unabashed sense of who you are as a person? That's the kind of spirit I come from, of trans rebellion. And that's why despite attempted cultural genocide for centuries we have continued to exist. Certainly there's been social conditioning that's been here for hundreds of years, but guess what? There were gender dissenters back then too, who defied that social conditioning. So the way that we move beyond the gender binary is by breaking up with the idea that it's impossible and recognizing that it's already been done right now by gender non conforming people. And heating the scholarship, the artistry, the leadership, the imagination of gender non conforming people. Not just in terms of gender, but a motif in this conversation has been about what it means to be alive. A blueprint for being alive and meaning it, not just being alive for the sake of breathing. And then I think the second thing we do is we have to recognize that it must come from a place of love. I am so bored of just meager political criticism. You can't build a movement out of saying what's wrong. The only way we build something worth fighting for is about what's saying, what's right. And what I can tell you is that I spent the first half of my life in a shell of myself. And that when I started to dress like I wanted to dress, I was able to be realigned, like all parts of my body for the first time were there. And I was able to smile and feel it in every crevice of my face. And what I want to say is that there are forms of living and dreaming and joy and creativity that you might not believe exists yet, but they do, and they're there on the other side of what you've been told is impossible. And if we understand that reality is an unfurling construction project, come and take a hammer with me and let's smash this wall and build up something new. So the way that we build up this world is through love. And here's the thing, there's no love in policing billions of people into one of two categories, as if they're just the summation of stereotypes created in the Victorian century. It's not a loving act to tell people you can only love this kind of person. What a loving act is, is, I might not understand you, I might not get you, I might not be able to resonate with your experience, but I love you anyways. So what love for me says is we shouldn't have to gloss over or disappear our differences. It's actually those very differences that are the substance of what makes beauty worth living. What this looks like, tangibly, is that we have to commit ourselves every moment of the day to asking, is this coming from fear or is this coming from love? And so much of the policing of gender is from fear. I listen to what these politicians are doing when they justify discrimination against us. And it's not about us, it's about the fear of themselves. They say, what will happen if we give people options? What they're saying is, what if I'm not as secure in my identity as I thought I was? They're saying, what will happen if young people have access, a comprehensive knowledge. They're saying, what if trans people aren't the minority that I pretending they are. So it's fear, fear, fear that is making people default into the gender binary. I could give all the data, the statistics, the history, the analysis, the scholarships, the citations, and it wouldn't change people's minds. What's going to change people's lives is by saying, choose love over fear. Recognize that there is abundance in this world, that allowing trans and gender non conforming people to exist is not going to erase your right to be a man or woman, that society is going to flourish with gender creativity, not fall into despair, that all of these lessons that you've been told about ugliness and worth and beauty and presentability, they've not given you anything. They've given you a shell of loneliness, they've given you a disconnect. An alienation from the world. But it's love to say you're worth more than rote disassociation mistaken as personality. It's love to say you're worth more than a dress code that wasn't just there for high school but was there for citizenship in this country. You're worth wearing something that you never thought you'd wear and that you're afraid of and me saying you look fabulous in that and you're worth feeling fabulous. And I think that the reason that people can't accept the worldview that I'm putting out is because fundamentally they don't think that they're worth beauty. Fundamentally, they don't think that they're worth love. And fundamentally they don't think that they're worth fabulosity. So this has not ever been about trans and gender non conforming people. This has been about the malnourished spiritual and creative capacity for non trans people to actually live on this earth as their own God given divine form, not a eugenic script of perfection that would have them posture themselves like living sculptures. You're not a sculpture. You're a human being with fat. You're a human being with hair. You're a human being with curls and scars. And that's what makes you beautiful.
- [23:10]
April Callahan
Look, I'm going to play this back on repeat to myself every day. What you just put into the universe right there, that was so incredibly beautiful and it gave me chills. And what's crazy is what you're talking about. Choosing love over fear is radical. Self love, loving yourself, loving your neighbor, it's radical in today's society, which is wrong. You know, we, we that should be our natural conditioning is to love each other and it's not. Sam Smith reviewed your book beyond the Gender Binary and said when reading this book, all I feel is kindness. And I wholeheartedly second that. Because beauty, love, the heart that you put into your work, all of this takes pride of place in what you do. It radiates from your very core. It touches everything you do. All of your posts, all of these wonderful interviews you've given every one and every one of us, every one of your admiring fans, we are so grateful for you and fortunate to have you as this guiding and shining light and this often dark world. It makes me want to cry. Honestly, you don't just extend your beauty and your light to your followers, but you also extend it to your adversaries. You have said in the past that you are fighting for beauty and I would love if you could talk a little bit more about that, because the love that you extend to people who are against you, quite frankly, who take time out of their day to comment on your Instagram posts with vitriol and hate, you combat that with love. And I would love if you could talk to us a little bit more about that, because I think it's something we could all really learn from.
- [24:56]
Alok Vaid-Menon
I forgave myself, and that was the most rebellious act I've ever done in the world. I forgave myself for living in a world that primed me to hate myself. I forgave myself for shrouding the most magical parts of me in shame. And when I forgave myself, I was able to breathe and I was able to understand everyone else is in these. These prisons as well. And I forgive them. And I felt such deep and profound mercy because people have not experienced a love that invited them to be themselves. They've only experienced a love that has discipline them, punished them, and shame them. So, of course they're going to discipline, punish, and shame me, because I'm showing them that another world is possible. And I'm showing them that it's possible to be earnest, and it's possible to feel that it's possible to love, that it's possible to actually believe in kindness. And people can't sit with that because they've only been shown cruelty. So when you point a finger at me, three fingers are pointed back at yourself. And what you say to me is actually what you're saying to yourself. And you said it worse to yourself. And I know that, and we both know that. And we know that you flexing your hatred and your racism and transphobia is gonna do absolutely nothing to heal you. So I just feel tragic because I've done that healing, and I know that healing is possible. And so what I really believe so wholeheartedly, and I've sort of alluded to this, when I'm saying meager political criticism, is that this has to be a conversation about presence and abundance and magic, not just criticism and colonialism and repression. I think a lot of people know that language, but this new territory of what exactly we're fighting for is where I live as an artist. It's not for me just enough about saying these are things that are wrong. I want to say these are things that are right. And what I'm trying to do is say, I'm not waiting for the world to change. I'm building my own world right here. Come on in. Come on in here. We value vulnerability. We value Interdependence. We believe that we need everyone. We understand that people mess up and they grow and get better because that's the only way that we grew and got better is through messing up. We understand that people are not the same things as systems of oppression. We understand that meeting each other is punk and awesome and badass and that we can ask for help. And we understand that because that's honest. This is the thing that I'm trying to get people to understand. Gender norms are dishonest. They rely on fiction, smoke and mirrors. And what I'm asking for is notice. Notice the world. Notice how women are so complex and different that the category woman homogenizes the vast display of anatomical diversity among people who use that word. Notice how that's okay. Notice how it makes you feel in your body to be told that you're worthy of love more than your ability to be married or give birth. Notice, notice, notice, notice. And once you begin to notice, because that's what I had to do when I had no one who looked like me or who dreamed like me. I had to notice, where is the love? Because I'm not getting it anywhere else. And the places that I was finding that love were in fashion design. And the places I was finding that love was in poetry or in novels. And I found other love poets and teachers of love across the world who taught me that love is the only way forward. And so when I say that I'm fighting for beauty, it really is so honest. Because what I'm actually saying is that beauty is what is, not what should. And that is the biggest and ultimate love poem that in the world. If we notice all of the incredible constellation of flora and fauna and gender and fashion and race and all the ways in which that difference makes us stronger, what beauty there is already. So the ways that we've been taught beauty is through aspiration. We have to buy this product or look this certain way or disappear ourselves in order to be beautiful. But what I'm saying is, beauty is what you already are. Which means that I'm saying that the parts of you that you feel are ugly and wrong and abject and dirty and uncouth, those parts are actually the beautiful parts, too. And so when we say it's not an easy task, it's not. But I really feel like it's the only task, because we're going to keep making the same mistakes if we don't do it. And I want to tie this into fashion, because I can talk about these kinds of things forever. But when we're talking about fashion in this conversation. I want people to understand that so many of us are getting dressed as part of our self love practices. People will often say that gender non conforming people like me want to be different, are snowflakes who just want to stand out. But what I'm here to let you know is that when I'm getting ready, I look in my mirror and I squeal with delight. I just put on some garish high waisted skirt and I'm just squealing in delight and I'm playing dress up like I did when I was younger and I'm just having fun and I'm getting dressed for myself out of a deep act of love and for someone who lived my life so disassociated and living out of fear to being able to look at myself in the mirror and be like, oh my God, it's me and I'm cool and fashionable and this is stellar. That's the gift of fashion. Fashion is therapy, fashion is healing, fashion is ancestral work. Fashion is pedagogy. Fashion is learning. Not fashion is a superficial enterprise. I don't care about that kind of fashion. I'm fighting for fashion because it's something, a location, an entry point that all of us can have in a difficult day to be able to style ourselves and say in a world that disrespects me, I'm going to treat myself with respect. And so that's why I think fashion is such an important location for all these conversations is it is a physical space structure that embodies so many of the principles of love that I am speaking towards. So when I come up to you and I say, I love your outfit, I'm not just saying like where did you buy it? But what I'm saying is thank you for blessing me with the intimacy and the trust of showing me who you are on your own terms.
- [31:24]
April Callahan
Look, fashion as a self love practice. That is incredible. I mean you're literally proving. Thank you for proving. Helping to prove what? Something we've said for years now, the podcast just Fashion is more than pretty clothes. It's so, so, so many more things.
- [31:42]
Cassidy Zachary
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April Callahan
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Cassidy Zachary
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- [34:15]
April Callahan
I can't even tell you what a fan I am of yours, and you've taught me so much. It's like a daily meditation every time you post something like, oh, what does a low cap just teach me today? Or remind me about today.
- [34:29]
Alok Vaid-Menon
So thank you, thank you. I feel like one of the things facing us as fashion thinkers is like people don't dismiss what we're doing as immaterial or it's not substantive or as exceptional or accessory. And I think we're really getting to that language. And I kept on trying to return to that as like, fashion is a material culture and imprint of these larger concepts of race, class, love, being, purpose, community, and I hope that really resonates with listeners to understand that fashion can be such an amazing vehicle for all of this.
- [35:00]
April Callahan
Well, fashion as a self love practice is mind blowing because the fact that you use it as a practice for self love and care is. It's just such a beautiful sentiment, but also just something we can all take into our everyday lives. And when you think of it like that, because we talk so much about finding your style, I've struggled with that. I'm not fashionable, like none of those things. But when you introduce those concepts into that and it becomes about self love and self care and connecting with like my grandmother's jewelry, which is what I'm wearing here, you know, it's like it just adds so much more meaning to this otherwise quotidian practice.
- [35:39]
Alok Vaid-Menon
Right, totally. But I think it's in the quotidian things that the most revolutionary stuff lives. It's like how we treat each other, how we greet strangers, like those are the substance of politics. And I feel like I'm really just trying to get people to remember. It goes down to how am I going to show up today is the world that I'm creating.
- [35:57]
April Callahan
In closing, what do you hope the future brings?
- [36:00]
Alok Vaid-Menon
It's not hope, it's what I know the future brings. And what I know the future brings is we're going to recognize that we need each other. And we're going to recognize that apologies aren't just words, they're daily practices. We're going to recognize that poetry was meant to be spoken and every conversation and every outfit is part of it. We're going to recognize that we never grew up because growing up was a sham, and that children have more to teach us than the other way around. We're going to recognize that intelligence is about the ability to imagine. And we're going to create spaces for imagination and daydreaming and idealism. One in which we take what fashion teaches us. Playfulness, zest, experimentation, cross pollination. We're going to take the ethics of art and we're going to apply them to governance, and we're going to apply them to school. And we're going to treat our artists like we would our elected officials. And we're going to ask them for stage advice on what it means to build a sustainable world. We're going to recognize that all binaries are distractions from meaningful intimacy. Male, female, man, woman, like formal, non formal, professional leisure. And we're going to instead insist on taking each other out for oat milk hot chocolate and not saying, oh, I know who you are, because I looked at the heterosexual hieroglyphics of your body that some cave painting from the 19th century told me what your gender and sex and life story were. But instead we're going to ask, which I guess is our way of saying we're going to recognize that all of the problems in society were because we were too timid to ask for help. And we're just going to ask for help. We're going to be like, oops, these big monsters were actually just stuffed animals. And now we're all best friends and we're going to recognize that we can and should fall in love with everyone in the world, and that there are no such thing as strangers, and that we can all borrow and share clothes, and that we can borrow and share ideas, and we can borrow and share confidence because we're all in this together. And then maybe one day we'll recognize that we all actually come from the same scream, and that that scream was actually a song, and that it's a song we've been singing since the beginning of time itself, which is I feel, therefore I am. And our feelings will finally be recognized as the most real things about us.
- [38:37]
April Callahan
Thank you so much for being here.
- [38:39]
Alok Vaid-Menon
Thanks so much for having me.
- [38:41]
April Callahan
And with those last inspiring words from Alok, we conclude what has to be one of the most powerful interviews I have done on this podc. Thank you for joining us, dress listeners, and I hope we can all continue to open our hearts and our minds to alok's beautiful message of acceptance and love for ourselves and our fellow humans.
- [38:58]
Cassidy Zachary
And please, please do not stop your exploration of this topic or Alok's work at this podcast, because ALOK has done many other wonderful podcast interviews that expand upon some of the topics that we touched on today. And their wonderful book, beyond the Gender Binary is also a great introductory text to the topic of the gender binary. And a look addresses many of the most common questions people have about the topic in a really accessible format for all ages.
- [39:30]
April Callahan
Well, that does it for us today, Dressed listeners, may you consider the importance imperative and the beauty of moving beyond the gender binary next time you get dressed.
- [39:42]
Cassidy Zachary
Remember, we love hearing from you, so if you'd like to write to us, you can do so@hellorusthistory.com or you can also DM us on Instagram at Dressed Underscore Podcast, which is of course where you'll find reels and posts accompanying each week's episodes. We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you're interested, you can always find find a link in our Show Notes to our bookshop bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop dressed and there you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.
- [40:22]
April Callahan
You can also find a link to that in our Show Notes where you can find a link to DressedHistory.com, which of course is our website where you can check out our latest offerings from the Dressed Universe that includes our classes and our tours. So head over to DressedHistory.com and see what we have up our sleeves. Love Dress but want to skip the ads? Consider subscribing to our ad free version of the show for just $3 a month and enjoy our eight new episodes a month ad free. That does it for us today. Dress listeners. Thank you as always for tuning in and more dress coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.
- [40:59]
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