I was listening this morning to Disheveled’s Phantom Touch, which is some very abstract music but the creator’s description says it was about using VRChat to help overcome “personal struggles with Sexual Identity, Gender Dysphoria, CPTSD, Anxiety, and Depression.” A listener wouldn’t pick this up from the music itself, although track titles and cover art do hint at it. The description gives enough context to really put it all together. This is completely valid in art IMHO — no work is required to explain itself, and context is almost always important in understanding and appreciating art.)
Of course my own music is quite abstract as well. Sometimes it’s consciously about something — and some of those times I am perfectly happy to leave the subject as a mystery for the hearer.
Because of Phantom Touch‘s context, my mind made the jump from self-expression through music, to the challenge of expressing a nonbinary gender identity through appearance/fashion.
Clothing, like architecture, is both functional and decorative. More so than any other art form, it plays an extremely important social role, and different styles of clothing express and affirm gender, class, sexuality, racial identity, political affinity, religious beliefs, subculture, hobbies and interests, education, personality/attitude, and more, and of course one’s own body, personal preferences, comfort and practicality all weigh in. Some cues are easily readable to almost everyone; others are more exclusive, subtle, obscure, or cryptic.
The strongest cues in clothing tend to relate to binary gender, and society puts a wall (sometimes literally) between women’s and men’s garments. Unisex clothes really say nothing about the wearer’s gender — there’s no nonbinary department. (Ironically enough, if looking for clothing with nonbinary pride colors and slogans, they are often divided between women’s and men’s.)
So if you want to affirm a nonbinary gender identity through clothing, you’re going to either transgress mainstream standards, or you’re going to be obscure.
But wait… my music is obscure and I am proud of that. And it does transgress mainstream standards, although not in a particularly radical way. So, no problem?
I’m still happy with my style reboot, regardless of whether anyone gets it, and I’ll keep exploring it.