Illegal Looks: Queer Women and Fashion History.
In her seminal essay The Straight Mind, Monique Wittig suggested that, due to their overt rejection of heteronormative structures and practices, lesbians should be considered something other than women. Nowhere is this more true than in our aesthetics. Nowadays, we can expand the term lesbians to include all marginalised genders and sexualities; in short, presenting yourself, fashioning yourself, even, as anything other than a cisgendered, heterosexual person usually entails some kind of rejection of rigidly gendered, binary beliefs about clothing. For queer women particularly, this follows a long history of queer figures in the public eye overtly rejecting and toying with 'women's' clothing. I wonder whether the cottagecore, dark academia and bi pirate (birate!) and even Marie-Antoinette- themed wlw corners of TikTok reflect these fashion pioneers and their legacy. There is a yearning amongst Gen Z sapphics to connect to wider queer history, and clothing seems to fill that void.
TROUSERS:
A wardrobe staple for any gender today, up until the early half of the 20th century, trousers were so masculine-coded that they were often considered illegal attire for women. Nonetheless, these rules were flaunted and subverted by many, from renaissance courtesans escaping by moonlight to see their lover to prominent queer female writers in the gothic 19th century. It is well recorded that Radclyffe Hall and her lover Una Troubridge were often spotted galavanting arm in arm in men's tailored suits and military wool overcoats. Colette's lover Mathilde de Morny (Missy) was booed off stage in her signature suit after kissing Colette in a play. It is no wonder, then, that wlw TikTok celebrates a cuffed jean and a chunky doc marten as foolproof symbols that someone 'listens to girl in read', or 'sweater weather', if she's bisexual. Birate TikTok features corsets combined with a red lip and tailored trousers and often a sword. To exist as queer women today is to unlock a rich history of subverting fashion norms. Mixing male-coded trousers with the ultimate patriarchal garment, the corset, echoes Renée Vivien's famous military-esque outfits imitating Napolean, dressed on another day in a dress down to her ankles in chiffon and white lace. Is this not the cottagecore vs dark academia divide? The meme of every aesthetic in your queer friend group at brunch?
HAIR:
Hair has always been a contentious issue for queer women, but whether a pixie crop makes you more or less lesbian (a pointless argument) is not a new topic. Throughout (queer) history, short hair has been a symbol of subversion; even images of Sappho paint her with an early variation of the bisexual bob. Women of 1920s Paris embraced 'La Garconne' aesthetic, draped in suits and short bobs in a style imitated by the possibly queer Frida Kahlo. Una Troubridge was famed for her short, angular bob that is still adored as a symbol of queerness by wlw today. The home-cut DIY feel of the tiny fringes that haunt wlw TikTok harks back to this radical bob worn by everyone from Vita Sackville West to Josephine Baker. The pixies still adored by today's Sapphics echo the courageous crops of Radclyffe Hall and Audre Lorde. Hair has always been coded. The rainbow fringes and undercuts young queer women rock today are the remains of a legacy of hair as a rebellion against oppressive heteronormative and patriarchal structures.
Queer clothing, then, has a rich history that today's wlw consciously or unconsciously mirror in the trends we see on a platform like TikTok. Our self-fashioning is a way for us to connect with centuries of queer women who led the way for progress towards equality and acceptance, without which many of us wouldn't be here today.
Written by Sophie Cundall
I’m a queer writer in Oxford currently studying a masters with as much focus on queer history as possible. I split my time between volunteering for an LGBT charity, managing social media for a feminist podcast, and freezing in the library reading for my masters. When I’m not figuring out how to incorporate historical queer fashion into my everyday wardrobe, I’m watering my plants or sipping coffee and knitting myself another scarf.