Fashion brands compete for the co-ed badge this summer dressing men in puffy gowns and blouses for the catwalk Fashion reflects the times we live in, said Coco Chanel, and the Exeter schoolboys and the French bus drivers prove her right. We are more relaxed about gender rules, these days. A century after women started wearing trousers and 19 years after David Beckham was ridiculed for wearing a sarong, the last taboo of fashion – men in skirts – is being swept away.
Zara has capitalised on the market for clothes that can be worn by men or women, offering a gender-neutral fashion range. And the further up the fashion food chain you go, the more the boundaries between menswear and womenswear evaporate. At the menswear catwalk shows in London less than a fortnight ago, skirts appeared almost everywhere. Men wore silk dresses at Vivienne Westwood’s show, puff-sleeved gowns at Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, and hooped floor-length skirts at Edward Crutchley’s.

Read more at www.theguardian.com