Editorial Intro

The 24th edition of YOUTH magazine is a wide-open celebration of fashion for all, and what it is to love wearing beautiful clothes, in whatever body your soul might live. The name Non-Binary Finery came to us as a way to champion the deconstruction of a strictly gendered fashion outlook and open our eyes, hearts and wardrobes to the blurred lines of the fashion future. Gendered and non-gendered fashion can co-exist peacefully but the notion that the likes of lace, tulle and taffeta can be worn only by cis-women (or even only trans women), or conversely that tailored suits, dress shirts, and cufflinks can only be worn by Y-chromosome-toting males, are draconian irrelevant stereotypes going the way of ripped denim (at last).

We’ve put together an edition that’s tightly tailored and ornately embroidered, that’s beaded up and button-down, it’s sequins & boas, and silk cravats & braces. It’s also none of those things because sometimes we’re just chilling and want to go unnoticed in neutral tones and understated cazh.

We take a look at the evolution of gender-fluidity in fashion as well as getting right under the hem chatting with some makers of fabulous non-binary fashion, and some lovers of some super femme designs and also sharply cut mxnswear.

So make a coffee, or fxck it, pour yourself a large glass of stunning red, and enjoy Non-Binary Finery.

Prêt a - Pour Tout**

Clothing defines us to the world in the way our thoughts and feelings can only define us internally, and in 2021, the stage is set for fashion to be more undefined by gender than it has ever been. And about bloody time. Join us now as we hotstep merrily through the ages to look at the people who’ve worn what they were told wasn’t for them, for the myriad of reasons driving them that have evolved through history.

**We had a lil fun with the title of this article, taking the french term for “ready to wear”, and bastardising the language to make it kiiiinda mean “ready - for all”, (don’t @ us francophones) and of it would be remiss of us not to mention the classic and vacuous 90s fashion film, Pret A Porter along the way.

Fanning The Femme

Fashion inspires passion and when faced with the sartorial opulence that gives life to feminine fashion design, it’s not a surprise that the dopamine is pinballing around the brain caves of those whose penchant is on the femme side of the fence.

Paying Homme-age

There exists in the hypothetical style-iverse, a utopia (queer or otherwise) where we’d be able to walk into somewhere and find the garments that speak to who we are. Stunning, life affirming clothes, readily available without ever having to endure those moments of societal incongruity, never having to walk out of a clothes shop with a cloud over your head, feeling unseen by the world...