Universal Standard and Fat Liberation Advocate and Artist Jordan Underwood Collaborate on Androgynous Collection
Universal Standard and multidisciplinary artist, activist and content creator Jordan Underwood on Tuesday will introduce Jordan x US, a limited-edition collaboration capturing Underwood’s androgynous style through the lens of Universal Standard’s tailoring, fit expertise.
The collection consists of five androgynous wardrobe essentials, including a sweatsuit, flannel, denim and crop top in sizes 00 to 40. Each piece is designed to allow for sizing up or down to encourage proportion play and style customization.
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“At Universal Standard we are fearless about challenging the industry’s antiquated standards, but Jordan’s unapologetic risk-taking in styling has inspired us to expand our understanding of sizing and break our own rules,” said Ramon Martin, chief design officer at Universal Standard. “When a customer’s choices are confined to cultural norms, their potential for expression is limited. We could not be more thrilled to collaborate with Jordan to offer a first-of-its-kind capsule that gives our customers more choice than ever before.”
Underwood added, “For so long, the fashion industry ignored the majority of people who fall outside its stereotypical binaries and beauty standards. As a trans, plus-size artist, I grew up altering my own clothes and squeezing into the wrong sizes all in pursuit of authentic self-expression through fashion. I am so excited to partner with the size-inclusive fashion authority, Universal Standard, and together, empower individualism with a limitless capsule collection that all people can shop.”
Underwood said that he was excited about the opportunity after several years of shopping Universal Standard and working with them as a model and content creator.
“Throughout my life, I’ve had to have a lot of my clothes altered because my body shape was different than the standard patterns other brands use to design their clothes. I have both altered my own clothes and paid tailors to alter my clothes so that they fit the way they’re supposed to or the way I wanted to style them,” Underwood said.
He said the biggest issue he’s had with clothes is with the waist-to-hip ratio, as well as with the leg circumference being larger than the size that would fit his hips and waist, “so when designing this collection we decided to have all of the pieces have a drawstring at the waist, allowing folks to size up to have the leg and hips of the pieces fit looser, but not fall down or necessitate tailoring.”
“These issues I’ve had with clothes are specifically because of a condition I have called lipedema. Lipedema is a connective tissue disorder that causes an abnormal accumulation of non-metabolic tissue below the belly button and in the arms,” Underwood said.
He said that with Jordan x US, they are serving as many people as they can with multifunctional styles that accommodate as many body shapes and sizes as possible.
The limited-edition Jordan collaboration is available from $59 to $148 at universalstandard.com, “US on Tour” in-person shopping experiences and the SoHo showroom.
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