Meet the New Male Model Who's Actually a Woman
Menswear is getting a little confusing. At the European men’s collections, some designers opted to show feminine looks rather than the traditional suits. But it’s not just the small, underground labels. Big brands like Gucci, who recently promoted their head accessories designer, Alessandro Michele to creative director, showed cropped jackets slung over blouses with floppy bows—either a nod to Kurt Cobain or a statement that blurs gender boundaries.
Related: Gender-Bending Fashion Takes Ahold of the Men’s Shows
In casting, too, those regular hypersexual guys with bronzed, chiseled abs were replaced with androgynous models, so that it was a challenge to decipher whether the model wearing Look 22 at Rick Owens was actually a man or woman (though some of Owens’ garments exposed the genitalia of models—a real give away).
Related: Tit For Nut: Rick Owens Embraces the Male Form
Vivienne Westwood was even trickier this season, casting an androgynous woman to open her menswear show earlier this week. That model, Elliott Sailors blended in seamlessly in Westwood’s show, looking like just another one of the boys. Though, this wasn’t Sailors’ first men’s gig.
Courtesy of Elliott Sailors/Tristan Ewald
In fact, Sailors, who used to pose on the beach in string bikinis for photographers Bruce Weber and Ellen von Unwerth, decided to shear her long blonde locks in favor of a more boyish look in 2012. Though she was often dissuaded from entering the men’s modeling industry—with lower earnings, less opportunities, and the possibility of losing her former clients—Sailors followed her heart, breaking through as an unlikely model in the forefront of men’s fashion.
Related: Gucci Redesigns Its Menswear Collection In One Week
Yahoo Style meets fashion’s new it girl, well, boy.
Yahoo Style: How did you get into modeling?
Elliott Sailors: My father took me to a model search when I was 9 years old. It wasn’t until 2001, when I was 19, did I move to NYC to model full time and have been ever since!
YS: How did you get into menswear?
ES: I’ve always loved androgyny in fashion and at the end of September 2012 I took The Landmark Forum - a personal training and development program. It was in the course that I chose to really move forward in a way that is not only true to who I am, but also the creation of something that is bigger than I am.
Courtesy of Elliott Sailors/Antoine Verglas
YS: How would you describe you look off the runway?
ES: I would describe my daily look as gender neutral. Elliott is generally considered a masculine name and most of my mail has always come addressed to Mr. Elliott Sailors, but now people not even knowing my name have confused me as male. I have been kicked out of women’s restrooms for people assuming I am male and I’ve used men’s restrooms when the women’s line is too long and no one seems to notice I’m a female.
YS: Do you think androgyny is just a trend?
ES: There’s no way that we could call androgyny in menswear and casting a trend! Designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Givenchy, and Jil Sander have been seen to frequently use beautiful androgynous men in their shows and campaigns for decades. People are finally recognizing a large portion of the population defines themselves in what you’re calling androgynous.
YS: What are you working on next?
ES: I will do both menswear and women’s wear shows at New York Fashion Week.
Related: #PFW Trend Report: Shorts
