UNLABELED

by Veridiana Gordilho

When I was little, I remember crying my eyes out when my father bought me clothes from a particular store. We went over to the kids’ section, which was divided into boys’ and girls’ clothes. Compared to all my friends and family, I’d say I had a very distinct style: I wore beanies during 86º summer weather and always chose colorful, patterned clothes in the winter. That day, I was crying because my father got me “girls’” clothes. I kept saying, “That’s not what I wanted!” because I wanted to express myself and step outside the little box created by the context I’d grown up in.

For a long time, clothing felt like it came with instructions. Men’s on one side, women’s on the other. Certain cuts, certain fabrics, certain silhouettes assigned to certain bodies. It was less about what you liked and more about what people and society said you were “supposed” to wear. But somewhere along the way, the idea of fitting into certain patterns and boxes started to feel outdated. Now, when a woman wears oversized jorts or a man wears a crop top, it feels normal, and not rebellious. And that shift says a lot about who we are becoming as a society.

Clothes are no longer just about gender; they’re about identity, having people dress based on their personalities and how they want to feel. Structured pieces can feel empowering,  jorts can feel effortless, and a crop top can feel confident. None of these pieces belongs to a gender; they belong to the person wearing them. The meaning comes from the individual wearing them, not from the category they were placed in at a store.

What’s interesting is that this evolution in fashion mirrors a larger cultural shift. We are living in a time where people are questioning labels in general. Not just “men” and “women,” but labels around careers, relationships, lifestyles, and success. There’s less interest in fitting into predefined boxes and more interest in defining ourselves. The younger generation, especially, doesn’t seem as attached to rigid categories. We care more about authenticity than about tradition.

The move away from gendered clothing reflects that same mindset. It shows that we are moving to a society where we are less concerned with whether something is “for us” and more concerned with whether it feels like us. Wearing a crop top as a man isn’t about making a political statement, and wearing baggy, traditionally “masculine” silhouettes as a woman isn’t about rejecting femininity, but about feeling comfortable in your own skin. Of course, many people still follow traditional ideas about what men and women can wear, and every idea comes from a culture. However, when we look at the wider range of choices among Gen Z, we can see that those imaginary lines and rules we used to follow are not disappearing; they are simply becoming less strict.

Social media has also played a role in this. We are exposed to more styles, more identities, and more ways of existing than ever before. Who never spent hours and hours on Pinterest, TikTok, or Instagram looking for inspirations of what to wear? Seeing people experiment freely with fashion normalizes fluidity. It makes it easier to realize that categories were never as fixed as we thought. When enough people stop caring about the rules, the rules slowly lose their power. And that’s exactly what feels like is happening now.

Clothing doesn’t have a gender, and it never did. We assigned those meanings, and now we are collectively redefining them. The way people dress today reflects a society that is tired of being boxed in. Nowadays, we started to prioritize individuality over expectation, expression over approval, and comfort over conformity. In that sense, the rise of so-called “genderless” fashion isn’t just a trend, but a reflection of a broader cultural moment in which we care more about ourselves than about labels.