New York, NY – Gender-fluid fashion is reshaping the industry, blurring traditional distinctions between men’s and women’s clothing. Today, almost 40% of consumers in the U.S. shop for fashion outside their gender identity, while retailers and brands such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, and Gucci have launched gender-fluid collections. However, while the trend is often viewed as a step towards inclusivity, new research from Columbia Business School reveals that gender-fluid products overwhelmingly skew toward traditionally masculine styles, even though women and non-binary consumers have largely driven the shift. This is because women and non-binary consumers are aware of male privileges in society and are less afraid of negative social consequences from adopting these styles.
The forthcoming paper, The Asymmetry of Gender-fluid Trends, co-authored by Professor Silvia Bellezza and Columbia Business School Ph.D. graduate Maren Hoff, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, is the first to formally define gender-fluidity in a marketing context. The authors describe gender-fluid products as those that are adopted consistently over time by consumers across genders—for example, pearl necklaces or nail polish. By establishing this definition, and distinguishing gender fluid styles from androgynous, gender-bending, and unisex styles, they reveal that gender-fluid trends – including in fashion and baby names – consistently skew towards traditionally masculine expressions. Their findings highlight a significant imbalance within what is often perceived as an inclusive movement, raising important challenges for brands seeking to design and market products that truly reflect diverse consumer preferences.
“The rise of gender-fluidity in mainstream fashion and culture is a positive step toward inclusivity, but our research reveals the complicated reality that the trend is not entirely neutral,” said Silvia Bellezza, Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. “As gender-fluid styles grow in popularity, brands that genuinely aspire to be inclusive should consider how to incorporate both masculine and feminine styles into their new collections and product lines.”
To conduct the study, the researchers first developed a formal definition of gender fluidity in marketing by analyzing media coverage, brand descriptions, trend reports, and cultural commentaries. They then examined more than 200,000 images of clothing scraped from Farfetch, a global online fashion retail platform. Using a computer vision model trained to classify fashion products as menswear or womenswear, they found that womenswear products were significantly more likely to be misclassified as menswear than the reverse. They also analyzed 100,000 U.S. baby names from 1880 to 2022 using U.S. Census Data to see what names had crossed gender lines (e.g., “Taylor”), and found that traditionally male names were more often given to females over time. Finally, they ran a series of experiments with over 3,000 participants recruited from Prolific Academic. Participants chose baby names from lists, selected fashion products such as tops and necklaces, and the researchers manipulated situations in which participants chose outfits for different work scenarios or fashion events. Across the analysis of fashion products, names, and across each experiment, the researchers found that masculine markers were more common in gender-fluid names and products, and that women and non-binary consumers were more likely to purchase gender-fluid products.
Additional findings from the research include:
- Women and Non-Binary People Adopt More Masculine Styles Because of the Social Power of Masculinity. The researchers find that women and non-binary consumers are more likely to buy and use gender-fluid products because they are aware of male advantages in society and are less afraid of being scrutinized for using the products.
- Men Are More Afraid to Adopt Gender-Fluid Styles for Fear of Social Penalties. However, they show that when marketers incorporate messaging that lowers this fear, such as messages that celebrate “bold and unique styles,” men are more likely to adopt these styles.
“While we’ve seen a change in the political environment in recent years, our research shows that gender fluidity has increased in culture and fashion over the last century and will continue despite any market dynamic or political climate,” said Professor Bellezza.
