Here at A Suit That Fits we've received substantial interest from women looking to buy men's suits. Of course we've been happy to oblige. There's nothing sexier, more mysterious, than a woman in a man's suit. When Marlene Dietrich donned the above number, eyes glowering above seductively wettened lips, she made an important statement about gender and the clothes we wear. Women, she said, need not let themselves be objectified to exert a powerful sexiness. Women can wear what the hell they like.The man's suit is laden with authority. The mere act of wearing one is a masculine 'privilege' that gives men a level of power in society. The brilliance of gender-bending is not that it allows women to wear suits (there are plenty of women's suits out there), it's more the fact that it reveals gender to be an artificial construction capable of being mimicked and transformed. When people look at a butch lesbian and feel as if something's gone awry, it's because they're made aware of their subjection to a system of signs that empowers some whilst disempowering others. Rather than actually doing something about this, they deal with it in the easiest way possible: ostracize the problem-maker and stigmatize the lesbian. But a woman who dons a man's suit not only looks clever because she has the wherewithall to become a vehicle for a "Fuck you" message to the system, she also looks ultra-chic, her wardrobe having taken on resonances of meaning that go above and beyond the norm. Exposed, undermined, the veils of illusion lifted, the patriarchal structure loses its power and the seeds of revolution are sown. What this revolution will look like, nobody knows until it comes.
Join the gender-revolution. Visit A Suit That Fits.
