Dress(es)
Presumably there’s nothing wrong buying a dress. After all, it could be for any occasions and mine was perfectly understandable: I’m a performer; I love Burlesque; I have a (current) fixation on dresses. So What’s the problem? Or – shall I say – why do I have a problem with wearing dresses?
Well, I didn’t. It seemed to have happened suddenly last weekend when I decided to check a few dresses I keep seeing in that shop on Oxford Street. I was very excited with the idea of trying on these dresses, thinking there’s something to do with them. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm died as soon as I tried the first one on. I felt so awkward – just to put it mildly – to the point of freaking out!
Nearly a week has passed and I still can’t get over the fact I was denied the right to wear a dress. Who denied me that right? That’s the question I’m still trying to answer. What is certain is that feeling awkward in a dress started to make me wonder about my relation with my body but also with my masculinity: Was that the reason why I freaked out? Because I felt totally out of place, looking more manly than I actually am? Was I worried about not being in tune with my (performing) body anymore? Or was that simply the fact I went for the obvious? Choosing a dress that doesn’t give any room for ambiguity of gender or physical diversity?
What concerned me, besides the shallow fact that I truly looked awful – and perhaps more awful than any FDQ wannabe – is the social archetypes our society is still living on. Maybe shall I say: the social archetypes our (western) society is going back to? Perhaps that’s just my interpretation, amidst an uncontrollable moment of panic, but it seems that dresses are meant, and only meant, for women. And for a sole purpose of feeling sexy. Therefore, as a man wearing a dress – regardless his sexual orientation – the logic is he’s becoming womanly. What does it leave me to work with then if I only see a dress as a clothing item, dissociated from its gender connotation? What else does it say if I decide to ignore the dress’s sociological representation?
As I keep thinking over and over about these particular dresses and how they failed to tame my masculinity, I’ve started to regret the experience. Maybe I went to the wrong place? Maybe I chose the wrong item? After all not all dresses are designed to create the obvious stereotypes you can associate to femininity. Maybe I was too presomptuous thinking I would look “cool” in a dress just because I’m interested in defying my own gender?
And now, I’m stuck!…(tbc)
