New York’s Real-Life Handmaid’s Tale

Revivalist sects, polyamorous communes and radical experiments in communal living – America was rife with it all in the mid 19th century – but not exactly where you might expect. Forget the Bible Belt. In western New York state, so many religious revival groups seemed to be popping up in and setting it afire with…

Men Wore Corsets, History Says

Pink for girls, blue for boys. Heels for women, flats for men. Corsets for ladies, burly silhouettes for gents? Turn back the clock and you’ll find history is full of contradictions. In fact, until the 20th century, pink was a boy’s colour, high heels were invented for men and yes, they also wore corsets. The…

Don’t Forget the Fearless Father of Unisex Clothing

From Harry Styles to Diane Keaton, household names of every generation continue to embrace and explore fashion that goes beyond the traditional gender binary. And as brands take note of an increasingly mainstream social shift, from luxury to fast fashion, the 2020s are on well course to being remembered as the decade that unisex fashion…

The Tribe That Inspired Frida Kalho

That unapologetic unibrow, the halo-crown of jet-black centre-parted flower-adorned plaits, rouged cheekbones and russet lips frame a fearless stare. Her Mexican torzal necklaces, silver filigree earrings and onyx beads you and I could only hope to collect over a lifetime of scouring obscure artisanal markets. No prizes for guessing who she is. But let’s drag…

The Macaroni Club: Fashion History’s Forgotten Drag Subculture?

There’s a famous American song “Yankee Doodle” – you might’ve heard of it – the lyrics go like this: “Yankee Doodle went to town, A-riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his cap, And called it macaroni.” The familiar patriotic tune was in fact created by the British to mock the Americans during the…

Meet the Girl with a Modeling Contract in the Ford Men’s Division

Over the past few years, there have been a few big stories in the media about male models breaking into the world of women’s fashion. Now it’s the girls’ turn to pull the old switcheroo. Meet 6 ft 2 Casey Legler, an artist, a former Olympic swimmer and now a male model.

The Vault

The Woman who staged a Private Revolution from her Photo Studio

For decades after her death, Marie Høeg’s secrets remained hidden, until the 1980s, when a box of 440 glass plate negatives marked “private” was found inside a disused barn in Oslo, Norway. The discovery revealed the near-forgotten rebellion of a group of women and friends experimenting with gender in an era of strict conventions surrounding sexuality…

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She Raced the Boys and Took Their Trophies

She began driving secretly at the age of 14 in her father’s ‘borrowed’ Citroën 2CV and her earliest races took place on the gravel roads of the French riviera, trying to carve off the journey time between work and home in a Renault 4. Michèle Mouton became the first woman in rally driving to win a…

The Male Beauty Contest of the Sahara Desert

The beauty standards and criteria aren’t all that different from your typical beauty pageant, except in the nomadic Wodaabe tribe of Niger, it’s the girls who get to judge the boys. That old cliché that only women are high maintenance? Well, meet the tribesmen who spend an incredible amount of time, energy, and money to get…

The Last Sworn Virgins of Albania

In small and remote villages of the Albanian Alps, there some who have a made a greater sacrifice than others; who hold a secret from outsiders behind their worn out faces and hard-worked frames. We are looking at portraits of women who have chosen to live their lives as men to help their families and…