Pulling at the Threads of Fluidity: Aspirations for Non-Gendered and Race-Neutral Fashion in 69's Non-Demographic Design

Abstract

In the past few years, several fashion brands have attempted the creation of non-demographic clothes to fit everyone regardless of gender, race, class, and body shape. Such a utopian design has the possibility to intervene in the cultural politics of identity by creating clothes that allow the wearer to adjust the garments to their body and identity; and yet has the likelihood to perpetuate racism, sexism, and ableism, especially in the marketing of the fashion brands. Although it appears democratic, this design is problematic within a gender-specific aesthetic it promotes as universal and within its representation of racial diversity because it establishes the dominance of one culturally-specific aesthetic over the others. Coming from a position that non-demographic design reproduces hegemonic narratives of the dominant fashion, I analyze the designs of the Los Angeles clothing brand “69” by discussing their designs displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) 69: Déjà Vu exhibition (2018), as well as photographs of 69 clothes from their social media marketing sites.