Haley Williams ’18 Poses.
On Wednesday, December 7, Haley Williams ’18 wore a skirt. This probably does not seem especially noteworthy, yet it was unconventional for Williams, who pays special attention to what she puts on in the morning, and rarely does that final choice include a skirt. Questions about why Williams might make this choice flew through my head. Did she feel an obligation to wear pants because people would look at her differently if she did otherwise? Do women still need to avoid skirts and dresses to appear more professional? Williams surprised me with her answer: “I don’t really wear skirts because, one, I don’t have a ton that match my style these days, and, two, skirts make me feel heavily girly, and that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not binary and I really hate feeling like I have to associate with a gender, so I don’t like wearing things that look conventionally girly.”
She added, “Don’t get me wrong — I wear skirts and love how they look and feel on me, but recently I just don’t. I like experimenting with different clothing at different times, and these days I feel like I have more cool ideas for outfits with pants. I like to have my own look; I don’t want to look like a girl or a guy — I just want to look like Haley.”
Her decision to not wear skirts represents how she identifies herself and the general aesthetic of how she desires to look. Thinking back on the past year, I realized that not only with Williams, but also with the entire world of fashion, androgynous looks have flourished. While labels such as women’s wear and men’s wear are still used, customers have become increasingly aware of the incompleteness of the terms. “Women’s wear” that resembled “men’s wear” always used to be “feminized” and tailored to fit the female body in a “girly” way. However, these past few months, popular clothing trends have taken “men’s” items and sold them in what are traditionally viewed as female sizes.
We might not realize it, but this might be the fashion breakthrough that we have been waiting for. It seemed a far-fetched idea that women and men might one day be truly equal. Now, it is starting to look like the fashion industry makes no distinction between the clothes that are designated for men and those that are for women. As Williams responded when I asked her how she felt after wearing that outfit, this is a “fabulous” step forward for women worldwide, and she certainly embodies it.
