April 4, 2022

How to create a gender fluid fashion moodboard in 2023

Theren Moodley

Co-Founder

A decade's worth of fashion experience across; product design, development, sourcing & logistics

Gender fluid fashion is nothing new. However, the looks and fits that come with it in 2023 are.

In this blog we'll take you through the hottest gender fluid trends for 2023, and how to incorporate them into your gender fluid moodboard.

In summary:

What is gender fluidity in fashion - Genderless brands have struck a chord with an audience keen to blur the binaries of fashion and wear clothes and outfits that channel and inner feeling at the time, rather than preconceived gender identities
Example gender fluid outfits - Gender fluid fashion are garments that aren't limited by the traditional “menswear” and “womenswear” binary. Instead, the idea is that any given outfit completely disregards the association between pants and men, skirts and women and so on
How to create the gender fluid moodboard for 2023 - Checkout inspo sites like Pinterest & Tagwalk, build your ideas and theme using a moodboard maker
Moodboard board template - Create your mooboard quicker with with a moodboard template

Read on for more in-depth content on the process and more example genderfluid outfits.

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🧐 What is gender fluid fashion?

One of the most exciting names in gender fluid fashion at the moment is Harris Reed, a 25-year-old designer who has enjoyed huge success since graduating from Central Saint Martins. His gender fluid outfits and clothes have been worn by celebrities such as Harry Styles and Emma Corrin and include suits, blouses and tiered dresses 👗

Deliberately genderless, they have struck a chord with an audience keen to blur the binaries of fashion and wear clothes and outfits that channel and inner feeling at the time, rather than preconceived gender identities.

An early community member of Make the Dot and current fashion student in Paris, explained to us this summer that gender fluid fashion and gender fluid aesthetic is a huge part of the school curriculum, where students are encouraged to think in genderless fashion terms when ideating their collection.

Emma Corrin gender neutral fashion suit — Emma Corrin is a pioneer in genderless fashion

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👔 What are gender fluid fashion outfits?

In essence, gender fluid fashion are garments that aren't limited by the traditional “menswear” and “womenswear” binary. Instead, the idea is that any given outfit completely disregards the association between pants and men, skirts and women and so on. In fact, experts say genderfluid outfits have little, if anything, to do with the brands, designers and retailers that create them. Instead, they argue, any piece of apparel can be gender fluid if its wearer so chooses.

Think of T-shirts that have become crop tops or skirts depending on the wearer 👕

Black gender fluid suit — Suits have long been a staple gender fluid outfit

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Black masculinities scholar Nalo Zidan, a designer with Yazi Clothing, explains that shoppers should seek out cut and fit, ignoring the gendered buckets on the clothes' labels or shelves.

“I think about a place that sells jeans, like Levi's: If I went in and am just looking for a certain cut and a certain size, I would go for that cut and size whether or not it said ‘men’s’ or ‘women's’ over it”. It's because I'm looking for a particular fit to my body to help me express my sense of style. A designer's focus should be getting the clothes on bodies to be right in relation to sizing.”

However, while these designs have blurred the lines between what we often deem “masculine” and “feminine”, as well as encouraging a more outlandish way of dressing, the idea genderfluid outfits isn’t entirely new.

📜 Gender fluid fashion is older than we think

In reality, gender fluid fashion and genderfluid outfits has existed for thousands of years before the constructs of the modern fashion world took hold.

High heels were originally designed for men, while makeup was been worn by both men and women as far back as 2000BC in ancient Egypt and Greece 🏛

Another example is Yves Saint Laurent, who was renowned for being the designer who put women in trousers and shook the industry with his 'Le Smoking' women’s tuxedo suit in 1966.

YSL Le Smoking Tux — YSL in the 'Le Smoking' tux

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Other artists such as, David Bowie and Grace Jones were a few of the trendsetting artists and musicians who have been pushing gender norms and genderfluid outfits in fashion for decades.

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⚙️ How to create a gender fluid fashion moodboard

Now we’ve learnt a little more about what is gender fluid fashion and its history, it’s time to begin creating gender fluid moodboard 🖼

Where to look for inspiration

Offline sources - Parks, art, nature, music, poetry and travel have all been sources of inspiration designers we've heard during our research
Online sources - Vintage outfits, catwalk images, generic stock images and fashion weeks are all sources we've found

A full list off the online sources we'd recommend below.

How to organize content

Storage - icloud, gdrive, box & Onedrive are all cloud based storage options
Platfroms - Adobe, Pinterest and Make the Dot are all online platforms to help designers organzie content

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Top Tip! Start with a fashion moodboard template, to make the process even quicker and easier.

Using digital moodboard makers

In order to create a gender fluid moodboard, the designer needs a digital moodboard maker, and for this there are a few tools on the market today.

Pinterest‍

An online app and image database popular with fashion designers the world over. Its rich fashion database and imagery makes it easy to collect images and make a moodboard online

Canva‍

A hit with general designers both novice and experienced. Canva’s free tier and template library allows users the ability to create fashion moodboards online in a simple and easy way

Make the Dot‍

(cough cough) Make the Dot is the all-in-one moodboard maker, built and focused specifically on fashion designers. Our free forever app and fashion specific features give designers the ability to create fashion moodboards fast, from dragging and dropping content to presenting themes.

What elements to incorporate

Colors - Create color palettes that include gender neutral colors and hues, such as; lavenders, grey, beiges and blues
Fabric swatches - Softer lighter threads that can be worn by both sexes are also important kinds of swatches to add. Checkout marketplaces like PV for the latest for SS23
Patterns - Patterns and prints are all the rage for for sexes and gender neutral fashion in general this year. Read our blog from PV22 to see how we saw these incorporated in moodboards we saw

How to present your ideas and themes

The final part of the moodboarding process involves deciding on a set of ideas and themes for your gender fluid fashion moodboard and then starting to build up content that fits in with that.

For my board below, I linked the themes of space, classic black suits and the iconic 90s film, Men in Black. Personally, the classic black suit and white shirt is one of my earliest memories of gender fluidity in fashion, so I wanted to play on that theme during the process, and link those black hues with the brighter complementary colours found in the universe 🪐