and speaking of the unmarked default

Speaking of the unmarked default, this new profile of Rei Kawakubo has some interesting complexities to consider:

Even the most oddly dressed woman is seldom doing anything all that transgressive with her appearance. We assume that women care about how they look, even when they don’t want to look pretty, so when they don kooky hats or outsize suits or shave their heads or apply rouge with purposefully grotesque abandon, it’s taken to be merely an outlandish variation on expected behavior. Meanwhile, an eccentrically dressed man—not a dandy in the Beau Brummell mold but someone plainly interested in creating new and jarring shapes with his body and clothes—is a rare and electrifying sight. In refusing to telegraph the traditional goals of male fashion (power, utility, wealth), it can seem as though he has renounced capitalism itself—even if the price of doing so is equal to a series of consecutive mortgage payments.

See also: Don’t call Rachel Comey quirky.