“The right to be handsome” explores the gender non-conforming market and its potential
- vietpride
- Jun 18, 2015
- 2 min read
Ask your transgender or gender non-conforming friend what they spend most of their time struggling with everyday. Chances are the answer you receive will have something to do with clothing. In this 7-minute report, PBS looks at the potential yet grossly overlooked market, and the few people who are trying to be the suppliers for their demand.
“I thought I would just end up being someone who would prefer to be overlooked, or not worth - sort of - a second glance,” discloses Rachel Tutera – owner of the blog “The Handsome Butch” and Bindle & Keep’s LGBTQ liaison, on the traumas of having to shop at the men’s department. The experience of wearing a tailor-made suit changed her point of view completely, and she is working to serve the needs of similar souls around America. Now with a slicked back pompadour, neatly tailored suit and a confident half-smile, she looks nothing like someone who would dread shopping. “I think I just had to say over and over to myself, ‘You have the right to be handsome. You have the right to be handsome,’ until it actually felt like a right.” Some of Rachel’s clients would gladly spend up to $1500 for a suit.
Over the years, gender non-conforming models as well as unisex clothes have been all the rage over mainstream media. Major brands like Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, and Barneys New York have used androgynous or transgender models in their campaigns – which clearly gestures a new market development: companies – at least in the fashion industry, have found a new perception and respect for LGBTQ individuals’ buying power.
According to Ann Pellegrini, Director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality at New York University: “None of these designers would be, sort of, trying to produce clothes that would appeal to masculine women if they didn’t think they were people who could walk in with a wallet and pull out a credit card.”
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