Det okönade modets kön : Hur unisexmode utmanar och upprätthåller könsmaktsordningen i mode

Sammanfattning: The focus of this bachelor’s thesis is the phenomenon of unisex fashion and how it is portrayed in product images. The aim is to examine how unisex fashion is shaped by the binary gender system, as well as how it challenges it. To investigate this, we use product images from the unisex collections of four different fashion brands as our empirical data. This is analysed using Roland Barthes’ method for semiotic image analysis. Through our analysis we discover that there are two distinct types of unisex fashion: one that follows a normative, masculine pattern, and one that deviates from this and instead follows a feminine or androgynous pattern. Furthermore, we see that the norm-following unisex fashion can be associated with ready-to-wear brands, whereas the deviating unisex fashion can be associated with haute couture brands. The ready-to-wear brands analysed conform to the binary genders in both their fashion and images, through style of clothes, choice of models and their styling, as well as the fact that each product image contains one masculine model and one feminine. The analysed haute couture brands on the other hand, have a more artistic approach and challenge the binary through experimenting with and combining masculinity and femininity, approaching a gender ambiguity and an androgyny in their unisex fashion. We find that no matter how much unisex fashion conforms to binary gender norms, it will always challenge them to some extent due to the concept of unisex being inherently challenging. However, while it challenges the binary, it upholds it at the same time.