A new standard : Ett könsöverskridande modekoncept

Sammanfattning: Companies in the fashion industry are constantly facing new challenges. Recently, a debate has been raised about how fashion companies communicate gender. A debate that critically reviews how companies maintain a certain gender stereotype about how women and men should appear and perform. The gender stereotypes in these cases are primarily portrayed through communication in the form of advertising, through employees and in stores. Businesses in the fashion market tend to segment their products and their range towards gender, rather than to the consumer as an individual. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers and a fashion company relate to gender, performativeness and clothing, in order to locate how fashion industry players can contribute or counteract the creation of gender stereotypes through their actions in fashion. To investigate this, potential consumers and a representative from the company Hope have been interviewed. Hope is a Swedish company that offers high quality Scandinavian fashion. The company has a critical view of the fashion industry's binary assortment and applies innovative business strategies to boost equality in the fashion industry. The potential consumers who have participated in the study through focus-groups have been given the opportunity to discuss how a gender-neutral assortment would be perceived, and to assess it in different contexts. The results from the interviews were synthesized in theoretical models which were inspired by Judith Butler's theories about gender and performativity. Butler's research lack guidance regarding application through practical means and therefore theoretical models were created. These theoretical models can be applied to other studies regarding gender and performance theory. The results of the study points to a non-binary fashion industry, where the conventional binary assortments have not been reduced, but has been modified to fit and satisfy more consumers on an individual level. There are also indications that a non-binary selection, which Hope has produced, can come to be a competitive business plan as it is not a costly change of direction. The non-binary selection can result in changed views regarding normative gender classification and contribute to a new standard in stereotypical constructions.