Fashion, taste and the assemblage: finding a way through it

The taste-making assemblage can be thought of as a recipe – a group of components. The making of our own particular dispositions, tastes, likes/dislikes requires multiple ingredients.

My attempts at visualising this process bring to mind the way food styling creatively displays numerous ingredients next to 3-page set of instructions on how to make a wonderful dish – attempting to make order in a chaotic and subjective process. The reality… there is nothing visually pleasing about my kitchen bench top when I’m making the recipe!

Our tastes are shaped and formed by our introduction to new ideas, images, people… However, these things are never the same set of things for each person – neither are they experienced in the same way or in the same order as anyone else. It is a personal pathway, built on a series or sequence of experiences or encounters. There is a unique set of fragments that inform and influence us, from our first awareness of something new right through to adopting or buying into this new idea. Each step on the journey creates a slight adjustment in our existing attitude and perception of this new idea as it becomes more clearly visible.

I was thinking about my own experience while drawing together the ingredients (images) in this assemblage depiction – gender fluidity. Of course, this shift in the understanding of identity reaches way beyond fashion, but because of my eye is keenly trained on new ideas emerging through fashion media, my pathway to enlightenment was built on a sequence of stylish encounters. So, I have tried to put the components of this assemblage in the order in which I became aware of them, as a way of making order in one of my chaotic and subjective pathways through fashionable taste.

Gender Fluid Assemblage

• Andreja Pejic on the runway at London Fashion Week

• Jayden Smith in Interview magazine


• Suzy Menkes writing about Korean street style trend for couples ‘twin-dressing’

• Gucci campaign starring Hari Nef by Alessandro Michele

• Gender Neutral labels appearing like Rad Hourani, Hood by Air and NicoPanda

• Photographers and stylist producing editorials that defy gender (Juergen Teller and Nicola Formichetti)

• IMG model agency representing gender fluid models

• A-Gender department opening in Selfridges (designed by Faye Toogood)