Fashion as Art
Toronto, home to over three million people, welcomes some of the most diverse crowds
around the world. At the heart of Downtown Toronto, the TMU campus, lives a large population of flourishing queer youth and young adults who are paving their way towards professional careers and higher education that encourage rather than simply accept or even suppress queer fashions.
Culturally queer fashions are not the ideal for professionalism and are persistently subject
to both conscious and unconscious bias, acting as a roadblock for authentic expression.
Unconventional outward appearances, while widely accepted in public spaces in and around Toronto, are still prone to experience a glass barrier of prejudice with sinister underpinnings. Medical patients, for example, have been shown to care heavily about the appearance of their healthcare provider. Patients prefer “neat blouses,” “collared shirts,” and “smart” pants and shoes. Stereotypically, patients prefer when a white lab coat accompanies their doctor's uniform. That being said, it is unsurprising that facial piercings, tattoos, and coloured hair are unwelcome in the professional environment that makes up medicine. In a study published in Sage Journals, care providers with tattoos were rated with lower confidence than providers without, the ratings continuing to diminish if facial piercings were thrown into the mix.
Additionally, coloured hair is shown to play a role in perception and treatment in the
workplace. Even naturally red hair, occurring in around 2% of the population, had adverse
effects on beginning salary and perceived intelligence. The issue arises as those with coloured hair, piercings, tattoos, and genderbent fashions find themselves in professional environments, as they do not receive the encouragement as their conventionally dressing counterparts. Positive reinforcement is known to be one of the more effective modes of behaviour modification. When employees, for example, are treated as punctual and efficient workers, they are given the opportunity to become such. Professional environments breed harsh cycles and suppress queer presentation, but in an age of gender diversity, the sky is the limit and queer students persist despite the harsh climate.
The rules are hounded into children from birth. Girls are girls and boys are boys. And
girls should be pretty, boys should be strong, normal is normal. The notions are easily enforced, through the double take at a man in makeup, or a woman with large muscles and a masculine outfit. Brook Reid, a current TMU student studying Creative Industries would agree. Brook recalls gravitating towards “boy” clothing since elementary school. She states: “In high school I started to dress feminine, but I wasn't dressing for myself, I was dressing for the masses.” Educational settings, surrounded by peers and mentors, rewarded traditional modes of dress. It wasn't until after high school graduation that Brook re-embraced her style. She moved from Alberta to Toronto and enrolled at TMU for the 2025 school year. Right around that time, she met Sofia Kring, a second year TMU Journalism student. Brook describes Sofia as the first person she's ever met that looks and dresses like her. “I felt seen, and I suddenly wasn’t stressed going out.” Brook recalls.
Even in an informal social setting, like a bar, a concert, a night out, there were lingering nerves for Brook. Other girls didn’t have tattoos and piercings. They dress in short skirts and form fitting tops. And so, meeting Sofia was like the whirlwind that is university, the community we gather that grounds us, and the boost that queer youth need to propel them past the fear of perception and integrate their authentic fashions into everyday
Comments