Gender bending: Barneys campaign switches things up

New York – As it is each season, Barneys’ latest catalogue is filled with beautiful models in beautiful clothes, shot by famed fashion photographer Bruce Weber. Between its pages, male and female models lounge around, showing off enviable wardrobes – but unlike in previous catalogues, all the models are transgender.

The entire catalogue features transgender models, who are photographed with their family members and pets in black and white. The choice to use transgender models was not to create shock and awe – indeed, many who flick through the pages may not even notice – but to bring attention to the transgender community, which has been left behind as the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) communities become more accepted and mainstream.

‘I was exquisitely aware that in the last decade the LGB communities have made extraordinary advances, and the transgender community has not shared in that progress,’ Dennis Freedman, Barneys’ creative director said in an interview in the catalogue.

As well as the one with Freedman, the catalogue also has interviews with each of the transgender models.

In a previous Trend Briefing, LS:N Global revealed how gender norms are changing. For more, read our Andro Hip Hop microtrend.