Equal opportunity

Borrowing from the boys has long been in vogue, but now the gender-neutral wardrobe is proving to unisex appeal

Ladies, your wardrobes are about to be liberated. This season, clothing takes a boundary-breaking unisex turn, as Miuccia Prada - fittingly dressed in a baggy, men's-style sweater - declared backstage: "I think to people, not to gender." While the tradition for fashion brands is to show menswear and womenswear on gender- specific catwalks, with this Prada show she fused the two on one runway. "I think the combination is more real," she continued. "It's more 'today', otherwise it looks like we are in classes, in the time of my grandfather, when women were divided from men."

Most women have flirted with the idea of menswear: Katharine Hepburn wore Brooks Brothers shirts bought from a secret girls-only counter at the back of the New York store, Marlene Dietrich worked the tux with unrivalled command, while Doris Day cavorted in her lover's oversized shirts.

But fashion is moving beyond the straightforward notion of borrowing from the boys towards a freewheeling, fabulously grey area where clothes are gender-neutral. "Against a backdrop of increasing gender fluidity, we are seeing a rise in a unisex or co-ed mode of dress," agrees Judd Crane, director of womenswear and accessories at Selfridges. "Clothes are becoming trans-seasonal and lines are rapidly starting to blur. For instance, we sold a lot of Givenchy girls' sweaters to boys because they liked the graphics."

Driving the shift is a more open society that encourages freedom of expression for men and women, the power of the pink pound, the move away from conventional officewear, the shifting of gender roles in the home… It's all up for grabs and we need a wardrobe to reflect the new mood. "We're a menswear store but if women come in here, then they're confident types who are above being marketed to," says Anda Rowland, the vice chairman of Anderson & Sheppard, an off-the-peg menswear clothier in the heart of Savile Row that is upping the amount of size smalls it stocks to cater for a growing number of female customers. She continues: "The Donegals, the herringbones, the tweeds - they're all pretty fabulous. It isn't a question of whether it's a man's  thing or not." Rowland won't name-check her female shoppers but she confirms they're power brokers who can be found at either Frieze or fashion week. Or both.

So is that it? Are catwalk shows being gender blended because women and men are now living parallel lives and their clothes need to be able to perform the same function? "For me, putting men and women on the same catwalk at the same time is probably a reaction to the idea of condensed seasons," says designer Jonathan Anderson. "It's easier to show menswear and pre-collections at the same time because the production schedule for both collections is similar." But, he adds, it's also about something else. "Unisex is a dated concept. Now it's more about garments for garments' sake. T-shirts, jeans, duffel coats, biker jackets - it all means the same thing, no matter if it's a man or woman wearing it. They are a neutral zone."

Inside the halls of Selfridges, the dissemination of this idea is in action. Construction is about to begin on its new pop-up retail project A Gender, which launches in March selling non-gender-specific clothing. Selfridges isn't alone. Fifteen years ago, J Crew closed its unisex division, but today the climate is ripe for a resurrection. "We're coming back to a symbiotic space," says creative director Jenna Lyons. "We combined our men's and women's models on the catwalk this season because so many of the looks felt connected."

In 2005, women were out secretly shopping Hedi Slimane's Petite Taille men's collection at Dior; flash forward to today and the biker jackets and boots he's designed at Saint Laurent are for her and him. Brands such as Givenchy and Burberry Prorsum are producing versions of the same styles for both sexes on their runways, while canny women are shopping menswear stores for strategic pieces: those giant scarves from Loewe, Church's black lace-ups, Neil Barrett double-breasted overcoats, and T-shirts by Sandro Homme.

It's an anything-goes attitude, one that model - and now designer - Agyness Deyn is inspired by for her new line, Title A. "I'm interested in taking men's shapes and translating them into womenswear," she says. "Yes, there will always be the woman who wants a bodycon dress, but there's also a certain type who craves another definition of sexy." It's easy for a model to wax lyrical about how a pair of wide-leg grey flannel trousers can look as sexy as a thigh-skimming LBD. But she has a point when it comes to the allure of not trying too hard.

However flexible our perceptions of gender and fashion become, our bodies will always be different. (Let's not even get into pandrogyny, though it's worth noting the soundtrack to Prada's s/s '15 womenswear show was borrowed from The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, a film about a couple who undergo sexual surgery in an attempt to merge into one being.) As Rowland puts it, "certain menswear pieces just don't look good with a bosom".

This shift in shopping isn't for all women, but what we do know is that our views on what is sexy and what feels good will oscillate through the years, just as our hemlines have done. "The other day I got a letter from a nine-year-old girl," begins Lyons. "She said she shopped with us but was a tomboy and didn't like the sparkly stuff. She asked if we could do something that wasn't for boys or girls, but for both." Now, that really is a voice of the future.