WHEN walking into a traditional department store or browsing your favorite online retailer, shoppers typically navigate clothing options by first choosing a section based on its gender label: Men’s or Women’s, Girl’s or Boy’s. But some fashion-lovers don’t identify within this gender binary, and they, and in particular Gen Z consumers, are creating demand for more inclusive and gender-neutral fashion offerings. That’s prompting stores who want to attract their dollars to pay attention. For instance, teen retailer PacSun’s summer 2021 marketing campaign features what it calls “gender-free” styles, a category it introduced in September 2020. It includes a new PacSun gender-free, eco-fashion line called Color Theory with a variety of cotton-based staples, such as sweatpants and hoodies. The gender neutral store on its website already features a collection of T-shirts, sweatpants, cargo and slim-fit pants in solid colors and tie-dye prints. Abercrombie & Fitch launched its first gender-inclusive clothing collection, called the “Everybody Collection,” in 2018 for kids ages 5 to 14, because of customer demand. It features an assortment of children’s clothes, including camouflage prints, bomber jackets and crew neck sweatshirts and tees influenced by skate culture. More recently, in May, the clothing chain launched a new collection in collaboration with The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. The gender-inclusive collection for kids and adults includes t-shirts, shorts, hoodies, jackets, hats, sandals and a fragrance. The clothes in the collections that brands are launching are not restricted to certain colors and fits separate for girls, boys, men and women. Instead, they are “genderless” in that the fashion is fluid, not inherently masculine or feminine, and the styles can fit all body types. Stores have good reason to roll out such collections. In a December 2020 survey by global marketing and consulting firm Wunderman Thompson of 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 16-24, 70 percent of those surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that gender doesn’t define a person as much as it used to. “Fashion mirrors the culture and political beliefs of a generation, which are often led by younger people,” said Shawn Grain Carter, professor of fashion business management at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the U.S. “If traditional retailers like Nordstrom and Saks are to survive, they must reflect the value system of this generation to gain lifetime loyalty,” said Carter.(SD-Agencies) | 