Fashion at the Melbourne Cup has us wondering… Is sports a good agency to represent non-binary fashion?
“Be the change in the world to see what you want to see in the world” (The love project, 1987). It looks like one Australian sporting event is truly embracing the spirit of the quote. This horse race that stops the nation is going to showcase this current identity movement. Yes, you read it right. How? Through its stance on non-binary fashion.
It is no doubt that sports and fashion have huge power to appeal to larger audiences. And a non-binary theme might be one to elevate the meaning behind the Melbourne Cup. This may help to document unique gender expression and need.
Melbourne Cup and Australian Identity
In relation to the annual horse racing event and representation of down under people… Does the Melbourne cup and its fashion really represent multicultural and inclusive current working-class Australian society? It is a topic of long debate. But credit to its ever-increasing popularity, it might be a trailblazing show for a unique cause.
Likewise, if we read Carole Cusack and Justin Digance’s article “The Melbourne Cup: Australian identity and secular pilgrimage” (2009), it discusses how the Annual horse race event is critical in the shaping of Australian personal and secular identity.
In other ways, the Melbourne cup can be regarded as an agency for community interactions. It is through the means of these tiny or large interactions that identities get some meaning and shape. In the larger context, it can also be the source of future narratives for documentation.
Non-binary Fashion and its Relevance
On the other hand, it is vital to know what is non-binary before non-binary fashion. Marilyn Roxie, who writes a dedicated blog on non-binary and genderqueer issues writes simply “non-binary as a gender represent those group which do not want to call themselves as binary’. Furthermore, they are those people who represent themselves as male and female at one time as well as neither male nor female at another time.
So the question arises why are they relevant? Non-binary fashion has got relevance because of its unique representation of those voices who have been silenced and marginalised for many years in socio-political environments. In other words, I believe the way non-binary fashion challenge heterogenous fashion is a process of creating awareness of uniqueness and representation.
In all, sports can not stand away from socio-political causes. Hope this good cause may be starting many discourses to be built after.
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