Butch Sassidy shirt, Bender Collection A/W 2019

Gender bending

This shirt is from Jimmy D's Bender Collection. James Dobson, the designer behind the Jimmy D label, developed the Bender collection in response to a review of New Zealand Fashion Week which applauded a number of designers for having a political outlook and for engaging with the world around them. Feeling that sexuality and gender were political ideas that largely seemed ignored by New Zealand fashion, he chose to explore those ideas. In Bender he combines personal '90s nostalgia for fashion icons such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, with an exploration of sexuality, gender, queerness and a desire to produce 'genderless clothing in less tokenistic ways'.

George Hajian print

While James Dobson is known as a designer who works primarily in black, he occasionally collaborates with artists to produce unique prints for his collections. For the Bender collection, he worked with George Hajian, a Lebanese Auckland based artist. Haijan is interested in the genealogy of the athletic male body, and the ways in which it is 'objectified, sexualized and commodified' in popular culture, from magazines to social media, the internet and dating/social apps. Hajian provided Dobson access to his back catalogue of collages from which he created a large scale repeat print and placement prints.

Of the print, Dobson says:

I love its raw, torn, scribbled and pasted up vibe, I love the images of classical sculpture and how this talks about vanity and body image obsessions that are rife within the gay community, and I love the flashes of pornography and phallic references that, for me, are a commentary on the conservatism and de-sexualisation of the fashion world, especially in New Zealand right now.

Gendered buttons

While the Butch Sassidy shirt is based on a classic boxy man's shirt, it buttons up 'the women's way', that is on the left.  Men's buttons are traditionally placed on the right hand side. One of the theories for this is that men's shirts were buttoned left over right was to enable them to draw their swords, which were worn on the left hand side, without risking catching the handle in their clothing. Paul Keers, author of A Gentleman’s Wardrobe (1987), argues that 'as an indication of a masculine lifestyle, this tradition was then extended to other items of menswear'. Women's buttons are thought to button right over left, as when first introduced to women's clothing, well-to-do women would have been dressed by a lady's maid, most of whom would have been right-handed.

Butch Sassidy 　

The name of the shirt is a playful take on Butch Cassidy, the name of a legendary American outlaw (1866-1908), and meanings of 'butch': 'a (traditionally) masculine man or woman, and especially a masculine lesbian. Often the 'dominant' partner in a lesbian relationship, and especially of a butch/femme lesbian relationship'; and 'sassy' which can either refer to someone is who 'insolent, impertinent' or 'smart, stylish'.