What defines gendered fashion? Why is it more acceptable for a man to wear pants rather than a skirt or dress? Is it just style, or does it have something to do with functionality? What happens when you reverse the fashion style for both genders? If men wore suits with softer edges, or skirts; while the ladies wore the traditional masculine power suit in a variety of colors and patterns how would the style look and be reversed?

 As I began to read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare I became inspired by the Page, a young boy actor hired to play Christopher Sly’s fake wife. I began to think about how this play would have been put on in Shakespeare’s time, and came to the realization that most of the actors on stage would have been men or boys. This led me to think about how a masculine body would look in feminine clothing. We see a lot of cross dressing styles in today's fashion but for the most part men wearing female clothing doesn’t work. So I came up with the idea to combine traditional gendered clothing with the opposite gender. For example, a man's coat with softer edges and more flow or a woman in a pantsuit inspired from Elizabehan era fashion. My ultimate goal is to explore the human body, and determine how different styles conform to masculine/feminine body types. As well as to bring a fresh twist onto the play, allowing for the mixing of the gendered clothing and modernization of the time period to add flair. The biggest challenge I will face is making sure I am not strictly cross dressing the characters, I will need to find the right balance between female/male clothing types and styles.