Designed through the male gaze
Buttscrunched started from a mix of frustration and fascination with the sexualized accentuations in today’s female gymwear. More and more women are working out regularly, yet the range of sportswear remains surprisingly narrow. Much of it seems to be designed through the Western heterosexual male gaze.
One iconic example is the butt scrunch legging, designed to make your butt look bigger. Other tight gymwear often emphasizes breasts, buttocks and hips, turning a sexualized ideal of the cliché, symmetrical hourglass figure into the norm.
Through conversations with gymgoers, a former Olympic athlete and a gym influencer, I became increasingly aware of how strongly both gymwear and the gym itself can influence body confidence. While female gymwear is more naked and free than ever, it can also restrict and control women by accentuating sexualized body parts.
Disrupted Hourglass
Simone's designs disrupt this normalized hourglass figure and reject the Western heterosexual male gaze. She creates imbalance through asymmetry and desexualizes familiar accentuations by repeating, distorting or relocating them across the body.
Instead of reinforcing the expected silhouette, the garments create space for new shapes to emerge.
Gym Error
The collection is presented within an awkward, cold gym setting that extends this disruption beyond the garments themselves. It challenges the functionality of the clothes. The sweating and heavy breathing expresses the frustration and exhaustion caused by the sexualized and normalized ideals dominating gymwear. At the same time, these physical signs suggest the aftermath of an intense workout.
Asymmetry, imbalance and disruption run throughout both the clothes and their environment. The gym setting itself is distorted through the garments, objects and construction of the installation. These errors create confusion, using discomfort and disruption as a way to create awareness.
