Minneapolis designer busts stereotypes with gender-neutral line of colorful clothing

When buying clothes, a shopper first had to decide to head to a store that sells clothing for men or women. That's shifting, with the emergence of gender-neutral clothing.

The look challenges the idea that a garment's style, color and cut is masculine or feminine. Instead, gender-neutral fashion can be worn by a variety of body shapes and sizes and without taking gender into account.

Three years ago, while still a student at the University of Minnesota, Maxine Britt founded Mx Apparel (mxappareldesign.com), a gender-neutral line that debuted with a Fashion Week MN runway show. The line Britt creates in a Minneapolis bedroom-turned-studio apartment is developing a national following and has been selected by a local business accelerator. We talked to Britt about the two sides of fashion, the universal love of pockets and the widening appeal of gender-neutral dressing. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What sparked your interest in fashion?

A: I was home-schooled until high school. That's when getting dressed every morning became a crucial part of my day, an important way to express myself. As an LGBT student at a small suburban school in Arizona, fitting in and my safety were things I had to think about. My outfit became a way to have some control.

Q: What's your formal training?

A: I've had a long love affair with fashion and my mom taught me to sew. I took sewing classes at community college while I was in high school — the basics and then pattern making and costume construction. That gave me a head start when I got to college. I came to the University of Minnesota for the apparel design program. It's a solid, technically based program as opposed to art-focused; I have a bachelor of science.

Q: A Gallup Poll found that 16% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ and research by the Innovation Group found that 56% of GenZ'ers said they shop for clothes outside their assigned gender. Do you see a generational change when it comes to fashion?

A: Gen Z has grown up with more trans and nonbinary visibility and media representation. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed in their world and haven't been punished as in the past. It's become safer to exist as that type of person because of really hard work on the part of activists.

As Generation Z gains more buying power, gender-neutral design will become even more popular and translate into sales.

Q: When did you get interested in gender-neutral clothing?

A: At the U, I worked at the Queer Student Cultural Center. The space functions as a spot for students to hang out and feel comfortable being themselves. That connected me to the queer community in the Twin Cities and influenced me as a designer.

For two research projects, I surveyed 200 queer, trans and nonbinary people to understand and pinpoint what sort of design elements they prefer in their clothing and what aspects of fashion were not working for them.

Q: What did you learn from the surveys?

A: One response I heard was that while they shopped in the men's or the women's section for the style, the clothes never fit correctly. I asked about the types of shape, silhouettes and proportions they wanted.

In my research, I learned about two sides of fashion — the communication to yourself, what's in the mirror, and then communicating to the world in the way you want to be seen. Society created these rigid ideas about what colors and what pieces men and women can wear. We can go against that.

Q: Where do you sell your clothing?

A: I sell at pop-up events and on my website. [There will be a pop-up Aug. 13 from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Some Great People marketing firm, 205 Park Av., Suite C, Mpls.]

I developed my own sizing chart so my customers can measure themselves. Gender-neutral sizing is uniquely difficult because you're fitting different body types.

E-commerce is convenient but people still love to try things on. For trans, nonbinary and nonconforming people, the changing room and shopping in the quote/unquote "wrong section" can be a negative or even dangerous experience.

TikTok [@MXappareldesign] is a newer platform for me. I've started doing commentary on my vision of gender-neutral fashion and I've gotten a ton of orders from all over from it.

Q: Is how we shop changing?

A: We do see some stores that are eliminating gender specificity and losing the sections to make clothes identified as men's or women's. From my perspective, everyone benefits if there are less strict categories. People should be creative with what they wear. They should be able to do what they like.

Q: What's the most popular garment in your line?

A: It's a simple and versatile piece that comes in two lengths and up to 3X in size. The longer version is a jump suit and the shorter is a romper and people love the pockets. It's made from a high-quality knit fabric that has a four-way stretch so it's very comfortable. It comes in solid black, black and lime green or black and gray.

Q: How are your clothes produced?

A: I work with a local production facility that does contract sewing, a place started years ago for training immigrants for careers in sewing. Making sure production is ethical and that workers are compensated fairly is important to me. They cut and sew the ready-to-wear pieces based on my samples and patterns. I am scaling up and now my typical order is 50 to 200 garments in a run.

Q: Your company was one of 15 businesses selected for the Lunar Startups, which helps develop high-growth, early-stage Minnesota companies led by LGBTQ founders and entrepreneurs of color. What's that experience like?

A: It's filling in gaps for me that will help me grow. I'm networking with experts who have strong backgrounds in marketing and finance. I'm getting help on how to bootstrap and fund my business. I've had mentors in my field but it's beneficial to get connected beyond that. My goal is to expand to have a national reach.

Q: Some mainstream brands (Gap, Gucci, Adidas) have added lines of gender-neutral clothing to their collections. How do they differ from emerging brands like Mx Apparel?

A: They take the "neutral" part too seriously; the colors are in the gray/black palette and look like what comes from the men's department. That says a lot about how designers view what is neutral. My customer likes color, contrast. And pockets. Everyone wants pockets.

Q: Explain the name of your company.

A: It's pronounced Mix. Mx. is an honorific used by people who don't want to use Mr. or Ms. and that represents me as a person and a designer. Mx also feels like an abbreviation of my name, Maxine. I've always thought X is the coolest letter in the alphabet.

Kevyn Burger is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and broadcaster.