Top Hats, Doc Martens & More: Iconic Lesbian Fashion Trends From Past to Present
We’re marking Lesbian Visibility Day this year with a series of articles celebrating WLW culture. To catch up on our previous piece of lesbian-loving journalism, head to our blog . Otherwise, keep reading!
Fashion and clothing is an essential part of lesbian identity . Not only do staple items let queer women recognise each other inside the sapphic community, but they can also help them hide away from a world that doesn’t understand their way of life.
Stay with us as we dive into many of the iconic lesbian fashion trends through history, from the ancient sapphic signal of lavender, to the distinct “dyke” rings taking the fingers of modern lesbians by storm.
Lavender Purple
The purple shade of lavender has long since been synonymous with the lesbian community. Sappho, the original lesbian icon, first wrote about violets and lavender to express her romantic love of women. Because of this, purple became a coded signal for queer women to recognise each other. Not only did this colour inspire the name of lesbian feminist group, the Lavender Menace , but today this purple shade is used in relation to queer women and women’s rights!
Top Hats
These hats became associated with some WLW folk from the late 18th century and were used to challenge gender norms. Two of the most famous top hat wearers were Elanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known as the "Ladies of Llangollen". The two Irish women eloped to Wales together in 1778, and while historians will say they were just ‘close friends,’ they shared a bed and called each other ‘my beloved.’ Towards the end of their lives, Butler and Ponsonby dressed in black riding habits and men’s top hats.
Black Clothing
While female clothing in the early 19th century was traditionally colourful, the wardrobe of Anne Lister (the “first modern lesbian”) was more closely matched to the black or dark shades of the clothes worn by men. To Lister, this colour better embodied her identity than the ‘rainbow style’ clothing popular in women’s fashion in the 1820s. There’s even a description of Lister giving a “green & yellow shot Italian gauze evening gown” to her sister Marian, symbolising a fashionable femininity that she doesn’t identify with.
Doc Martens
In the mid-20th century, butch lesbians couldn’t find work in traditionally “women’s jobs” like teachers and secretaries. Instead, they worked blue-collar manual labour jobs that required sturdy footwear… like Doc Martens. Twenty years later at the height of the modern feminist movement, lesbian feminists re-adopted this shoe as a uniform of utility wear to protest being objectified by the patriarchal society. To this day, these boots have remained a symbol of sapphic queerness.
Dungarees
Much like Doc Martens, dungarees were worn by the lesbian feminist movement as a way of protesting notions of feminity and beauty. Since dungarees were traditionally designed as shapeless workwear for men, wearing them meant dressing in ways outside of the male gaze – something considered revolutionary at a time when a lack of discrimination laws in the workplace meant women could be turned down for jobs for not appearing “feminine” enough.
Suits
One of the most iconic suit-wearing lesbians is Stormé Delarverie, who worked as a male impersonator (what we would now call a drag king) for a travelling cabaret from 1959 to 1969. Delarverie encouraged other lesbians to adopt “men’s” clothing as streetwear, presenting in an androgynous way offstage in three-piece suits and "men's" hats. Later in life, she worked as a bouncer in New York’s lesbian and queer bars and became famously known as the “Stonewall Lesbian” for being the person who “threw the first punch” at the monumental marker for LGBTQ+ rights. Slay.
Carabiners
Functionality has always been a key part of lesbian fashion, and nothing says practical like a carabiner. While the beltside key ring might seem like a modern way for queer women to identify with one another, the accessory goes back further than you think! Historians argue that beltside clips were often worn by butch women working blue-collar jobs in the mid-20th century – often styled with an iconic pair of DMs. Back then, these carabiners were worn for many reasons, including practicality, kink culture and cruising.
Racerback Vests
Vests have long been intertwined with sapphic and lesbian culture, including the iconic white racerback vest. Teetering perfectly between masculine and feminine fashion, this clothing item reached cult lesbian status in the 90s when Jenny Shimizu wore one in the iconic 90s ad for CK One. Put simply, white vests are as much a signifier of lesbian culture as a dangling carabiner.
Flannel
Lesbians wearing flannel might feel like a dated stereotype, but the link between the two is undeniable. While this trend peaked in the 90s, the idea that lesbians love plaid has become truly cemented in public consciousness. From the very first Ellen Degeneres show, flannel shirts were a staple in her wardrobe. Very quickly, TV and media used flannel as an indicator that a female character was queer. From a fashion history perspective, flannel carries the connotation of women adopting traditionally masculine clothing to work in manual labour.
Cottage-core
Favoured by more femme-presenting queer women, the cottage-core trend is exactly what it says on the tin. Think long flowy dresses, whimsical earrings and clothing most akin to moving off-grid to a cottage in the forest to spend the rest of your lives gardening and making homemade soup. Even though cottage-core lesbians are a fairly recent modern fashion phenomenon, fashion experts reckon they’re today’s more “femme-presenting” equivalent of the 1970s’ “land-dykes’.
Hey, Mamas
The recent rise of flirtatious masc lesbians who the community affectionately call “ Hey, Mamas ” lesbians are known for their signature style: oversized t-shirts or white vests, baggy shorts, excessive gold jewellery and a snapback. This fashion style is greatly inspired not just by 90s hip-hop stars, but also by the typical male “fuckboy”. The term is currently doing the rounds on sapphic TikTok, but you’ll likely be able to spot a hey, mama’s lesbian in the wild.
Rings
From Kristen Stewart to Villanelle, look closely at pictures of lesbians and queer women, and you’ll likely be able to see one iconic piece of jewellery every time: rings. In the 90s, thumb rings were worn by many in the community as a queer signifier – if you saw someone playing with their thumb ring in front of you, they were encouraging you to make a move. Today, rings are worn on all fingers by many in the lesbian community, with the iconic ‘DYKE’ ring designed by I Kissed a Girl’s Amy Spalding becoming a fashion statement for the WLW community. Definitely the most fashionable way to reclaim this previously derogatory term!
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Tilly Brogan
Tilly is a queer Freelance Copywriter based in Manchester. She balances her time between working with LGBTQ+ organisations and women’s rights charities - and people watching in various Manchester cafes. She is also a proud lesbian. You can read more of her work here.
