Last year, Ruby Rose sported a ballgown and a casual flamethrower at the European Music Awards. But it wasn’t this pyrotechnics display that set the internet on fire, it was her gender-fluid opening address to “ladies and gentlemen and everyone in-between.” And it’s not a message she’s leaving in the past. In a new interview, Rose sounded off about her struggles with gender growing up and why she’s down with Jaden Smith’s new campaign.
Speaking about her androgynous style, the Aussie actress told The Cut that “dressing like a guy” not only got her picked on at school, but that criticism followed her into her professional life: “Even when I got my first job, people were telling me that I needed to change what was innately me,” said Rose. But she was quick to broaden the conversation from personal experience and runway trends, explaining how gender fluid fashion can help break down binaries in larger culture.
“I think it’s more than just making a statement in the fashion world by using Jaden or myself or using transgender models or having women dress like men or vice versa,” Rose told the site. “To be able to make this huge impact on what was really a huge transgender and gender-fluidity movement last year is really going to be for the greater good of society because it’s going to let people know they’re not different in a weird way; they’re different in a way that should be celebrated.”
In the same way that Caitlyn Jenner’s Diane Sawyer interview helped bring trans awareness into America’s living room, Rose is looking to spread the message of gender fluidity to kids from middle-of-nowhere towns who, “don’t quite understand why they don’t quite feel comfortable in a dress… or if they’re a boy and they want to wear a dress or they want to wear a skirt.” 2016 is looking great already.
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Text Emily Manning
Ruby Rose image via Twitter