CORAL JOURNAL · THE LINE
Unlearn the Norm
The story behind the line
I never set out to make a statement. I just kept reaching for the wrong side of the wardrobe — and it kept feeling more right than anything else.
This line is about the space between masculine and feminine. Not choosing one, not mixing them in a calculated way — just existing somewhere in between. That in-between place has a name: androgyny. And I think it's one of the most beautiful, most misunderstood ideas in fashion.
"The beauty of existing between definitions rather than within them."
Here's something that surprised me when I started digging into this — androgyny is not a new concept at all. Like, at all. Plato was writing about it in ancient Greece. Even the colours we now treat as gendered — blue for boys, pink for girls — used to be the other way around. These things we think of as fixed? They've always been shifting. We just forget that.
Growing Up
For me, this wasn't something I read about first. I lived it. Growing up, I was always drawn to what my male friends wore — the shapes, the looseness, the way certain pieces just felt more interesting to me. I'd borrow and reinterpret and mix things around. It wasn't a statement. It wasn't even really a conscious decision. It just felt right, and fun, and like me.
I was lucky that my parents never made it a big deal. I know that's not everyone's experience, especially in more traditional Asian households — and I don't take that for granted. But even with that freedom, I started noticing something. As a woman, I could lean masculine and nobody really blinked. Growing up in Indonesia though, I watched how different it was for men. Something as small as a pink pen could become a whole conversation about who you were. That gap always stayed with me.
"Women have always been the first to move across boundaries — not waiting for permission, but simply going."
So What Is This Line, Really?
It's my way of exploring all of that. The tension, the freedom, the history, the personal. It's about breaking norms — not loudly, not aggressively, but in that quiet way where you put something on and it just feels like the truest version of yourself.
The norms we dress ourselves into are not natural. They are applied. They are chosen. And they can be undone. This line is my attempt at undoing them — one piece at a time. I hope when you wear it, you feel that too.
Coral Journal · 2025