Designers blow away gender boundaries

Palomo is, nevertheless, the most theatrical and extravagant of a growing wave of designers who are blowing away gender boundaries.

One of the highlights of London fashion week earlier this month was a raucous show by the Loverboy label in which men and women with madeup white faces and blonde wigs heckled the models as they swigged wine.

Loverboy designer, kilt- and beret-wearing Scottish rebel Charles Jeffrey, finished his previous show with a man in a princess wedding gown after putting his male models in miniskirts and a woman in a striped business suit.

Like several other young London-based creators, he questions the relevance of gender at all, describing it as a "bit of an eye roll".

Punk veteran Vivienne Westwood and rising young Turk JW Anderson at Loewe also regularly blur the lines. The movement has already filtered down to the British high street, with big retail chains such as John Lewis and Selfridges experimenting with gender neutral clothing lines for both adults and children.

Palomo, who trained at the London College of Fashion, sees himself as part of this generational shift which refuses to define people in binary terms.

His debut Paris show had all his usual cheeky panache: A line of Renaissance court dandies in silken doublets, dresses and hunting attire, full of delicious double entendres.

It built up to a final flourish of imperial camp－a feathered cape, plumed hat and thighhigh boots with white knickers.

Palomo is far from alone in mining the cross-gender vein at Paris fashion week－American avant-gardists Thom Browne and Rick Owens are old hands.

Rather it's the exuberance of Palomo's clothes which prompted the French Fashion Federation to invite him into the prestigious Paris fold, the only Spanish designer at style's top table.

"We want creativity, diversity and a bit of disruption, and he brings the lot," a spokesperson for the federation says.

Palomo's independence of spirit also extends to where he feels most at home. Instead of one of the big fashion capitals, Palomo has set up his studio in his birthplace, Posadas, a small town of 7,000 people near Cordoba.

Yet he has been dreaming of the Paris catwalk since "I was 5 years old and making clothes for Barbie dolls. It's a huge honor for me", he says.

And he hopes his irreverence can put a bit of spark back into Spanish fashion, so long dominated by safe mass markets brands like Zara.

"Spanish fashion is a little stuck, a bit rank," he admits. "But I have something to bring to the table."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE