A celebration of Prince and David Bowie's rule-breaking and gender-defying fashion

2016 was a hard year for lovers of fashion and rule-breaking. Within a 12-month period, we lost David Bowie, Prince, Bill Cunningham, Zsa Zsa Gabor and China Machado, all iconoclasts who succeeded in forming a fashion sense all their own.

That's particularly true for Bowie and Prince, who shared an equal distaste for dressing with just one gender in mind, slipping into platform shoes and women's blouses, as well as caking on makeup from time to time.

Currently, there are men in the entertainment industry who are pushing these same boundaries — like Young Thug or Jaden Smith— but no one, it seems, has really taken on the torch of dressing really, seriously without gender in mind at all, embracing heels and bright colors just as much as skirts.

So, as an ode to their fashion legacies, here is a look back at both David Bowie and Prince's most iconic and rule-breaking looks throughout the course of their lives:

Clearly, for both men, rules were to be broken, and we're so glad they did.

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