There hasn't been any kind of contradiction, though? Alphinaud's Heavensward attire was unisex upon its release. Same goes for Alphinaud/Alisae's pre-Heavensward sets which are identical anyway. The same can't be said of Lyse's, Minfilia's, Thancred's, Hien's, etc. They were released for one gender and they're still for only that one gender. Heck, even Aymeric's outfit can't be worn by female characters but provides a hairstyle that can be, as utterly bizarre as that is.

If their stance right now is that they don't plan to change the existing gender exclusivity of NPC outfits then they have yet to negate that statement. As of yet I don't see them changing the gender locks on the available male only outfits either, so it simply isn't true that they're only removing restrictions on masculine outfits. Perhaps that will be the case going forward, but we haven't received a male NPC costume (that wasn't Alphinaud) since... maybe Hien or Gosetsu, and both of those are male only. If OmegaM counts then that too is male only.

Whether the reason behind this decision is maintaining NPC cosplay accuracy (the reason the items can't be dyed and mostly come in one piece) or if it has something to do with it being too difficult to warp the outfits for larger/different body types the end result is the same. I'm personally super thankful that they've gone through the trouble of removing restrictions on all the items they have, and if anybody has glanced at recent datamines the next event sets also won't be gender locked. All in all it's great progress. If the devs say "no" about NPC outfits outside of the exceptions they make themselves (Alphinaud) then that's just how it's going to be unless they one day change their minds.