“Rather than spend my time wanting a seat at [their] table, I’d rather build my own.”
There’s so much societal pressure! When I don’t shave my armpits, even my friends are like, “You need to shave.” We would never tell a guy, “You need to shave.” And then, the amount of money that goes into it . . . Well, the strangest part of it is who set these rules? It was men. And what do men have to do with making decisions for a woman’s body? So you have been identified as and call yourself a queer designer. How do you define that? What does that mean? So I think the way being gay, being a lesbian, impacts my work is that I am no longer taking the male gaze into effect. I think designing a collection that has nothing to do with the male gaze is really something that’s unique to a queer designer. How would you respond to the criticism that “queerness” is on-trend and do you think the Chromat consumer views your use of non- binary, non-white models as sincere? Okay. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that because it’s something that I’ve been asked or asked myself before and there are so many layers to this. So one thing I would say is that if you’ve only shown white, cis, thin, female models on the runway and then suddenly have one token trans model or one token
black model, it’s different than if you’ve always celebrated women that represent all aspects of womanhood. And for me, I’ve always celebrated it, so it’s not a trend for me. But another thing I’d like to touch on is that there are benefits to celebrating more than one type of person on the runway. Basically, it’s like you’re opening up your customer base to be wider-- the power of seeing yourself reflected on the runway can also be a consumer power, and so I think that we’re not just doing this to dismantle white supremacy. People can say, “Well, are you only having black models on the runway to have the black customer?” And I think there is a connection between seeing yourself and also wanting to, as a consumer, participate in that brand. It is connected. I think that the dream or the aspiration of being a fashion model can now be open to so many other people. Now more people have the dream of participating in fashion than in the past, and I think that’s a positive. I think I know the answer to this, but are you a feminist? Yeah, for sure. I feel like if your feminism isn’t intersectional, then what is your feminism? So I feel really strongly about supporting intersectional feminism.
because not everyone is just one single identity. It’s recognizing that every person contains multitudes, and feminism isn’t the only defining feature of their experience in life. They also have the defining feature of being black or being disabled, or Trans. You have to recognize the intersectionality of each person and celebrate all those different aspects of them. Is it hard to be in an industry where it can be really superficial? How do you balance being in an industry that a lot of people associate with the feminine, but not necessarily feminism? I think people putting fashion down because it focuses on beauty or hair, is also coming from this patriarchal system that puts women’s work below traditional men’s work. And I think there’s so many different ways to approach that. I guess I just feel like fashion and beauty have been looked down on as superficial, or not as big of an industry, or important to society because they traditionally concern women. But there is so much power in shaping your identity and that is also what beauty and fashion can be used for. And then the other reason it’s considered superficial is because it’s based on selling stuff. For me, I was not attracted to the whole consumer side and selling things, but you can’t escape it. In the past, fashion has been so exclusive, especially high fashion. You’re in or out. And that’s something I’ve never been interested in. But then I
And what exactly is intersectional feminism?
So intersectional feminism is the intersection between, for example, race and gender, or ability and gender,
8 FM/AM FASHION MAGAZINE AT MARIST
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