New York Fashion Week ended on Thursday with its largest queer runway show to
date, Verge, held at the Brooklyn Museum.
A collaboration between dapperQ, bklyn boihood, Posture Magazine, and DYDH,
Verge featured eight emerging designers whose collections showcase gender
non-conformity and its intersections with race, ethnicity, and culture.
Trans activist and current GLAAD spokesperson Tiq Milan, who has collaborated
with dapperQ since 2006, served as emcee for the event.
“As a transgender man, I've found that dapperQ is one of the most amazing
organizations I could ever work with,” Milan said. “They have a great message
that helps to promote visibility within the transgender community. I feel
honored to be a part of it.”
He continues:
"This is more than just a fashion show and it's bigger than fashion week.
LGBT, queer, non-straight, non binary --all of us who have been others are the
pulse of what's hot and what's new and innovative. Because that's who we are.
From Grace Jones to David Bowe, Beyoncé to Lady Gaga, queerness and our
unwavering self-determination to live, and look, and love exactly as we want has
helped shape the legacy of these pop culture icons. This fashion is a statement
of our authenticity.”
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dress
Also in attendance was Milan's wife, artist Kim Katrin Milan, who worked as
the makeup artist for the event. “Whether it's filling in a beard or adding
strong shadow to a jawline, it's about finding ways of highlighting masculinity
or androgyny as defined by the model,” Kim said. “I love when folks who have
traditionally had a disempowering relationship with makeup, or have had it used
to impose a kind of gender conformity, walk away from working with me and feel
respected, affirmed, and hot.”
More than 70 models were featured in designs by brands NotEqual by Fabio
Costa, KQK by Karen Quirion, LACTIC, Fony, MARKANTOINE, SAGA by Sandra Gagalo,
SunSun, and Jag & Co. Model Rain Dove, one of the Most Eligible Out Women,
who set a record for being the most-cast female model during the inaugural Men’s
NYFW, was one of the celebrities who took center stage in KQK designs.
Model Issa Israel walked in the Fony collection, donning a dramatic hooded
headpiece. “It’s about time a show like this took place!” he said. “The fact
that it was shown, not in a shitty little venue, but in the gorgeous Brooklyn
Museum, is just amazing because it shows that gender-fluid collections are
actually being respected.”
Drag personality Untitled Queen walked for the Lactic collections, and had
been at the museum preparing for the show the entire day.
“We’ve all been here practicing to make sure the show came out perfect,” she
said. “These designers are so talented and their designs are gorgeous. I’m proud
of the way the show turned out.”
Untitled’s look was definitely one of the most jaw-dropping of the night.
Donning her signature white-powdered face and long, black and blue wig, she also
had to work the runway carrying over 20 pounds of tools and chains within her
outfit, all while wearing platform shoes.
After the show, Milan took to the stage to thank the crowd for coming out to
support the event and helping to bring visibility to the queer community.
“My style is an affirmation of the masculinity and identity that I've worked
so hard to curate,” Milan said. “My style is classic and unapologetically black.
It lives outside of respectability, politics, assumptions, and other people's
definitions. My style and my manhood is of my design. It's important for us to
write our own stories, and to celebrate our beauty and our creativity, to claim
it in the face of appropriation.”
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