FASHION Magazine

Twenty years ago in St. Tropez, Peter Tunney unexpectedly kickstarted his career as an artist. While walking around the city, he stumbled upon a construction site and discovered a sign that read, ‘Slow Down Construction Zone.’ For some reason, he decided to pick it up and then, with materials from a friend’s garage, created his […]

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The night the news of Leonard Cohen’s death broke, I walked the few blocks from my apartment to join a crowd of Montrealers gathered at his doorstep, a vigil for the man we were all so proud to call one of us. Candles, letters, artworks, photos and faces encircled his home, the indelible mark he […]

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You may have heard something about a Chanel bagel bag late last year, and chances are that you either want to eat it, buy it, or sniff it for origin. Well, that was the idea. The bag in question was the work of Chloe Wise, a 24-year-old Canadian artist, whose ironic blend of snacks and […]

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Leave it to Valerie Steele, the first person to ever tout a fashion studies PhD, to tackle an industry-related question that’s rarely been explored before: why is it exactly that modern fashion history has had so many iconic gay designers?

Steele, a bona fide fashion expert who has pioneered fashion-related academia, said she wants to celebrate gay designers in an upcoming exhibit at The Museum at FIT, where she sits as director and chief curator. Along with these designers’ deserved nod of recognition, she wants to explore the ways in which their sexuality has helped develop the industry into what it is today.

It’s true: even when compared to other creative fields, many if not most of fashion’s influential leaders are gay, including (but obviously not limited to) Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.

Despite the fact that generally speaking, this density of gay designers is common knowledge, Steele points out that no one has ever really delved further into the question of why so many gay people seem to flourish in the industry.

“[…] Nobody’s ever really thought consciously to put the gayness back into fashion history and say, ‘Why are there so many gay people in fashion?’ and ‘Is there a gay aesthetic?’ and ‘What have been the influences of having so many gay people in fashion?'” Steele told Fashionologie.

It’s an interesting and potentially groundbreaking point: given fashion’s runway-to-streets trickle down effect, is it even possible that the fashion industry’s early embracing of homosexuality has helped encourage similar acceptance outside of the industry’s confines? And Steele’s question of aesthetics makes us look at some famed designs in a completely different light: for example, could a straight man have ever created Le Smoking, or was Saint Laurent able to create such a game-changing design thanks in part to his sexuality?

Though we doubt these questions could ever be answered in full, given Steele’s past thought-provoking exhibits, it will definitely be interesting and insightful to see how she navigates her way through these questions.

See the tutus! »

To mark the National Ballet of Canada’s 60^th anniversary, Canadian artists, designers and community groups have come together to pay a very fitting homage to the company’s milestone with an exhibit of 60 unique tutus.