So many of the great impresario designers-Valentino, Jean Paul Gaultier, Patrick Kelly, YSL, Armani, Dior, Willi Smith, Galliano, Mugler, Balenciaga, Versace-are or were queer. A career in the luxe monde was clearly a great way to achieve financial security. Having become an avid consumer of La Mode, I, like so many gays before and since, vowed to go one step further: I decided to penetrate this mysterious world and to carve out a professional niche for myself. ![]() If clothing is nonverbal communication, then luxury says, “I am somebody.” You could reinvent, transform and self-dramatize. And I quickly discovered that, with the right outfit, you could grab the spotlight and yank it in your direction. So I began frantically scanning the horizon for glamour. Style was our motley, our passport to reinvention, greater inclusion and all around fabulosity. We used luxury and style as a bulwark against a hostile society. Willi Smith, one of a long list of great gay impresario designers, photographed in 1989Ĭoco Chanel once said, “My life did not please me, so I created my life.” This perfectly expresses the situation faced by my generation.
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