NYFW Kicks Off At The Brooklyn Museum With dapperQ’s Queer Fashion Feast For The Eyes

–By Zara Korutz

Ring, ring…hello, it’s the largest queer fashion show in New York Fashion Week. In honor of its 9^th annual event, executive producer and multi-platform queer style brand dapperQ partnered with the Brooklyn Museum to present Chapter NINE, a show sponsored by Meow Wolf.

The fashion show was a celebration of queer identities, bodies and style—a visible revolution of radical acceptance showcasing the power of fashion to shape authentic self-identity. Artist, musician, and queer rights activist Buffy Sierra, who graciously served as host and runway coordinator, opened the show with a choreographed dance routine followed by a political monologue of solidarity. Sierra’s heartfelt message united the crowd in cheer by honoring the rights of the queer community along with an impromptu call and response break out chant to “Free Palestine”. DapperQ founder Anita Dolce Vita notes, “This event showcases LGBTQ+ contributions to fashion and activism and brings to life the images and interviews of the models in our debut book dapperQ: Ungendering Fashion (published by HarperCollins)”.

The demonstrative vibe in the Brooklyn Museum was playful, uplifting and happy—a glaring contrast to the typical muted tendencies often found in the neurotic New York fashion scene. The uber-cool crowd gathered at the museum’s Beaux Arts Court to cheer on the LGBTQ+ models who possessed ubiquitously good looks and an uninhibited spirit. The models catered to the audience by dancing, walking and whipping down the runway—a vibrant spectacle of queer artistic expression reminiscent of the freedom that lived in the bygone era of New York’s iconic Studio 54.

The collective designer show oozed an excess of envy-worthy fashion drip. The range of aesthetics provided a cornucopia of styles from pop art to streetwear to futuristic rocker core. The lineup included fashion brands rooted in gender nonconformity at the intersection of race, ethnicity, and culture with designs by Zoe Grinfeld, Keith Kelly, Auston Bjorkman for Transguy Supply, Freemen by Mickey, ALEGRÍA by Austin Alegria, and Soid Studios New York by José González. Keep an eye out for these fierce designers who are changing the world through fashion. See highlights below.