“We are a gender-neutral brand using traditional handmade techniques alongside modern practices. We have a bespoke side to our business that allows us to produce something that is very individual, but it was important to me that the brand was inclusive and accessible. Given how society is changing, this is becoming more and more important. People don’t want to be dictated to by traditional gender constraints.”
“I have always looked up to Harry and respected him as an artist and individual. When this started to all come together, a little over six months ago, it felt like all of the work I’d done for years and years, not just design, but completely knowing who I was and what I stood for, was about to be presented to the world. Harry knew it was never just about the clothes; it was about the message and the story they could inhabit and spark. It made me think about what we’re always told as children: boys have to wear this and girls should wear that. When someone that millions of people look up to wears something a bit out of the norm, it shows the youth that it’s ok to wear whatever you want, and it doesn’t have to say you are something or someone besides that you feel like the truest version of you!”
Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, is a gender-bending, flamboyant brand that maneuvers between fashion label and a cult nightclub, with each informing the other. His AW18 collection entitled Tantrum, was one of the most talked about runway shows of the season. Tantrum was inspired by Jeffrey’s upbringing as a gay man, bullying, and was encompassed with the power of rage as a reaction to everything he went through.
“Aesthetically and sexually, I have never felt that there should be clear distinctions between masculinity and femininity.” For Alejandro Gómez Palomo, the designer behind Palomo Spain, gender is ancient history. Whimsical power suits, 17th century-inspired trousers, and necklines tickled with pink marabou trim: the clothes are a fearless testament to change. “People need to be brave, not close-minded and limited,” he says.
Sex sells, but Michele’s version is less flagrantly heterosexual.
Gender fluidity is key to his aesthetic, which is possibly why his menswear is worn by women and his womenswear by men, and also why he resonates so much with young people, who increasingly baulk at defining their own sexuality in narrow terms.
And in the most amazing, organic and beautiful turn of events, he’s hosting (and attending) the MET Gala for the first time when its theme is “Camp”
Camp fashion is defined asostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals.
“The essence of camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” said by Susan Sontag, who wrote the 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp,’” the 58-point treatise that arguably brought the concept into the mainstream media.
