Queer people have been innovating in fashion for decades, but now our styles have begun to go mainstream…
By Hannah Mercanti
It was a warm summer in 2015 when I bought my first-ever flannel shirt. My parents shook their heads, watching as I buttoned it all the way up in the sweltering heat, letting it hang long and untucked from my denim shorts. For them, it was likely a liability that I would complain about being sweaty and hot in the near future – for me, it was the first glorious step in the direction of coming out and becoming who I really was.
That was the summer I began my foray into the world of lesbian fashion. Armed with whatever measly allowance I had saved up, I browsed the internet in search of “gay girls clothes.” Within seconds, I was inundated with photos of women and gender non-conforming folks with undercuts in knee-length shorts, beanies, carabiners and my infamous flannel. I was obsessed with the idea that people like me would see me. It was almost like trying to gain entry into an exclusive club; hopefully, the other lesbians would correctly identify me, and we could enter into solidarity without having to speak a word.
It’s been some time since then, though. Fashion is becoming less stringent. Take a look around, and you’ll see celebrated cis, straight, male celebrities walking the red carpet in dresses, and straight women with buzzed hair, eyebrow slits and androgynous swag rocking flannel.
Regardless of what my little 12-year-old brain thought, these things have never necessarily meant a person is gay. Fashion is fabric, which has no gender or sexuality inherently attached to it. As well, many queer people don’t dress according to these trends. However, some of these dressing choices and stereotypes have historically been used as a sort of guiding star to hint publicly at who was gay.
Fashion and sexuality have a long, complicated history attached to them, and what you choose to dress yourself with means much more than one might think. Things that were once borderline exclusive to the queer community have begun to enter the mainstream at a rapid pace. For example, take a look at the “crunchy granola girl” aesthetic on TikTok, which has tons of straight women dressed in flannels, beanies and carabiners. Or watch an episode of one of our favourite shows – Miss Maddy Morphosis from Season 14 of RuPaul’s Drag Race is notoriously straight. Nowadays, it’s no longer enough to look to see if a woman is wearing a flannel or if a man has some makeup and painted nails. Fashion is changing, and the way queer people dress and identify each other is, too.
“Dressing gay” is by no means a new phenomenon – it has actually been around for quite some time, though in most academic circles, it is typically referred to as signalling. An early example of queer signalling through fashion comes from none other than Oscar Wilde, who in the 1890s popularized the idea of gay men wearing green carnations on their lapels to signal their identity to other 2SLGBTQI+ people.
In a more recent example, the 1970s brought with it the infamous hanky code. Along with signalling yourself as a member of the community, the hanky code worked by communicating a person’s sexual interests to prospective partners by the colour of the hankies they wore. “There were a number of choices throughout the 1960s and ’70s in gay men’s apparel,” says Shaun Cole, an associate professor of fashion at the UK’s University of Southampton. “One option was to dress invisibly,” says Cole. This meant that people would dress conventionally and within the gender binaries of their time and society, but might enhance their look with small signifiers that were recognizable to members of gay subcultures or the community at large. “That might be something like different coloured ties, suede shoes, or a pinky ring.”
These signals provided queer people the opportunity to communicate with each other without fear of repercussion. In the late 20th century, homosexuality was still punishable by law in many Anglophone countries, and people who came out faced social consequences such as losing their jobs, families or contact with their children, or even facing imprisonment. Signalling was not necessarily about hiding your identity, but, as Cole puts it, many people did not want to be immediately visible as a homosexual person to the general public. “However,” he says, “people did not want to live in isolation very often. And so, we needed to find ways to find like-minded people.” Thus, signalling continued throughout the 20th century as a vital way for queer people to connect with and find each other.
These days, signalling just isn’t as prominent. One big reason for this is the rise of hookup apps like Grindr, Scruff or Tinder. Locrian, a non-binary kink and sex educator, points out that with these apps, queer people can link up with each other anonymously without having to meet face to face or put themselves at risk.
The decreased popularity of signalling through fashion could be one of the reasons gay fashion is becoming less exclusive. With less of a need to hide our identities, the need for standard dressing rules seems to be heading out as well. An article from Sartorial magazine points out that as traditional signalling has fallen out of fashion, new identifiers have popped up, albeit “less secret than they have been in the past.” These signifiers are something people outside of the community may not notice, but some in the community would recognize quickly – like short manicures on women, dangly earrings on male-presenting people, or certain types of haircuts, like mullets, shags or buzzcuts. However, many of these styles have been popularized and have spread out into the mainstream fashion world.
For some, the mainstreaming of queer fashion is one of the big turns in acceptance we’ve been waiting and fighting for. Jonathan Katz, an associate professor of practice (history of art) at the University of Pennsylvania, believes this mainstreaming is, on the whole, a good thing. In his eyes, we are achieving a long-time goal, saying that the mainstream acceptance of queer styles and fashions means “sexuality will no longer be constituted as a significant dividing factor among people.” The belief that, eventually, sexuality will not matter means that fashion that’s particular to queer people soon won’t matter either, and will instead be open for all to explore.
There are many people who disagree with Katz, though. People on social media feel – rightly – protective of our queer styles, and upset when things we have been doing for a very long time start to go mainstream. However, this is a “losing position,” Katz says, adding that the more we can generalize our attitudes, which includes our attitudes towards fashion, “the queerer the straight world becomes. And that’s been our chief goal.”
For Locrian, the mainstreaming of any trend can be good, to a degree. “But on the other hand, I do think it can be performative, particularly when you’re talking about a straight male celebrity wearing a dress on the red carpet.” While it is good – and, to an extent, hopeful – to see a world where people can just wear what they like, it can be a slap in the face to queer people. There are people in the community who have been dressing like this for decades, and it can be uncomfortable to see straight people lauded and celebrated for something they themselves are still being punished and assaulted for. “It’s almost expected for people to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re so brave,’” says Locrian.
While they note it is cool to see Hollywood creating a larger platform for inclusive fashion, it seems to be open only to celebrities. “Regular Joe Schmo wearing a dress to the grocery store is a very different thing. I think we both know they probably won’t get applause. It’s going to be a lot of looks.”
It’s a strange double-edged sword. On one hand, haven’t we all been saying that fashion has no gender, and people should be able to wear what they want and dress in a way that feels true to them? We have, and that stands true. But on the other hand, what right do we have to tell people how to dress if they aren’t in our community? “It’s a fine line,” says Cole. “Personally, I do sometimes feel a bit like, ‘Why are those straight boys all dressing like gay boys? What right do they have to take the things that we have?’”
“The fashion industry itself is sort of a queer way of seeing the world,” according to Christopher Breward, fashion historian and director of the National Museum of Edinburgh. He points to the fact that many subcultures, like sailors and leatherboys, were some of the driving inspirations for haute couture and mainstream runway looks “that very quickly get sold to teenagers more generally, start to get worn by pop stars on television, and I think we see the whole thing moved out into the mainstream.”
This idea highlights the fact that some of the people “dressing gay” may not even actually know they’re doing it; they are simply following trends that have been pushed into the mainstream, unaware that those trends were created by queer people. Breward also mentions another potential reason for the influx of straight people turning to gay fashion, which is that dressing queer brings you attention. Whether that’s good or bad is up to public opinion, but if a movie star turns up to a red-carpet event in a noticeably queer outfit, they are going to get talked about more than they would have if they had just “dressed straight.”
Those in the community who are looking for ways to dress queer and now find themselves at a bit of a standstill do not need to fear. One way to dress in a way that makes you feel like yourself while also directly supporting your community is to shop queer-run and queer-owned brands. Fashion houses owned and run by queer people often offer cuts of clothing that are gender-confirming or neutral, and offer many diverse designs – things that can connect wearers with their queerness and give them that same sense of community connection that old “gay trends” used to provide.
Designer Anthony Rogers, who runs their own label, And Our, knew when they started the brand that they wanted to market to the trans-femme community. “But I’m also seeing that the femme lesbians love my work, and the really femme gay boys love my work,” says Rogers. The dresses Rogers makes are not stereotypically queer, beyond being very feminine. But the connection to the community that comes from the creation of the dress itself can make it a “queer item,” something that could make buyers feel just a little more gay when they wear it.
Hannah Yesmunt, queer designer and owner of Pocket Design Lab and Saint Andro Swim, says including queer people in the actual designing process is a great way to create community around fashion and a brand. “We hosted a guest fitting event and had people in the queer community come try on our swimsuits and give real feedback, like ‘I feel good in this’ or ‘I don’t know, this is too tight.’” By basing the actual product with queer people and their needs in mind, there is an opportunity to uplift the community and provide them with pieces they can feel comfortable and supported in. Beyond just the way the pieces look, the way they were created is inherently gay – ushering in a potential new era of what it means to partake in gay fashion.
Regardless of what some may be inclined to believe, this is not an entirely malicious takeover. Breward reminds us of an important feeling in our lives: pleasure. “Sometimes we forget the benefits of pleasure,” says Breward. “Some of the happiest times in my life have been in a club on the dance floor where you’re looking your best and are pushing the boundaries in terms of what you’re wearing.” Who says that feeling should be exclusive to our community?
“That ability to be who you are in the clothes that make you feel who you are – that should be accessible to everybody,” Breward continues. “Perhaps it is something that queer people have pioneered. And more people should have access to that feeling.”
As for allies dressing in this way? Rogers reminds them that while clothing has no gender attached to it, they would do well to remember, when dressing in styles that have been historically queer, to have some sense of empathy and forethought for where those styles have come from. They point out that trying to understand 2SLGBTQI+ history and the queer experience through listening to the community is a big part of allyship, “and if it comes through clothing and dressing up, and being a more exuberant version of yourself, I’m for it.”
Yesmunt points out that fashion is cyclical, and not everything worn by gay people can actually be claimed as our own. For many queer women, for example, one way to “dress gay” is by wearing clothes that are less feminine and form-fitting – think loose, baggy tops and cargo pants. But Yesmunt reminds us that that look wasn’t necessarily invented by queer femmes, and encourages us to take a step back. “Where did that oversized, baggy look come from? A lot of it comes from hip-hop street wear in the late ’70s and ’80s by a lot of Black communities.” Echoing Rogers, Yesmunt stresses that acknowledging the history of the styles you are wearing is incredibly important to the communities where they originate from.
The link between self-expression and fashion is hard to sever. How a person chooses to dress themselves is very personal, and is, for many people, an important facet of their confidence and self-expression. “It’s the first way in which people begin to make assumptions about us,” says Cole, “and so we are conscious of that.” Even those who claim to “not care” about how they dress are technically expressing themselves through their dress. In some ways, expression through fashion is no different for gay and straight people. But, as Cole points out, 2SLGBTQI+ people “want to be able to identify and communicate in some ways with other people who might be part of their communities or are like-minded in some ways.” For members of the community, fashion goes beyond self-expression, and is rather an integral way to connect and find safety and community among new people.
As for queer people who are worried that the homogenization of fashion will separate them from their community, Breward has an important piece of advice: “Look at your heritage and take from that.” He points to the long, rich history of queer dress and fashion, dating back hundreds of years. “Continue to be brave,” he says, “and continue to push the boundaries. Because that’s what queer people have always done.”
HANNAH MERCANTI is a freelance journalist and fact-checker based in Hamilton. They’re a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Journalism.
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