The basement of New Africa House is no stranger to events hosted by student organizations. From hardcore shows to modeling practice, the space has become a hub for students looking to explore creative endeavors.
On Friday, April 17, Shape Inclusive Queer Fashion (SIQ) hosted their first official fashion show. The organization only started up last semester, but SIQ has already crafted a dedicated space for all bodies and queerness in fashion.
The fashion show’s theme was “SEASIQ,” advertised as “where fashion meets drag.” Drag performance has become a staple of SIQ’s events, functioning as a challenge to the traditional fashion space and remaking what their organization’s relationship to fashion can be, undefined by industry power dynamics.
Image courtesy of Faye King’s official Instagram
The fashion show combined the usual runway walk with drag performance and improvised skits. Organizers asked five dollars for admission, with the fee going towards paying drag performers and tipping during the show.
The setup of the show was intimate, but as more people arrived, SIQ members went to grab more chairs to seat people. Inside the moderately sized room, space was filling up quickly as people came to celebrate the show. The runway was in the middle of the room, but staged to be close to the crowd rather than closed off. Attendees were close enough to interact with models if necessary for a skit or general engagement.
Opening the fashion show was Faye King, a local drag queen and a regular at SIQ events. King came out in a sparkly dress, strutting to a Doja Cat song. She was an immediate fixture among the crowd, engaging with members and dazzling in her dress and intricate blue eye makeup.
Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram
The structure of the show followed diving into the deep ocean, with Act 1 representing the shore. Under alternating purple, blue and pink lights, models wore outfits correlated with images of the shoreline. The atmosphere recreated fun, memorable moments of a beach day with friends while incorporating the feeling of adventure that comes with discovering the ocean’s animals. One model walked in a sandy dress decorated with starfish and seashells, bringing together the seashore and the life below it.
A colorful costume brought together purple, pink, blue and green feathers for a Polly outfit, reminiscent of the parrot from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The outfit was fitted with a feathered headband, feathered sandals and feathered fans. Completing the outfit was beautiful pink and purple makeup. This was a look that emphasized the importance of models’ use of accessories and makeup as essential to their self-expression that enhanced their confidence when walking.
Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram
The sea and mermaid theme recalled how mermaids and their world has become integrated into queer subcultures. A notable example is a reading of “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christen Anderson as a queer allegory for Anderson’s sexuality and subsequent unrequited love, transmuting heartbreak and loneliness into a fable.
Culture writer Darshita Goyal writes that mermaids are “creatures synonymous with beauty, possibility and freedom,” informing subcultures where “gender, race, size or sexuality don’t matter … shapeshifting beyond the limits of their human forms.” It invites fantasy where the real world’s binaries and constructions don’t have to exist. But in performance at SIQ’s fashion show, it’s not imagination, but assertion that a world in which queerness takes the lead is possible. With collectives such as SIQ, continuing to assert and craft such spaces, possibility becomes potential.
Goyal’s ideas seemed to be further reflected when a model transformed from a mermaid to a human. Scooting down the runway, the model seemingly flipped around her tail before tugging at it. Slowly the tail unraveled from her, revealing the human legs — embodying a new life and how “mermaiding” opens a new world for self-identity and expression.
Acts 2 and 3 dove into the ocean layers, representing the Mother Pearl and the Deep Sea respectively. The Mother Pearl was adorned in white and highlighted by a pink backlit light, bringing a heavenly aura to her appearance on the stage. Another notable moment of Act 2 was a jellyfish costume, a deconstructed umbrella becoming the top of a jellyfish. The models of this act emphasized ethereal aesthetics in their slow and swaying walk, allowing the audience to engage with beauty. Makeup from the show “Euphoria” also seemed to be an inspiration for Act 2. and became a way to anchor emotion as the center of storytelling with our emotion as a lens for experiencing life’s wondrous beauties.
The Mother Pearl. Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram
Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram
Act 3’s lighting was noticeably dimmer, highlighting only the essential accessories of the costume. Introduced with the phrase, “why date a man when you can just lure him,” Act 3 brought together the sublime and eerie to shape the unique imagery of representing the deep sea. The act played around with light and darkness, showing the dark and unseen as glorious if it is chosen to be looked at. A memorable moment of the deep sea was a model who had spikes down her back, moving in a way to show the arches of her spine.
Digital creator Judith Lola discusses how fashion comes with hierarchy, a dependency on signaling your proximity to this world, rather than a simple engagement with style as individual expression. This idea of style as self can easily be reconstructed as a new power dynamic, gatekeeping who is allowed in fashion, sorting the real versus fake based on cultural literacy rather than ability to perform a uniqueness defined by the individual.
Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram account
However, SIQ’s show disrupted this dynamic by allowing the individual’s interpretation of style to lead the show. About halfway through the show, attendees were allowed to take the runway. These were people unrelated to the show, without model training, invited to walk based on their outfits. Taking the stage, two attendees excitedly showed off their outfits. The audience was not a mere spectator but actively involved with the show.
This creative direction was intentional. Harrison Wright, who led the show’s creative direction said, “I did not want a show where you are silent and you sit down and watch the models go. I wanted something interactive.”
Disrupting power dynamics is not just a goal for fashion, but also a staple of the organization’s structure. SIQ doesn’t have an e-board, and is instead a collective of people excited about fashion or people excited to learn about fashion in a place that feels inclusive. Despite not being an official Registered Student Organization yet, Wright said the organization has actively engaged with their goal “to create an environment that is inclusive, welcoming, fun and expressive.”
With a 45-minute runtime, the show came together with limited resources and no funding. There was one head stylist, but models for the show came together to aid in styling and creating the looks for the show. Rehearsals for the show ended up happening only one week before the show. For most of the models, it was their first time walking in a show. Wright said that everything aligned at the end.
Image courtesy of SIQ’s official Instagram account
Despite their limited resources, the collective and community-oriented spirit of SIQ is what shaped their successful show. The fashion show effectively engaged in displaying how self-expression should be the center of fashion. Models were chosen based on interest rather than skill, breaking gatekeeping about who can be seen as a model. Models were allowed to engage with crafting outfits that were comfortable to them, rather than being regulated to a creative vision that excluded their voices.
Beyond just challenging social norms, “SEASIQ” was a way for models and attendees to respond to how their self-identity has been negatively constructed by society and the media. In a poignant moment, one model showed a piece of paper with the word “freak,” identifying how refusing the gender binary to accept one’s unique sense has labeled some people as outcasts. The moment, though introduced with heavy emotion, found empowerment as the model handed out paper with different sea creatures, actively choosing to see themselves through the unique wonders of nature rather than rigid social constructions.
The moment was reminiscent of the final scene of Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2001 show for his collection Voss, where McQueen challenged who can be a part of fashion, making those who have been written off the center point.
Utilizing a vision that included Wright’s insertion of ballroom culture, SIQ brought marginalized voices to the center. Sidelined cultures, such as ballroom, were given space to exist and craft what expression can be. Having opened the show, Faye King performed two more times at the end of acts 2 and 3. Bridging drag culture with a fashion show acknowledges drag culture’s place in reshaping the fashion world and shows how drag culture has become a crucial part of challenging social norms in contemporary high fashion.
Suzanne Bagia can be reached at [email protected].
