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Have Fashion Always Been Openly Queer?
Haute couture has always been a major queer space in French fashion, but it hasn’t always been visible. However, despite normative stigmatization in the first half of the 20th century, today’s icons were already there. Openly queer in their private circles, publicly single with fashion as their only love.
THE QUEER LEGACY OF HAUTE COUTURE
Before “l’enfant terrible de la mode”, other personalities left their mark on Haute Couture. Many of them had queer friends and inspirations who were very present in their private lives, but completely erased from the public sphere.
Christian Dior, a revolutionary figure in haute couture, is known for the sensitivity he showed in the feminine silhouettes he wanted to create. And while he was paradoxically very private in public, his inner circle, which included the poet Jean Cocteau and the couturiers Pierre Balmain and Cristóbal Balenciaga, was a real queer inspiration.
And then, boom, he revolutionized everything when he presented his first collection in 1947. Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, who was the Anna Wintour of the time, described this collection as revolutionary and renamed it “The New Look.” It was a breakthrough in the international fashion world. And then, later on, it was his former assistant, also queer but much more outspoken, who would shake up haute couture: have you heard of Yves Saint Laurent?
MORALS LIBERATION, QUEER AFFIRMATION
Queer designers started to openly embrace who they were and where their inspiration came from. Fashion began to deconstruct itself, and men and women trapped in the stereotypes of yesterday were free to become the free personalities of tomorrow. Yves Saint Laurent, as talented as he was scandalous, took part in this revolution by popularizing pants and tuxedos for women—garments worn mainly by men at the time.
Then came the first major queer scandals in the industry: Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, a professional rivalry that intensified when the former, despite being in a relationship with Pierre Bergé, fell in love with Jacques de Bascher, who was already dating the future Kaiser. Fashion lives with its times.
In the meantime, l’enfant terrible de la mode, Monsieur Jean-Paul Gaultier, made a name for himself in the world of Haute Couture in 1996. And he turned the industry upside down. He advocated diversity, mixing genres and cultures, and surrounded himself with other queer icons such as Madonna, who shocked the world with her famous cone bra! Even today, JPG continues to show how fashion is inspired by queer personalities and how they are inspired by his fashion, particularly in recent years with drag queens Violet Chachki and Gottmik.
While many things are regressing in our society, there is one thing that is evolving positively: the acknowledged presence of the queer community in haute couture and fashion more generally.
Olivier Rousteing, Simon Porte Jacquemus, Charles de Vilmorin, or Ludovic de Saint Sernin—the new generation is ensuring that queer heritage and culture remain close at hand.
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