The fashion shows began after Dolce Vita began getting invited to other shows due to Dapper Q’s popularity. While she enjoyed them, she struggled with seeing the same type of blonde, skinny models in gender normative clothing over and over again. “There was no content I could bring back that would resonate with our readers,” she says. “So I started my own fashion show.”
Some venues did take a chance on them, though, like the Brooklyn Museum, where Dapper Q hosts its annual New York Fashion Week show. What is even more exciting, she says, is the content that comes after the shows, the articles, videos, and social media posts that allow people who do not have direct access to the shows to experience Dapper Q’s celebration of ungendered fashion. “It’s reaching people who may feel alone in their journey,” she says, “and providing hope that it does get better.”
“Even though the queer community has been a trailblazer in terms of dismantling binaries,” she says, “fashion is political. It’s political for everyone. A lot of the first impressions we make on someone is based on the clothing they wear – what they might do for a living, how much money they make, their sexual orientation, their gender identity. I would love to work with more brands on how to be more inclusive and erase that hard-wired bias we have in fashion.