Both of you have discussed feeling like an outsider, that with your work in fashion you both hope to ensure other people don’t feel that way. How did you decide to implement that?
CC: I think many people in the queer community have undergone times in their life where they’ve been ostracized, and so, I think often through our work, we’re looking to make people feel included and celebrated. We celebrate people’s differences, especially in a time where now there’s never been a more important time to do so. It frustrates me a lot when the community fights against the community. I think we’ve got large issues to approach, and we should save our energy for those.
ADV: I think dapperQ has been such an important platform for people because we show them living their most authentic selves, and so people see themselves and that their existence is validated on our runways and on the web. For other people who maybe live in the countryside, or who are struggling with not being able to be visible, they can see other people being visible and feel a form of self-affirmation and self-love.
CC: Also, as to what you were saying about having your publication showcasing different kinds of queer people, that’s so important, especially to younger audiences and people outside of these bubbles that we all live in. We live in New York and LA and all these fantastic places, but there are so many young people everywhere else that need to see that kind of content. I had the natural curiosity to find that on the Internet when I was younger, but not everyone knows it’s even there, so to have publications pushing it the greater way, it’s pretty vital, I feel.
ADV: Yeah, and likewise with the designers, as well. Our particular platform was initially meant to be a space where, for example, masculine-presenting genderqueer people could go to find validation and visibility. But at the time we were writing, there were not many designers creating for masculine-of-center folks. We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary this year, and we’ve grown to also celebrate other forms of identity and expression. I was super excited to bring some of the values that I have to building out a platform that was more inclusive and visible for a very specific subset of our community, but as a femme, I also found my identity was getting lost in that process. The conversation was always around, and still in mainstream fashion tends to be, androgyny in the absence of any sort of femininity. That’s the gold standard for “queer style,” and we saw that people who were more feminine presenting were being erased from those conversations. I launched Hi Femme!, which is our sibling project on dapperQ. Our commitment to grow that platform as well and continue to be a positive source of this ability for all queer folks.
How you would like to see the relationship between the fashion community and the queer community continue to evolve?
CC: It’s fantastic how much things are changing with dapperQ and them., and how Anna Wintour was at a voguing ball the other day. How awesome is that? I don’t think anyone thought that was going to happen so that’s really amazing. But I think it needs to keep progressing. We also can’t stop in the confines of American fashion or Western European fashion. There are Fashion Weeks everywhere, whether it’s in Lagos or in Dubai, and I think queerness needs to be accepted over there, because it still isn’t in most places. I think our focus needs to shift there. Also, we have made great strides in more inclusivity, but really it still feels a bit like some identities are still too far and few between. There needs to be more of people in the fashion industry, but otherwise, I think it’s about other locations other than the US and Western Europe.
