just femme & dandy vol. 3: sustain

just femme & dandy

the sustain issue

just femme & dandy is a biannual literary & arts magazine on fashion for and by queer, trans, two-spirit, non-binary, and intersex people.

We are an anti-racist, pro-Black publication and aim to centralize and celebrate work from Black and Indigenous people of color. We encourage submissions about fashion and “in”/visible disabilities, fatness, chronic illness and pain, poverty, neurodiversity, mental illness, and other forms of intersectional marginalization.

We believe in equal access to collective joy, so all work in this issue can be found on our website in plain text with image and audio descriptions and captioning. For additional access needs, please contact our disability & access organizer Sky Cubacub.

This project is now funded in part by BIPOC Arts Network and Fund and Critical Minded.

vol. 03: sustain summer 2022 copyright © just femme & dandy justfemme anddandy.com

masthead founding editor & co-editor-in-chief co-editor-in-chief managing editor disability & access organizer editor, the mane attraction editor, the glowup Editor, Solemates

editor, get your thread in the game editor, no scrubs editor, sew what Editor, not what it seams

editor, triple thread(s) editor, cancel & gretel editor, fat + furious editor, features designer cover illustrator Readers

addie tsai sarah sheppeck simone person sky cubacub simone person sarah sheppeck stoo jen st. jude jen st. jude jo davis-mcelligatt sarah sheppeck sarah sheppeck addie tsai kirin khan sky cubacub simone person addie tsai keet geniza crystal vielula jesse smith briana mccormack shannon kwit

Contents masthead—3 letter from the editor—5

features sustaining pride in dos culturas: a conversation with felix iii interviewed by sg huerta —8 cake as queer offering wendy awry —17 finding an authentic moment: an interview with zach paugh interviewed by addie tsai —21

cancel and gretel wear out climate change: sewing a boxy tee vivien wise —48 on queer pregnancy clothing autumn elizabeth —53 the pandemic project: how a photo per day has shaped how i see myself liz jurkiewicz —57

fat+furious the best way to get a bikini body is to put your body in a bikini! piper daniels —63 i walk into a store and do not think what if they don’t carry my size? laurence hart —67

the glow-up untitled jb bergin —70 70s ambient sound zoë bracken —74

afrodisiac the covid years are how later plays catch up moriah katz —75

no scrubs titanium becca fang —77

my punk isn’t for you kansas ths bird —78 tips from a trans athlete on how to get the same athletic advantages trans people have gillian maurer —83 femme fatale final girl (with lines from heathers, 1989) jd hegarty —89

sew what thrifted barong czaerra galicinao ucol —91 the etcetera jj rowan —92 the world’s on my back megan mckinley —95

solemates these boots were made for who? amanda nevius —101 from the ground up vicki johnson —105 when i got doc martens for christmas abby macaluso —107 the space inside a shoebox jesse galea —108

triple threads im feelin this jesse smith —113 evolving human nature through fabric and bodies: a conversation with ezio costa interviewed by kirin khan —114 nb identity through hanbok yoonmi kim —125 about the contributors—131 about our team—135

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letter from the editor A year ago, I opened my Letter to the Editor for just femme & dandy’s inaugural issue with the following statement: It is a political act to take back a body that has been judged, shamed, objectified, harmed, and projected onto in countless ways and to reclaim it as a site of potentiality, aesthetic power, and joy.

It didn’t seem possible for this statement to ring truer than it always already has, and yet. And yet. In the last year, we’ve seen 300 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills introduced in 36 legislatures. We’ve seen a targeted attack on books that are either written by LGBTQIA+ people or contain subjects addressing “queer” or “trans” content. Finally, co-editor in chief Sarah Sheppeck, managing editor Simone Person, and I made an executive decision to hold off on launching this issue until July after so many people are reeling from the devastating and enraging SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact, I made the decision to abstain from attending the Pride parade in Houston just before my first cross-country move because I was in such a state of mourning regarding the decision (and all that I’ve mentioned, and, and, and) that I couldn’t possibly celebrate with glitter and streamers and rainbows, no matter how desperately I wanted to be with my community, how necessary it is for us to assert ourselves in the face of such erasure, violence, and oppression.

When Sarah and I first decided to frame our third issue (can you believe it, bbs?!) with a theme of SUSTAIN, we were largely thinking about the circumstances of our present world.

We were thinking about how the COVID pandemic has necessitated, more than ever, fashion that can either affirm our identities or sustain our bodies as many of us have been required to sit in front of a computer more than ever before (or possibly navigate chronic conditions differently in this world or for the first time). We were also thinking about the climate crisis, and how at least some of us are thinking more thoughtfully and intentionally about upcycling and sustainability, and our individual responsibility towards waste.

What Sarah and I didn’t anticipate, although neither were we surprised, was that the world would decide to aggressively deny the seriousness of the global health crisis that has not only not “gone away” but has not even dissipated. In April, after TSA followed the CDC’s declaration that the mask mandate would no longer be in effect or enforced, most airlines and airports dropped mask mandates and recommendations. In response, some cheered, some became much more lax in their own individual protections (and protections on behalf of others), and many others, particularly those who live with chronic illness or other disabilities, felt isolated in their homes. For better or for worse, the world was back in full force. So, in effect, to SUSTAIN ourselves through what we wear on our bodies has become just that much more complicated, that much more needed, to make it through this incredibly challenging and painful world.

What you’ll find in the issue’s pages by our brilliant contributors are ways we sustain our livelihoods as artists through upcycled fashion—such as the poncho hybrid constructions

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of Mexican American artist felix iii (interviewed by SG Huerta), reject the cishet female gender normativity of pregnancy fashion—such as in Autumn Elizabeth’s on queer pregnancy clothing, or genderfuck with a fashion lineage that didn’t initially seem to include you—like kansas ths bird’s my punk isn’t for you or yoonmi kim’s nonbinary identity through hanbok.

Of course, these are just a few examples. just femme and dandy volume 03 includes twenty-seven contributions across poetry, interview, non-fiction, photo essay, comics, and other mediums to explore and celebrate our ability to sustain and affirm ourselves in a world that seems determined to harm, erase, and control us. It is our firm belief that no matter what is happening in the world—and yes, we’re aware, it’s a lot—there must always be a space for our joy and livelihood. Just as Ezio Costa says about the value of art in their interview with Kirin Khan: It’s not food, it’s not going to win battles. It’s not going to answer very concrete problems. I think it can still be important because it takes the weight of cultural perspective, it can bring awareness and try to make people change their minds. Art can make society evolve with it. It’s indispensable to societies in general.

Speaking of sustaining one’s self through LGBTQIA+ fashion, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two grants that we are incredibly thankful for. We received grants from the BIPOC Arts Network and Fund and additional support from our earliest supporter, Critical Minded, which is an initiative to invest in cultural critics of color cofounded by The Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation. These grants enabled us to provide a small honorarium to each member of our masthead, the design of this issue (by Keet Geniza), and support our current project to print our issues. As a magazine that actively works to be as accessible as possible—which includes paying our staff for their labor and our contributors for their work without which we wouldn’t exist—we are immensely grateful for the support from these organizations which both invest in artists and collectives of color.

A special thanks goes out to our editorial staff: co-editor in chief, Sarah Sheppeck; managing editor, Simone Person; editors Jo Davis-McElligatt, Jen St. Jude, STOO, Kirin Khan, and Sky Cubacub; readers Shannon Kwit, jesse smith, and Briana McCormack; our phenomenal designer, Keet Geniza; and our resident cover designer, Crystal Vielula.

We’re sending love and healing to each of you, and we’re so grateful to you for being part of our family.

Addie Tsai founding editor / co-editor in chief just femme & dandy June 2022

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Sustaining Pride in Dos Culturas: A Conversation with Felix III interviewed by sg huerta

I am video chatting with musician and designer Felix III, a time zone apart. A dress form draped in green fabric stands in the right of his Zoom square while we talk about creative process and sustainability.

SGH: So on your site, you say “The MXA / The Original Mexican-American Poncho . . . was created as a tribute to [your] upbringing straddling two cultures”—which I definitely relate to as a Chicano person myself—and that “Each poncho tells an anecdote of some of [your] own experiences growing up Mexican-American.” Could you talk a little more on how the MXA line came to be?

F: Yeah! So I was playing shows, I did a small tour in California, with a friend of mine, Enrique Jesus Hernandez. He asked me to come to LA and I needed something to wear because the temperature kept fluctuating so much. I had this bomber that didn’t fit, and then I had this serape. I’d already been making costumes for myself for a long time, so I was like, “hmm, let me see if I can merge these two.”

So I made this poncho, which became a prototype, except, at the moment, I didn’t realize it was a prototype. I just thought I was going to wear it. And everywhere I went, I mean, especially in LA, that’s where a lot of my customers are, people kept asking me, “Oh, where did you get that poncho?” and I was like, “Oh, it’s my line.” And they’re like, “Oh, where can I get one?” and I was like, “It’ll be out in two months, just give me your email and I’ll hit you up whenever it’s out.”

I came back after the tour, and I was like, well, I might as well turn this into a line. I already

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told enough people. So, that’s really how it came about. Part of it was also why I chose the fabrics because you see so many Mexican falsas and serapes and things like that used very flippantly in people’s houses and whatnot. And you know, especially if you grew up in a Mexican American or Mexican household, they’re just kind of everywhere, right? And then you go to Americans’ houses and that’ll be like their token if they’ve gone to Mexico. That’ll be their little thing, you know? Which is really cool, fine, but I wanted to kind of make it a little edgier.

And then I started thinking about the process of how do I . . . sorry, I’m going on a tangent.

SGH: No, I love it! Keep going.

F: But I’ll get there, I promise!

You know, when you grow up here and you’re a little bit there and a little bit here, you’re like neither, right? I grew up in a town where there were some people who are from Mexico and their whole families and that part of their identity. They came from there and they only lived half the year in the United States, and they would go back and forth, et cetera. And then there were white people, and I’m half of both, and so I kind of always felt like I wasn’t really one or the other, and I think, as a kid, I never felt like I was fully accepted.

So this was kind of my way of saying, “Oh well, there’s actually a middle ground, there’s a bunch of people like me out there.” And it doesn’t have to be Mexican American, it can be Indian American, it can be all the different nationalities. And you’re just kind of adjusting as you go along and mixing the cultures. It just happens naturally, right? So I wanted the jackets to kind of represent that. And strangely enough, not just Mexican American people are buying them. I’m getting a lot of these, like, cross culture people who are coming in and really identifying with them. Whether they’re recognizing it or not, they’re like, “Oh, you know, I’m this and this, and this [line] is so cool. I love that you’re playing with two different things that are both very bold.”

Like the bombers. When people think of the American bomber jacket, they think of very white 1950s, you know, classic blond hair, blue-eyed athletes with the cheerleaders. I never looked like that. I didn’t play sports or any of those things. And I also didn’t grow up in desert areas wearing the traditional Mexican textiles either, but they both are a part of the lineage of me, and a lot of people. So in a very long, roundabout way, that’s kind of how it happened.

SGH: That’s fantastic, I love that story so much. I mentioned this earlier, but I specifically wanted to ask about the Britney Poncho because I’m kind of in a Britney phase right now.

F: Oh, Britney, that poncho tee!

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SGH: Yeah, could you talk about that? Or like, ‘cause I know you have some other poncho tees and on your site as well, how those came about, or anything you want to say about those?

F: There’s a lot of people who love the brand and they’re not ready yet to get a piece themselves. But they want to support, and I was just trying to think of what would be a really nice fun summer way to incorporate the poncho in something that’s less of a commitment for people and something a little bit more casual. Because the thing is, when you wear the ponchos, you’re gonna get attention everywhere you go. Like, that’s the thing, you have to be ready for that. And I think a lot of people who buy it often like that attention, so it goes hand in hand.

So I wanted to do some sort of t-shirt but I wanted it to make sense for me, so I was like, “Oh, well, let me do a divas section.” Band tees and divas. And I was thinking of all the best queer icons, and how do we make this traditional t-shirt a little bit more frilly. So I have tons of fabric, and I just kind of made this little poncho tee so that you can wear it out and you get that breeze on either side of you, but then you can cover up parts if you want, and then you got the draping. I just like the way it feels and I have always loved flowy clothes. So this was my way of creating something a little bit more accessible.

SGH: Oh that’s great. I’m glad I asked. That’s awesome. So to think about the theme of sustainability, could you talk on the creation process? Like, is it materials that you had, like the bomber jacket and the tees and all of that?

F: Yeah, so I try to use all parts of everything. It’s basically a version of upcycling, and when I’m deconstructing everything, I save all the leftovers, because they can be turned into bags. I turn the sleeve of jackets into waist ties. And with, for example, the beach ones for the summer, I’ve converted old hammocks into the beach ones, because they’re lighter fabric. And I take all the old rope and turn them into belts. So I try to use pretty much everything I can from it. And even for the poncho tees, I use the bottoms of some of the tees to turn into the sleeves of other ones. So that way there’s not much that really gets tossed, to be honest.

SGH: That’s fantastic, thanks! So, to take sustain into a more . . . I’m a poet, so in a more not-literal sense, how does your work sustain you? And this can be your other art as well, not just the ponchos, but music, and I know you said you got started with poetry, which is awesome. It’s a broad question.

F: I think that anytime you’re creating, whatever medium that is, you’re letting pieces of yourself into the world, which is a very vulnerable thing to do, but ultimately it’s very healing.

Because, as artists, we have the privilege of knowing how to funnel our emotions and trauma into an outlet. Whether we understand that or not, that’s generally what most artists are doing. And it doesn’t have to be trauma, it can be just the mundane things, it can be anything.

But for me that’s really where it comes out. Through the ponchos, I think I really tapped into a little bit more of the identity side because the music is very . . . like you said, I was a poet. I justfemmeanddandy.com

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started with poetry really young and I used that as a way to kind of tell my stories, and then you add the music to it and it becomes narratives, you know? And I write music visually, so I don’t necessarily hear music in my head, but I see pictures. So I’ll think of a moment or a shore or a grassy field or whatever it is, and that’s where the music starts in my head, so then I accompany the pictures to it. So, how does it stay to sustain me? I guess it just keeps me sane.

SGH: Yeah, I definitely feel that.

F: It’s the creation of it that’s the lovely part. That’s the best part, when you’re in your moment and it’s coming out of you and you’re editing it and tweaking it—it’s just all the other stuff afterwards that’s the hard part. How do you get people to listen to it, how do you get people to see it. But I would say that I feel very lucky to have been . . . I think you’re born an artist.

And maybe some people learn from other people, but, for me, I was just born knowing that performing and creating was just a part of myself. And you can’t really explain where it comes from. It just is. So I’ve just been lucky to try to find people that helped me navigate that, you know, because it’s a community process.

SGH: Thanks so much, these are beautiful answers. I think I only have one question left.

So, what is your favorite piece you’ve created? I know it’s probably hard to choose one, but if there’s one you want to talk about.

F: My favorite piece. Okay, actually, I do have a favorite piece. Let me see if it’s on my website.

SGH: I love looking at them. I think my favorite on the site, I love the Britney one, but I’m Going Through the Other Side. Absolutely gorgeous.

F: Thank you. Oh yeah I love that one! I also really love the ancient warrior poncho, too. Right above it. I love that one.

I guess they’re kind of all my favorite. Because the thing is, it’s not like I intentionally set out to make one. It’s more like, the jackets come to me, so I go find them. And there’s no rhyme or reason. And then I look at my fabrics and see what I have or what I need to get. But a lot of times, it just really happens out of the blue. I schedule time in for sourcing and that sort of thing, but you really don’t know what you’re going to find because I’m only looking for secondhand stuff. Because I want to give something that already had probably multiple lives, a new life. So I guess each one becomes my favorite as I’m putting it together. But I also really love Felix and the Technicolor Poncho. I really love that one just because there’s these bold 70s acid colors with the avocado and the neon orange. And that’s obviously a reference to Joseph. I love all these bold colors. It has this very Jesus-like quality to it. I imagine if like, you know, if back then they could find these colors, they’d be totally dolled out.

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SGH: Totally. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about or be sure to mention? I think everything you said was beautiful.

F: I’m going to be releasing new music at the end of May and early June, so I’m really excited.

I’m just cutting the video right now, so that it’ll be ready. For anybody following music, a great way to engage with artists is to follow them on the different platforms, because social media really limits reach. You build this audience and then you can access them. And they’re there to support you and vice versa, so I’m really trying to do something a little bit more. I just did some shows like South By [Southwest] and I did the OUTsider Fest in Texas, and I really love having people come up after the shows and talking to them face to face and really getting to know who’s out there. It’s really nice to share back and forth. I think for a lot of people, artistry is a one way street. But I think, for me, I really want to open that up to hear about what people have to say and engage with them in a totally different way.�

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Cake as Queer Offering wren awry

Cakes are served at special occasions because they represent our best culinary offering, honoring our most loved people. Cake says: you’re important and we love you.

—The Food Timeline, “What do cakes mean?”

Whenever possible, I like to show up—to book clubs and birthdays, collective meetings and community dinners—with cake. Funfetti baked in a sheet pan; an olive oil bundt studded with strawberries or scented with sage; or wacky cake, a vegan remnant of the Great Depression, mixed straight in the pan with water and vinegar. Migliaccio, a Neapolitan carnival dessert, made with lemons from a friend’s mother’s tree. Snacking cake sprinkled with powdered sugar or layer cake smeared with punch bright frosting. Cake that is often good, sometimes delicious, and occasionally all wrong, but brings me joy to make and share all the same.

Cake is not inherently queer, but over the last few years it has come to feel like an expression of my queerness and the way I move through the world. Maybe that’s because I came to baking late, resistant to it throughout my childhood due to how coded it was—and still is—with a certain kind of femininity. I wasn’t one of those cookie-making girls: instead, I seethed at the “Little girls are made of” plaques that seemed to hang on every 1990s suburban living room wall and stuck to scraping my knees on the softball field (never mind how truly bad I am at sports) and, later, getting bruised in mosh pits. When I started cooking in my late teens I focused on the savory: home fries sizzled in oil, avocado melts, thinly sliced slaw.

I made pizza and prepped vegetables at restaurants but ignored what the pastry chefs were crafting out of flour, butter, and sugar. Still, during the year I worked overnight shifts at a vegetarian restaurant in North Carolina, I’d walk home at dawn and spend an hour reading my (very queer) roommate’s back issues of Martha Stewart Living, thumbing through pages of spray-painted gold cake stands and cupcakes topped with edible flowers, before falling justfemmeanddandy.com

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TYLER ESPINOZA

asleep. Although I wouldn’t start baking for another half-decade, those early mornings and, by extension, that year surrounded by nonbinary and transmasculine folks who didn’t dismiss— and in many cases embraced—domesticity set me on a path to the baker I would become.

Five years into a baking hobby, I find myself thinking not just about how to bake cakes, but about what making them signifies to me. I often deviate from set recipes and improvise— sprinkling fresh thyme into a batter or subbing in a bit of rye flour—just as my nonbinary gender is an act of deviation and improvisation. Baking is a low stakes way to mess up and realize that it’s okay, that I can try again next time and that my friends (who have been so supportive of my baking, reacting to what I sometimes worry is a barrage of cakes with excitement and delight) will probably eat that slightly dry sponge or clumpy cream cheese frosting anyway. Both the cake and I are works-in-progress, engaged in continual processes of being and becoming.1 While I enjoy making desserts for birthdays and holidays, I also like showing up to complicated organizing meetings with pumpkin bread or delivering glazed mini-bundts to a grieving friend on a random Tuesday. Cake is a chance to trouble the binary between special 1 It would be remiss not to mention that many of the ingredients used to make desserts—like so many other food products—are mired in contemporary labor issues, as well as histories of colonialism and racial capitalism. Sugar, in particular, bears mentioning: I recommend Ruby Tandoh’s essay “Sugartime” as a place to start learning more about its history. justfemmeanddandy.com

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occasions and the everyday, between that which is serious and that which is celebratory: a way of folding joy into the quotidian even—especially—when things are painful and difficult.

While I don’t want to overstate the importance of baked goods—and it’s essential to attend to other aspects that make people feel welcome, including the ways power and privilege play out within communities and projects—cake is a way to offer a bit of radical hospitality in a world that can be discouraging to many of us, including queer and trans people. My favorite events to bake for are the free, outdoor dinners at a community space I’m part of here in Tucson.

These public dinners strive to welcome new people and invite them to participate in projects of resistance and resilience, as well as bring their own expertise and excitement to the space, and my hope is that a square of carrot cake or slice of almond torte makes that welcome just a little bit sweeter.

Making cakes also lets me embrace a more fashionable side of myself. Many of my friends are incredibly stylish—some even sew their own clothes and design fashion lines— but I’ve always been more comfortable in black jeans and a t-shirt slipped over my binder.

While I frequently bake simple things, when I have time and inspiration I love leaning into the colorful, complex, and over-the-top. It’s a chance to play with aesthetics and, rather than stick to one kind of cake-making, I find myself decorating with whatever I come across or am

TYLER ESPINOZA

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thinking about that day, from rainbow sprinkles to ruby-red blood oranges. Because I’m not wearing my cakes (except of course, when I am—I’m a messy baker!), I can make something as ridiculous and experimental as I want, set it down, and walk away. It’s a distance that I, a shy person, appreciate.

The gap between my artistic abilities and what I want to make often inspires collaboration, be it decorating playful alien- and tarot card-themed layer cakes with a talented baker friend or folding herbs grown by another into a pound cake. Or, in the case of the cake pictured here, creating something driven by a conversation I had with my partner, photographer Tyler Espinoza, about the compositional importance of layers, colors, and visual appeal (for the shoot, I decided on an olive oil sandwich cake frosted with almond whipped cream and topped with rose petals, fresh, and freeze-dried strawberries: fruity, floral, and casually femme). I find, time and again, that the cakes I bake in collaboration with others outshine—in both the finished product and the process—what I’m able to make on my own, a reminder of the magic of collective creativity and chosen family.

Cake is, at the end of the day, just cake. But it’s also play and hospitality, mess and collaboration and sheer delight. There’s pleasure, and queerness, in that.�

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finding an authentic moment: an interview with zachARY paugh interviewed by addie tsai

AT: Can you tell me your backstory?

ZP: I was born in Edwards Air Force Base, California. My parents moved out to Phoenix, Arizona shortly after I was born, where I was raised for the majority of my life. I grew up in a rural community where I went to middle school and high school, in a place called Rainbow Valley, which was phenomenal. If Goodyear’s here, the farther you go up into the mountains, it’s tucked away surrounded by mountains. It’s very wild. My high school was a thousand, a couple thousand people? It was enough that you knew everyone, and everyone knew you.

AT: That was like my class. My class was 1100 people.

ZP: You were like, hi! We know what’s happening. After high school, I went out to Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, which was a private liberal arts college, and that was really exciting. I loved the campus. I loved the change of scenery. That was my big thing. I’ve been in the desert for so long. I want to see what else is out there! So then I go to a rural community in Ohio. [They laugh.] Which was actually very exciting because they were one of the first colleges to have the women, gender, and sexuality studies course. I had my feminism in film class. There was gender and sexuality studies. So it was really like, oh this is cool! All of us discovering it together while being in this rural, Westerville, Ohio, antique shop place. So it was really fantastic. After that, I had an internship with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.

AT: How did all of that happen? How did you even get to Cirque du Soleil? When did you start thinking about clothes and costumes?

ZP: Clothes and costumes have been a huge thing for my entire life. My mom was always very welcoming when it came to my personal sense of style, and she would always encourage me.

I would take bedsheets and drape them around myself and pretend to be a Disney princess, or pretend to be Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [AT: Oh my god, YES!] and leaping from couch to couch. The imagery and the costumes were so elaborate. My first big aha justfemmeanddandy.com

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moment was when I saw Queen Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in theaters. It was just the visual of her coming up. Who is this person that is taking a stand for her planet and is going back to fight for everyone?! The government is against her: I mean, we’ll help you in time.

And she’s like, No, I’m gonna go by myself and I’m gonna use my friends that I know and we’re gonna take my planet back. That was such a big YES, and she did it fabulously dressed. She’s running around in this velvet skirt and these high boots and this giant ponytail and I was like, This is fantastic. Ever since then, I was like, what is a costume? I was a big wig collector for a time, and when I was starting a costume box, if you will, in high school and middle school, my dad built me these shelves in my room so that I could put my wigs on Styrofoam heads on them.

I made my first costume my senior year of high school for Pirates of Penzance. Leading up to that, I would make small things. Of course, draping a blanket around myself. Taking pieces from thrift stores and combining them together. Nothing really too extravagant. It wasn’t until college when I started to actually make costumes and work in a costume shop, and know what it’s like to work with a sewing machine and then kind of be like, Oh, I can make my own stuff?!

What’s going on here?

I always felt I had a voice to express myself. Even in high school, even though it was a rural community, I was very much wearing what I wanted to wear. I had my faux fur vest from Charlotte Russe, I had my size 00 skinny jeans, my black tank top. My parents were always very accepting.

AT: What’s their background?

ZP: My mom was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. My dad was born in rural West Virginia. My justfemmeanddandy.com

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mom’s family is massive. She has three sisters and a brother, and our entire family migrated from the Philippines to Hawaii in 1920 to be sugarcane farmers. So it was kind of interesting when my cousins looked into that. Where did we come from? We found pictures of the boat that we came on. We found our old addresses and things like that, so that was kind of cool.

AT: Is your dad also from the Philippines?

ZP: My dad is from Poland? That’s where Ancestry.com said that we’re from. We get some Polish and some Irish in there.

AT: Did performing ever become part of your costuming world? Or were you coming at it solely from a designer standpoint?

ZP: It was performing. That was the big thing.

AT: It was theater, dance?

ZP: Theater and dance combination. In high school I would play in a lot of our school productions. I would dance in the dance concerts, and then when I got to college is when I was encouraged to look at costuming and everything because I auditioned for the musical theater program at Otterbein. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it in, but they were like, We still like you./ Okay! So, once I followed that costume route. I was like, I could audition for shows, but what else is out there? And then it was, Come and do the Otterdrag show! I auditioned, and I got in.

It was just the creative outlet through my four years doing drag and performing and being a part of that community while still focusing on the design aspect and leading up to designing my own show senior year. I was doing both things and then being able to work on projects in the costume shop and stay there late, and then work on a drag show piece and perform it the

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next day and go back. It was very organic and fluid and very expressive during that time. It was a lot of fun. I was auditioning for a couple of pieces in Columbus, Ohio. Doing Nina West’s So You Think You Can Drag. I remember doing that my junior year of college. I remember, she was very big in Columbus at the time. She was doing things with the Columbus Zoo. She was not just starting, but to the point of when I talked to people, Oh, Nina West, she’s our Columbus drag queen. / Oh, dope, okay. I remember she was also very supportive. I came in second place for her competition, and she said, Okay, how often do you want to work? We can start booking you at other places. I said, I really want to just kind of focus on my schoolwork. I was working two jobs at the time. I was like, I’m really not looking for drag to be my sole thing. There are people I competed against that this was their life, this was their expression, this was what they wanted to do. They should have the space. I just want to come in and dance every once in a while. So that was really fun. I did a few things here and there at the local bars in Columbus during that time. Fashion has always been something I’ve looked at as a source of inspiration. I like this silhouette, what can I make it out of? One of my favorite fashion designers is Jean Paul Gaultier. And when he designed The Fifth Element. What are these costumes! It was amazing.

AT: At a time that nobody was thinking about costuming, I think, in film in the way he was.

ZP: Yeah!

AT: Okay, tell me now, how did you get the job at Cirque de Soleil? How did all that happen?

ZP: So, my senior year, I went to an event called USITT (the United States Institute for Theatre Technology) and that was held in Fort Worth, Texas. I had just applied to be at the The Glimmerglass Festival, with one of my friends who had been there the summer previously.

Didn’t make it in. I was kind of going in, where am I going? Is it Disney? Disney was there.

There were opportunities to pursue a graduate degree in costume design. I was like, Do I really want to do that? Is that where I want to go? So I was walking around the convention space, just looking and talking to people. I went back to the Cirque booth because the previous year I went, I kind of had a weird experience. I didn’t feel prepared when I first chatted with them my junior year. I didn’t feel like I was coming with the right questions. I didn’t feel my portfolio was where I wanted it to be. And so, flash forward to senior year, Fort Worth. I was with my friends. I went to the Cirque du Soleil booth and I just started asking questions.

What’s the company like? How inclusive is it? Are there artists from all over? Just general questions. How is the costume shop run? I was chatting with the costume shop manager of La Nouba at Disney World. I remember she was so welcoming and very open to my questions.

I showed her my portfolio. I said, I don’t really know what I’m gonna show you, but can you just look at my portfolio and we can talk about it? [She said,] Sure, why not? Okay, this is cool! Going through it, I showed her my senior year design show, which was Sweet Charity. The whole thing was about finding the inner light and having the audience relate to Sweet Charity in a way they hadn’t before. To separate the two perspectives, I bought vintage for everyone in the background, and as we got closer to Charity, all the characters started to blur the lines towards more modern. So when she came into the forefront, Charity was in this dress we found at Macy’s. I wanted something super relatable but that referenced the 1960s. She was like, That’s justfemmeanddandy.com

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really cool you bought vintage. We’re all about reusable and recycling things. Yes, exactly! So then we moved onto my drag outfits and we were chatting about how I used zip ties as boning because we didn’t have access to spiral boning and how I was utilizing all the fabric from Goodwill that I had bought in this Goodwill center in California where you can buy things by the pound and this curtain I found I always wanted to reuse because: reuse things! Reuse and recycle.

She was like, This is great. We always think about ways to do things. I’m actually vibing with this Cirque du Soleil employee. She said, Go ahead and apply and this is what our internship looks like.

I don’t know, because we work with designers all around the world, you’d be more of like a technician where you learn how to make things and you shadow a show. I think your views and methods align with Cirque’s and how we think about the costume and how we think about preservation and how we think about lifespan and materials, and I think you’d be a good fit. Okay! So I applied and I had my interview with the costume shop manager of Zarkana. His name is RuBen Permel. He opened the interview with, So, I saw your resume and I wasn’t quite sure about it so I put it in the pile. I was running into a lot of people who were lighting designers who wanted to try an internship and all this stuff. And then I was like, no. So I thought about you and then I picked your resume back up so tell me about yourself. I was like, Oh my god! Ah uh hum, so I … not scary at all!

AT: That’s such a weird opening.

ZP: I know! I was like, okay, so, I gotta fight for this! I gotta prove that I’m here, and I’m not a lighting technician. I’m actually interested in costume. I want to be a costume designer for film. I said, I don’t know quite what my journey is, but I was inspired by the costumes from Star Wars. I was inspired by Jean Paul Gaultier from The Fifth Element. By taking an internship with Cirque, or being able to explore what a costume shop at this level does with costumes, I will be better able to work as a costume designer with the team and understand the job that they do to create the things I draw. I remember we were on a Zoom meeting, and he was like, Okay. That’s cool. Ugh! Sweating through my three-piece suit.

AT: What’s your sun sign?

ZP: September 18, so I’m a Virgo.

AT: Virgo! I’m also a Virgo!

ZP: Yes, Virgos! I honestly did not think I got it after that conversation. Oh, I blew it! So, I waited a couple of weeks? I got the call from Cirque Headquarters, from Lisa. She said, So, you had your interview with RuBen. How’d you think it went? / I think it was fine? I think it was okay. She was like, Well, I want to let you know that you got the internship. I was like, Oh my god! She said, So it’s gonna be a late summer internship, so you’re gonna start in August. You will work until November, and you’ll be at Zarkana at the Aria and here’s, I’ll send you the information, congratulations, and all this stuff. I remember, as soon as we hung up the phone, I stood up in my little dorm room, and I was like, Oh my god, I got it! Totally cloud nine. Cirque du Soleil was my last option for myself. Because other than that I had no idea where else I was going to go. There was something about going back to the West and going back to the drier climate that felt like home for me. Because I was raised in Phoenix. Nevada, it’s the same climate. justfemmeanddandy.com

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Let me go back that way. It’s closer to California where my family’s at. That was exciting. It was an awesome moment. So I had about two months after I graduated just to chill out in Columbus. I got a job at David’s Bridal doing alterations for the summer and at the time I was also working at White House Black Market as a personal stylist. I love, love, love all White House Black Market items. Oh my gosh. I would buy their cardigans. I love dressing people. I guess that’s the other side of the fashion part was while making costumes during the day and understanding designer motivation and attention and then doing drag where I could make whatever I wanted to and tell the stories I wanted to tell and be as goofy as I wanted to on stage, I then had my other outlet at White House Black Market to dress people and to have a client come in, tell me what they’re thinking, what their favorite colors were, the silhouette they’re going for, and be like, we have these collections in the store. How can I figure out your energy and how can I dress your energy to elevate you and to get you to where you want to be for your event? That was my whole outlook. It was fun because in that way I was doing three different things all revolving around fashion and costume. For me, fashion and costume are almost synonymous. It’s just all manner of dress. I think costume is more like a theater term and fashion is more of an everyday term, but to me, it’s the same. The way you dress is the way you dress. It’s all about self-expression and identity. You could tell everything about someone by what they choose to put on in the morning and I believe that because that’s what I would do in middle school. That’s what I would do in high school. Every morning I would say: what’s the story I want to tell today? Theme days were my favorite because I was aligning with people. I found that through my expression in middle school and high school, I could code to the norms or go outside of the norms? Or queer code.

AT: I was going to tell you something also. A while back I taught a fashion-themed composition class. Just English Composition. There is this really great book called Fashion and Communication. Written by Malcolm Barnard, this British fashion scholar guy. But he talks about how even the people who think they don’t have a relationship to fashion have a relationship to fashion but that those that identify with it are people who both want to be individual but also want to feel that they’re part of the community. I feel that’s similar to what you’re saying here. Aligning with people but wanting to tell your own story at the same time. [ZP: Yes! I love that.]

AT: What was a day like for you at Cirque? Or a range of days?

ZP: I was hired on specifically as a Crafts and Shoes intern. I wasn’t a wardrobe intern, per se, I was more focused on the creating of the shoes, the upkeep of the shoes, working on headpieces a little bit, and a typical day would be—once the internship was going, I would get there around 9 or so and then I would go straight to work with Paul Franklin and Kim Reale who were two of my most favorite mentors that I had at Cirque because they were quirky storytellers who were so open and both very artistic. Paul Franklin was a dancer in Vegas for the longest time and he danced in one of the longest running Las Vegas showgirl performances on the strip. He would tell his dancer stories. This blew my mind! I think he also danced in New York for a time, but amazing, amazing. Kim is an artist painter who used to be an ice skating rink showgirl. She would do ice shows and dance the lead and ice skate when the justfemmeanddandy.com

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venues had ice shows. She had been all over to Broadway. She did the touring circuit and then she ended up in Las Vegas. And both of them were in this shoe shop painting shoes for Cirque, having the time of their life.

AT: How did they end up there? After performing?

ZP: I honestly couldn’t tell you and I would love to rehash those stories with them.

AT: That’s wild!

ZP: That’s how Cirque is, though. A lot of them are ex-performers or they’ve been on tour for a long time and somehow ended up—one of my bosses, she used to be a television show hostess or an actress, and then RuBen, my boss, used to work on Miss Saigon, and it’s all these fabulous stories with fabulous people. And they’re all arts related. They all know someone who knows someone who did the costumes on the Phantom. Who did the costumes on The Lion King.

It was just amazing. One of my coworkers, Maria, was on the technician crew who painted the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park and she had a picture of her inside the dead, or the dying, rhinoceros. She painted it!

AT: Okay, so I had a question. What was your relationship to shoes and accessories before you got to Cirque, as a designer?

ZP: Nothing. I’d paint shoes occasionally for my drag outfits. Accessories and shoes was all I would do at White House Black Market. It would be pulling a jewelry thing here, pulling shoes there, not actually creating. A typical day—I get to go back to that—at Zarkana. We get there, start in the morning, we’d go through all the dressing rooms and check the artist shoes. Some of them were typical ballet flats, we called them bleyers. We’d check the paint job on those, because from the trapeze artists, they kind of get scuffed up sometimes. They get gummy, we’d have to repaint those. We’d also pull a lot of the main clown shoes. At Zarkana we had this group of ghosts that embodied 1920s/1930s, not stereotypes but icons, so we had a bride that was in a 1920s dress with these really cute shoes. We had a mad scientist. We had a mad scientist assistant. We had this cool jester character. We had this cool clown character.

All of their shoes were so specific and painted to match their costume. So we’d go through and pull all of them. And then, once we pulled all of them, checked them in, we would just start painting. We played Diana Ross, we played Whitney. I had a CD from my cousin from his DJ days in San Francisco that I would play. It was just this amazing environment. We would just paint. We would airbrush. We would first rub the shoes off with alcohol to remove any of the scuffing. And then we would airbrush the bottoms, airbrush the tops. We would hand paint some of the details back in. We would do this every single day. We would have to get it done by 3 or 4, before the artists came in and started training. It was a quick turnaround. I learned very quickly the art of doing a fast, good job when it comes to painting. It was a look into the importance of a good shoe for an artist and that was incredible. It was amazing.

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AT: Did you actually learn how to build shoes, too?

ZP: I did. One of my projects was building a shoe from scratch. We used an Asics running shoe as a base—unfortunately they don’t make this brand of shoe anymore—but it’s just a basic tennis shoe. I learned how to mold and wet the leather on top of it and then create a shape and then build upon it to create a specific look and feel. Before I started this, my boss said, You can make whatever you want to. So I came in with a rendering that I had drawn and I came in with this idea of #13—there were 12 ghosts—and if I added this character on the show, what would it look like? I thought about how each character had an individual look and each one represented a different person in this world that we were talking about. So I created a 1920s/1930s football player character, and what their shoe would look like in the circus aspect.

I thought about when football players kick the football, what if you had a raised bit that the football would sit in and use it for his act sometime. My boss was like, That’s really cool. I was so excited! That was an amazing project and I built it with Paul’s guidance. I asked Kim for references, and then I airbrushed it and painted it and finished it. One of my favorite projects was making those shoes! Then while that internship was happening I would sometimes fill in and do wardrobe tracks, and so that would involve the nighttime shift more. We would check the costumes in, check the upkeep. Put anything that was washed back into the artist dressing rooms. We’d go to dinner, and come back, and then that’s when we would get our assignments. We’d all sit down at our table. We’d look at the run sheet of the night. Who was at what position. Who was out, who was ill. If anyone was in a different act. If a new act was justfemmeanddandy.com

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going in or anything. We’d just get, okay, here’s what’s on your track and you’d go. You pull their costumes, who’s changing where, you’d set everything up. And then the show starts, and you’re just kind of around, getting people dressed.

AT: It’s really interesting, too, because if you go in as a costume designer, maybe you don’t know all the aspects of how a show actually gets put together, what people are responsible for what. So I can see how an internship like this can really set you up for any kind of costume design shop.

ZP: That was the exciting part. I remember when I talked to RuBen about it. He said, Well, shoes? Why you wanna know about shoes? I said exactly what I told you earlier. If I’m a costume designer, I want to be able to at least have some frame of reference when I talk to a shoe person. I kind of want it to look like this, but I want to know if it’s functional and not be a fashion designer who says I need this made and they’re just completely wrong or they don’t fit. I want to be able to have that realistic perspective and be able to talk in a way that is practical, if that makes sense.

AT: It reminds me of those costumes that Bowie would go on stage with and he couldn’t do anything in them. All he can do is just really stand there. He can’t actually move or do anything in them. And then there is always that story—but this is more a makeup thing— the Wicked Witch of the West who got burned from the makeup she wore.

ZP: Yes! ‘Cause of the makeup she wore. And the guy who was the Tin Man who got lead poisoning because of the tin in his makeup?

[Both laugh.]

AT: That’s some commitment! They weren’t just doing it once, you know what I mean?

That’s multiple shoots!

ZP: That’s why I also love Star Wars design.

AT: I wanted to ask you more about that. Are you a Star Wars fan, or of design? Are you both? Is it mostly about the design? I noticed—we’re definitely gonna take pictures of your tattoos and your Star Wars necklace and your Star Wars shirt!

ZP: And my Star Wars backpack! So this is me painting shoes outside.

AT: Oh my god! Oh wow. This is so cool.

ZP: So we would clear coat them to make sure that the paint, if they got scuffs, you could wash them off the next day. Here’s the base. I was creating the foam tops for the shoes on the base shoe. And then I was adding the leather. 17, number 17. So those are the shoes I made for the show.

AT: Oh my god, that’s amazing.

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ZP: They didn’t get put into the show. I want to preface that.

AT: Did you get to keep them?

ZP: I did.

AT: You did! Oh my god!

ZP: I still have them!

AT: That would be so sad if you would have had to leave them there.

ZP: I think they fit me too. They might make an appearance. Cirque was one of those super creative environments where there was everyone represented. An artist from China and Japan, Russia, Ukraine. We had a group of flag guys from Italy that had this beautiful flag act. The cool thing about Cirque is that in each theater they have a flag to represent every performer from their country. And hang them in one of the big community spaces, so it always felt like a good community. Of course, even within communities, there’s drama. But that’s a family.

AT: Was that the first real multicultural community you’d been in?

ZP: Honestly, yes?

AT: I was like, Arizona and Ohio!

ZP: I was doing some deep thinking lately with all the talks about discrimination and especially against the Asian community. My mom was always like, If someone says something bad about you, you don’t talk to them. So, I think that was my perspective. If mean people are mean, it’s because they’re mean and they’re hurting. I never understood the significance of some of the words they would say. It was actually racist or it was actually rooted in some sort of stereotype. It wasn’t actually until two years ago when I began to think about experiences and be like, No, that was actually really incredibly intense. When I was in elementary school, it was mostly everyone was the same color, and I was the only person of color. When it came to middle school and high school is when I found the few other people of color and we all hung out again. It really was just us. I remember the Hispanic community was really big at Rainbow Valley because we were so close to Mexico. I remember having friends who would talk about vacationing in Mexico and going back. But I remember having friends who would talk about going back and then I would never see them again. I remember one, whose name was Jorge, who told me on the playground one day, he was like, I want to let you know that I’m an illegal immigrant and I’m not here legally. To me, I was like, Okay. Not realizing what that meant. I hope you don’t look at me any differently. / You’re still a cool guy. You’re cool to me, so we’re cool. To me, it didn’t even matter. He was looking to reach out and talk about his experiences and I had no idea. It wasn’t until honestly that I got here that I felt the community was at such a level of diversity and I felt it.

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AT: You know we’re number 1? We’re the most diverse city in the country.

ZP: I feel that.

AT: Houston’s not perfect by any means. But, [in terms of diversity] you just don’t have to think about it. Everywhere I go in this city, it’s just not something you notice or not notice.

Which I think is very, very unusual for a city in general, but especially for a city in the south. I love Austin. But it’s just very white. So Houston has this really special landscape in that way.

AT: I still want to ask you about Star Wars. So, Star Wars. Are you a fan, or a fan through design, through costumes?

ZP: Ooh, I’ve never been asked that before. I think I’m honestly a fan through design because I saw the original trilogy on VHS. We had them and my dad loved them. I was like, These are cool films, yeah, I get it. But it wasn’t until that moment when Queen Amidala made her appearance, that I was, like, whaa!, hanging on my seat. It had to do with the design. I remember, there was also some sort of relatability to it, because once I read that Trisha Biggar was referencing Mongolian and Eastern culture, and the Jedi costumes were Japanese inspired and George Lucas got a lot of his references from there, I was like, Oh, this is cool. I was feeling like I was in some way getting a little bit of a voice. This is where I belong. This is where I’m seeing myself. It wasn’t until later that I was like, Oh, wait. It is problematic through the conversations I was having. But still. I still think about that all the time when I read friends of mine in cosplay who are Asian cosplayers, and their experience and being told, Well, you’re Asian so you can’t be Padme.

AT: Almost all the anime characters are [voiced by] white people.

ZP: Yes! It’s very weird, and it’s very disarming to love something so much and to realize the problematic aspects of it, but we have to talk about it. We have to really just have a casual conversation about it.

AT: I have bigger questions, but in a second. Did you go straight from Cirque to Houston?

How did that happen?

ZP: I was with Zarkana. I was ending my internship in November. They ended up extending me. My boss was like, One of our wardrobe technicians is leaving to go on tour. I would like to keep you here through December and extend your internship because we really like you.

AT: They paid you well at Cirque? With internships you always have to wonder if you’re being valued.

ZP: It was a little more than minimum wage. In Vegas at that time, for me, it was enough? I never felt taken advantage of. I was rooming with another intern. It was fun. Cirque did a great job of pairing us off. We would go out, all of us interns. The community aspect was established from the very beginning. My internship was extended. And then, they wanted to keep me. justfemmeanddandy.com

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We want you to stay with us as an on call. At that point, I’d really love a full time position. On call. That’s how you gotta start. Gotta start somewhere. I was really fortunate to be an on call who worked a lot so that was nice. And then Zarkana closed. I got the news we were closing in May of 2017, and I remember being like, Okay, where am I gonna go after this? What’s going to happen? That was my first experience of a major show closing because this Zarkana had been there for years and everyone’s just gotta find work elsewhere. It’s very different in theater when you know your show is gonna close. In Vegas, Cirque is such a big presence you don’t think about the longevity of it or when it’s gonna end. That’s when we were all applying for shows on the strips. I had an interview with Kà with Eric Wood and Lisa Chapman. I remember feeling very good about them, I knew a couple of people there already. It was just another welcoming environment. Kà was also inspired by Asian culture. They had a troupe from the Beijing Opera. They did opera sticks. I was like, Oh, this is gorgeous. And feeling that representation. Yeah, I want to be on this show! I got the job there, and that’s when I was like, okay. I closed out my apartment in Ohio. Ended my relationship with my boyfriend. I was like, I’m staying in Vegas. Everything worked out. The force just took me! I ran away with the circus and never looked back. I was with Kà until the pandemic. 2020.

AT: Did you choose to leave Cirque? How did you end up getting this job [at Houston Ballet]?

ZP: I got the call from one of my previous coworkers. Her name is Meghann. She has her own wig and makeup school/studio. She used to do wigs on Kà with me. We would chat, we were best friends. She had just moved out to Houston, a year before the pandemic happened, working with Houston Ballet doing wigs and trying to get her school off the ground here. She called me one day, and said, Hey, so I don’t know what your plans are. If you’re going back to Cirque.

Before they start making offers, I want to let you know there’s a costume shop manager position open with the Ballet. You’d be working with Sandra Fox. She used to be the costume shop manager of Beatles Love. She also opened Kà with my previous boss, RuBen, and she used to work with Lisa Chapman on Beatles Love. Everyone knows everyone. Up to that point, I only met Sandra once, when I shadowed her show at my internship. So, we chatted, and I said, As a costume shop manager, I wanted to see what it’s like. To me, it was the next step. I’d been working as a technician. I worked in shoes, I worked in crafts. I was doing night wardrobe stuff. I was a full time technician. At Kà, I moved from a wardrobe technician to a costume technician and so I was in charge of checking all the harnesses that the artists wore and making sure they were good and the costumes were set and the Velcro was on. I did the last minute repairs during the show. I was having more responsibility. Getting the costume shop manager role at Houston Ballet would be the next step. As far as that went with design, I don’t think I was really focusing on design at that point. I was focusing on understanding the industry and seeing what it was like to work with designers and facilitate a team to create what they came in wanting to make, the impression they wanted to make on the audience. Sandra’s like, Sounds great to me. Let’s do it. I came here. I started with the Ballet in June of 2021. I was very sad that I didn’t have closure with Kà at Cirque. There’s usually a potluck. Because of pandemic, it was tough. Cirque closed during the pandemic. It was news to the crew and the audience. So much uncertainty. Cirque declared bankruptcy during the pandemic too. So there was that added justfemmeanddandy.com

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layer of uncertainty with our industry. From going back to participate in Circus Couture a couple of months ago, I saw the team and my friends, and got little bits of closure. I was able to see the show again and be like, Yeah, this was a good chapter in my life and now it’s time to take the next step and work in ballet.

AT: The pandemic hit the performing arts industry the hardest. I feel like some people tried to do virtual things. I know Houston Ballet was doing things out in the parking lot and doing drive-ins. Was there a moment in the beginning of the pandemic where you thought, All of this is happening, and I’m trying to be a costume designer? You know, Broadway closed.

ZP: Yes, Broadway closed. There was a thought. I was searching a lot of things. What else is similar to Cirque? I applied to be a mechanic for Tesla cause that was understanding nuances of building things. What’s happening! But to me it seemed relatable. I also applied—there was a position at Disney at Lucasfilm and it was as an Asset Storage Manager. That was looking at all the inventory and making sure the costumes went to the shoots they needed to. I do that on a daily basis. Can you imagine if I did that for Star Wars? Did not get that position. To me costume design is such a fluid position that the more you know, the more you know.

AT: It does sound like you can get a million jobs that fall under costume design. Which is sustainable.

ZP: I also applied for costume design positions at Warner Brothers, for small productions— just throwing (resumes) everywhere. That’s how I also ended up on space suits. To me, it was how can I combine my love for Star Wars and space. Wait, someone has to make the space suits. Right? What does that look like? I started looking up careers with space suit design.

What kind of qualification or classes you have to take. I realize you have to be an aerospace technician to do all that stuff.

AT: At the [Houston] Ballet, are you designing costumes? Or managing the house?

ZP: Manning the team, working with designers. The only design input I get to have as a costume shop manager is repainting something, or really small-scale stuff. For one of the shows, some of the jewelry is missing, so I figure out what looks appropriate to the period.

That whatever the intention of the design is is represented.

AT: What do you think about the racialization of clothing but also the question of cultural appropriation in clothing? It is the biggest in fashion, across Halloween costumes or TikTok remakes or whatever? What is your take especially since you’re not a white designer and I would say ballet is still a white dominant field.

ZP: Sometimes I feel it and sometimes I don’t. That’s a great question. I’m still learning for myself. Especially being in such a diverse place as Houston where these conversations are happening and I’m able to have these conversations. In fashion, if we look at Star Wars for example, we talked about how Trisha Biggar used period Mongolian headdresses as inspiration for Amidala and some of the kimonos and things. All of it references a particular justfemmeanddandy.com

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Asian influence. For me, as a costume designer, as a designer in understanding intention, the problematic thing is that there is no one of Asian descent in those films. There was something empowering about seeing something I recognize and I don’t want to not acknowledge that, but also acknowledge how problematic it is in that setting. For something as specific as royalty wear or that is culturally specific, don’t touch it unless you can talk to someone who has direct insight. Just leave it alone. At a market I was at, one of the stands had native American headdresses for sale. Are we still doing this? I was so confused by it because to me anything that is so specific like that, why? There’s no reason.

AT: And those people who are buying them for a reason, would not be buying them from a market but from their own community.

ZP: Yes. There’s also some sort of practicality of the silhouette of some items when it comes to a robe. There’s a huge difference between a kimono and a robe that just has wide sleeves.

I think understanding the terminology and how if you say something is one thing, it might not be because that word has cultural significance. So I think when fashion designers label something as a kimono, you could just call it a robe. There’s something I’m still discovering when it comes to designing off a silhouette or cause it looks cool. That is a fine line. It also comes down to intention.

AT: Especially if you’re talking about other people, you can’t decide on motivation. I do and I don’t agree with it. I didn’t know that hoop earrings were from African cultures until a justfemmeanddandy.com

SHANE O’ NEIL PHOTOGRAPHY

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few years ago. It’s also that the education is ever-evolving in terms of even knowing what’s assimilated into fashion that’s coming from another cultural background. I have this little Instagram where I remake people I like.

ZP: What! Let me see! [AT shows ZP their own Instagram account.]

AT: You can flip through them. They each have doubles.

ZP: [Gasps] I love this movie! [Looking at Everything Everywhere post. Looks at a different post.]

AT: That one is from a trans Black actor on In Treatment.

On that thing in particular, even on Instagram, when I am playing with images from Black celebrities, if there are African fabrics, I don’t take that on. My international Asian students are obsessed with dreads, and I ask them, Do you understand Black people are not able to wear dreads at work? We just got that passed in New York where they aren’t allowed to fire people for dreads. For me, until there’s true equity in terms of how people can wear their own cultural identity and not be racialized for it, it’s a small price to pay to not use it just because we like the look of it.

ZP: That’s the crazy thing, is when you do remember the people who actually want to wear it can’t. There was a conversation in the costume community about this character Fennec Shand on The Mandalorian. She’s a bounty hunter played by Ming-Na Wen. She is of Asian descent and I remember there was a big cosplayer who wanted to cosplay her costume. There were a couple of people who said, You should rethink this and leave it for people who are of Asian descent who want to cosplay this, and give them their space. I was thinking about it. I would never want to tell someone they couldn’t dress up in a costume of something they wanted to that is not, of course, culturally specific. Well, no. If Asian cosplayers are getting told that you are not white so you can’t be Padme. I would want to make space for them with an Asian bounty hunter to get the full representation but then again, is that almost saying, So here’s your Asian character.

This is what you can do. It’s very tricky. It’s not getting easier.

AT: Let’s talk about queer stuff. Going back to childhood, did your playing with costuming come together with your understanding of your sexuality? When did you come out and how did it intersect with understanding your relationship to clothes?

ZP: All of these questions I’ve never even thought about before! I have always looked at fashion and what I wear as something universal and unrestrictive. I’ve always loved corsets. I’ve always had one. I tried on my mom’s heels at one point. She shared her makeup with me. I think the only thing that was restricted was super feminine items like skirts. I didn’t really know what the term gay meant until high school, and that’s when I felt there was a difference in society as someone who identified as such. In middle school, I would wear an Air Force shirt with my Arwen Evenstar necklace and not think anything of it. I was wearing whatever I wanted to.

I remember doing the joke, Well, I’m gay! And everyone would laugh, not really feeling the weight of the words until high school. I think in high school was when I really started to find justfemmeanddandy.com

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my self-expression and started to do things more one way or another. I remember dressing up with my friends and I’d wear a velvet hood and this skirt and we all went out to McDonalds and had a meal. But to me it was just what I wanted to wear at the time. Some people would be, You’re this and this and that and that. / Okay? And? I honestly know we’re not gonna be friends, so what is happening here, you know? But because it was rural, I think I always felt different and I was okay with that. In a school where you know everyone and everyone knows everything about you, I learned very quickly that you just gotta go with it. Me being pretty outgoing and just kind of having that support at home and from family to wear whatever I want to wear, to have Barbies when I grew up, kind of prepared me for high school to just be like, people are not gonna like me one way or another and that’s okay.

AT: Did your parents ever question your sexuality when you played with clothes? Was there a conversation that happened?

ZP: When I came out, it was a forced outing because I was assaulted in gym class by a guy. We were playing hockey, and he hit me a few times as he rounded (the gymnasium) and everyone saw it and it was weird. That’s when we had to sit down with my parents because the cops got involved. My parents asked me, Were you … gay? It forced us to have that conversation. This was freshman year of high school. I told them I was a bisexual because to me that was safe but clearly it was lying to myself, or coding, or whatever. Trying to protect my parents.

AT: How did they respond?

ZP: My mother cried. My dad was upset but I think as my mom has said it, she cried only because she was worried about the world I was moving into and how the world would respond to me being truly authentic, and that’s what made her scared. We’ve had great conversations during the pandemic about it, re-looking at my coming out experience because after all that happened, I remember they took me to my main doctor and we were in the parking lot. So we’re going to have a talk with him about your choice? / What are you talking about? / You know, about being gay and stuff. / So you took me to a doctor? In Degrassi there was a character who was assaulted by these guys and he had this huge coming out story. It was kind of tragic with those storylines—everything was sad—because it prepared me that I had to be hurt in order to be heard, and it almost made the situation, for all of the abuse and hurt I faced from other people, it was almost like, I had to go through this because the world is not ready for me.

But it will be ready and I have to be able to step up to it so that way other people can get to that and not have to deal with that. That’s what Queer as Folk taught me. It has to happen and you’re gonna be okay. I’m like, Okay. It was weird to think about it, though, like that. My mom asked me earlier this year, How would you have wanted us to approach this topic? I didn’t know.

The only person I knew was the doctor. I didn’t know if there was a community to go to. I didn’t have any of those resources. I said, I would have appreciated you taking me to a community center or something. / Well I didn’t know how to find it. / I can’t fault you for that because we’re approaching a territory where none of us knew where we were going. The doctor’s appointment was more or less, Let’s wait until you’re 18 to make a decision. I had some feelings myself but they faded away. I do not relate to this conversation. What is happening? This is strange. justfemmeanddandy.com

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AT: That sounds really scary to be taken to a doctor.

ZP: I hear the horror stories of being taken to a conversion therapist. That’s where I thought it was going. My dad was just happy to have some sort of frame of reference. They’ve always been supportive, but they’ve just been curious. They go to my drag shows. A couple of months ago we were out at lunch, he said, Excuse my naivete, but when men get married, do they have rings? And I said, Of course, Dad. It can be whatever you want it to be. / I don’t really know and I don’t want to sound like I’m being biased and I don’t know how to ask. / Thank you. I’m glad I can create a safe space for you so you can ask. That’s important.

AT: But … the Internet is there? But I understand.

ZP: There’s resources. There’s all this stuff. We talk about safe spaces but I’m glad I can create one for my parents.

AT: I do think it’s different to be a queer designer, so what are your thoughts around – are you still doing freelance design? Are you designing for your own drag shows? What do you see going forward for queer design in particular?

ZP: I am designing stuff for DNVRMX which is a local circuit group that puts on events. I do find that my design aesthetic for them is pushing the boundaries of what circuit wear is like. The first looks I designed for them were Planet Pink and it was very much, Design for a planet. Oh, I love this. I created these four looks that are not one way or another. They’re very skimpy, of course. I wanted to add more of a storyline to it to create this ambience, instead of just having these guys on stage in a jockstrap dancing. If people are there for the experience and a lot of the friends I have in the circuit are there not just for the intimacy or sexuality of it all, but they’re there for the escapism. Coming from events in Vegas, you want to have an escape moment, let’s make it up. To me, that happens through clothing, too. This sense of other-worldly. A safe space where anything is possible and that’s what I want to create when I do these outfits. Some of the guys were like, this is the most clothing I’ve worn to a circuit event. / And? You’re still getting your little moment over here. For me, that’s fun because you can do anything. I want to shout out the circuit queens that come out and they are in beautiful drag. They bring their wings. There are people at these circuit events that you can tell come authentically. That’s who I’m trying to design for. The people who, like me, when they came into the circuit scene who were like, What’s happening? This is overtly sexual. Do I have to be sexual too? Is there something more for me here? But to a lot of people who are in the circuit scene, dressing up is 50% or 70%! They go for the music and they go to bring their moments.

I design for the people who make moments. I’m making my friend a drag outfit right now.

I’m making a custom harness for a friend who wanted something he couldn’t find. I do like creating moments for people.

AT: If you’re going to Pride, what are you wearing or what is your fantasy Pride outfit?

ZP: It depends on the crowd size because I’ve worn my Padme dress to Pride once and walked with the Rebel Legion. I’ve worn big coats. justfemmeanddandy.com

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AT: Are you going to Houston’s Pride?

ZP: Of course.

AT: What do you imagine you’d wear to Houston’s? So, 100 degrees.

ZP: This is me in Vegas. Is there a theme?

AT: I don’t know.

ZP: I’m designing the looks for the DNVRMX that weekend, so I might wear something that references those. Friday night is gonna be a leather party with red. I might make a matching collar to go with the dancers. This year I want to explore wearing a skirt of some type. My first Pride ever was in San Francisco. It was the summer before I started college. I went and spent time with my cousin. Going to San Francisco Pride was such a game changer. It was a completely freeing experience. Scary but also freeing at the same time, and I created a fop character. 18th century wig. I had a white button up shirt on with lace shorts. It was a moment of authenticity. This coming up Pride I would want to find another moment of my authentic self. My buddy, one of my best friends from Las Vegas, who I still keep in touch with, his past wedding was themed, Dress as Your Authentic Self. It was so difficult. I wore my Jedi cosplay for it. I had just finished it, and I was proud of it. To me, my cosplays are everyday wear because they’re just clothes. Why can’t I wear them every day? Something exciting. Now that I know that it’s going to be warm, a chiffon moment.

AT: This issue’s theme is SUSTAIN, so I was wondering if you had thoughts around sustainability in fashion and costume design, particularly using recycled materials and upcycling. What are your thoughts on that in general?

ZP: I’m totally for it. There are a couple of pieces in our next season at the [Houston] Ballet that we’re looking into going to places that sell recycled clothes, the Goodwill warehouses of the world. Now, with fast fashion being faster, especially with Wish and other places, everything happens so fast. I don’t think people realize that the clothes that are still around from the 60s and 70s are still around because the materials are so fantastic. Yeah, polyester is terrible. When you use something that has a cheap weave to it, it cheapens it. It falls apart faster. After three washes you want to throw it away. I’m a big supporter of thrifting or gently used clothing and making something out of it especially for costumes because you can buy a costume, which is great. I don’t knock anyone who does that. But there’s much more individuality, and more choice, that is to be found when it comes to thrifting for your own creative endeavor. For Ren Fair, my friends and I all went thrifting. That was the big thing.

Should we buy something? No! Let’s thrift it. You can cut it apart. You can make it. One of my friends found this suede skirt and said, I don’t know what to do with it! Let me show you! We cut it up, distressed it a bit, and then we had a Ren Fair skirt. I encourage people to—if not for everyday wear—but for costume, cosplay, search the thrift stores. You can find good stuff.

Something someone would be like, oh this choice I made once doesn’t work for me now, but that choice could totally work for someone else. I love it.� justfemmeanddandy.com

cancel and gretel

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Wear Out Climate Change: Sewing a Boxy Tee vivien wise

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on queer pregnancy clothing autumn elizabeth

Until recently, I felt pretty confident in the style I’ve created for myself as a queer person. One where I felt mostly cis-gendered, defiantly queer, and queerly femme. Then I had to enter the realm of pregnancy and maternity clothes and I totally lost myself.

Pregnancy itself, as much as it can be separated from the clothes I wear during it, has been one of the most gender dysphoric experiences of my life. I’ve never been more aggressively gendered as a woman, while simultaneously feeling less and less like a woman.

As the fetus grew visible to people outside those intimate with my naked body, things only got worse. I was told by friends and strangers that I was beautiful, cute, or glowing. These words prior to pregnancy would have been nice compliments on my style, but as a visibly pregnant person, they seemed to be about my body rather than my style and gave me a sense of powerlessness as opposed to the ego boost they might have provided before.

Those were the experiences I had even before I found it necessary to enter the realm of maternity fashion. My style is generally a queer take on femininity and strength that is part Joan Jett and part 80s Cher with a sprinkle of Audrey Hepburn and Rihanna. Long pink nails combine with black cutoffs and knee-high socks. Lots of black with pops of neon and glitter and always a little slutty. This style however, is decidedly not the fashion of mainstream maternity clothes. While I think a lot of big brands do understand the specific needs of pregnant bodies, such as itchy skin, growth in very specific areas, need for support, etc., they completely fail pregnant people on the style side of things, or rather they support ideas about who and what pregnant people are that simply don’t align with my values.

There were a lot of ruffles, like LOTS of ruffles. There were also prints that were so ugly that every person I knew, across style and political spectrum, agreed they should be burned. There were lots of styles that seemed to communicate softness, not in fabric choice, but in personality, and a lot of things that resembled tents with holes for arms and a head. In short, there were a lot of clothes that communicated, to me at least, that as a pregnant person my role now was to be modest, quiet, soft, gentle and feminine in a way that wasn’t seductive or sexy. justfemmeanddandy.com

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Then of course, there was the issue of availability. Pregnancy changes bodies in very specific ways, and a lot of punk, queer, and indie clothing makers just don’t have clothes specifically designed for pregnant bodies and when they do the selection is really limited. Even big stores often only carry a small selection of their clothes for pregnant people in the store and then rest are only available online, where you can’t feel the fabric, can’t see how it falls on your specific pregnant body.

It seemed like the fashion world was trying to make me somehow smaller as I got bigger, to infantilize me and to take away my power while politicizing my body as a symbol of a very specific kind of womanhood and motherhood. I was determined to find clothes that fought back against this tidal wave of conservative motherhood, and more importantly, I was determined to find clothes that helped sustain my sense of self through pregnancy and beyond. I wanted to look and feel like me, even as my body changed.

I started with color. Black. LOTS OF BLACK. It took a lot of hunting but I was able to find black t-shirts, tank tops, shorts, and even underwear. Once I found an item I liked, I just bought three. In addition to a lot of black basics, I sustained myself by using people’s obsession with my body like a billboard. If everyone was going to be looking at my growing bump, I’d make sure it was emblazoned with Transfigure Print’s “Protect Trans Kids” design. I added the “Abortion Forever” t-shirt from AK Press in two sizes to my registry, one medium and one extra-large so I could cut it and customize the fit as I got larger. I found a backless shirt and some short shorts to help sustain my slutty sensibilities through the tidal wave of chaste pregnant woman images.

I’m writing all of this at 40 weeks at 4 days pregnant. My hospital bag is packed with a black labor gown and a neon pink and green flannel shirt I found on eBay. The clothes I was able to find really have sustained me during pregnancy. They’ve helped me maintain a sense of self, they’ve given me a sense of power, and they’ve helped me express my gender the way I experience it. But finding my style while pregnant hasn’t been easy and I hope that as more of us try to show up as our authentic pregnant selves, more of the brands we love will start showing up for us as well. justfemmeanddandy.com

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BRIAN JURKIEWICZ justfemmeanddandy.com

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The pandemic project: how a photo per day has shaped how I see myself liz jurkiewicz

I’ve been masked since July 2019.

Born without 2/3 of my immune system, on long-term chemo and steroids.

I’m used to hearing someone cough and moving as far away from them as I can.

I would get stared at and ignored as a mask wearer in 2019.

People would think that I was a threat to them and stay away.

When the pandemic began, friends and family started asking me for advice on masking and distancing. Suddenly all these non-disabled people were afraid, at risk, like me.

They were despondent.

That year, I became feeding tube dependent.

In August 2020 I had four NJ Tubes in four weeks inserted into my intestines.

When each of these clogged, I had to get a surgical GJ tube in September 2020.

People that wore suits or had developed personal style over decades were suddenly in pajamas.

Faces buried in Netflix, cameras turned off on zoom.

On October 12, 2020, I started posting photos of my outfit of the day.

justfemmeanddandy.com

It is a way for me to process these tubes hanging from my body that help me stay alive.

To see my physical form as it is.

To document it.

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The love of accessories and clothing I’ve had for as long as I can remember tucked into my proverbial pocket – a reminder of who I am and what I’m into.

Every time I’ve been inpatient at the hospital over the last four decades, I have a bracelet or necklace with me.

The pandemic reminded me to take that love and explore it again.

The love of inanimate objects and presenting myself in a specific way.

What started off as a project that I thought would last for a few weeks or a month is more than a year and a half old now.

I have only missed five or six days in that time.

justfemmeanddandy.com

I have used many posts to discuss different aspects of Disability, such as my lifelong toileting difficulties.

My vintage “shit happens” shirt is a great conversation starter for discussing incontinence, for example.

My ring splints, which are used to prevent subluxations in my fingers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, get a ton of compliments.

Each time I explain what their purpose is and hope that they might be helpful to somebody else.

Some days I don’t get dressed until just before I put pajamas back on.

Some days, that outfit, re-examining and exploring my personal style, has helped me get to the end of the day and I am beyond grateful for that.�

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FAT + FURIOUS

The Best Way to Get a Bikini Body is to Put Your Body In a Bikini! piper daniels

Hey there, friends! Wishing a Happy Pride Month to the community who invented Hot Queer Summer. As an uber-femme, uber-queer womxn who is new to summers in Southwest Florida, I’ve been on a six-month hunt for bikinis that work with and worship my body type. I’ve also posted bikini photos on the socials, where so many folks messaged me to ask where I acquired said bikinis that I thought I’d offer a quick breakdown for you here in the SUSTAIN issue of my number one queer fashion magazine of choice.

For reference, I wear a size 10-12 in clothing, and my bra/bikini size is a gorgeous-but-inconvenient 36G. Some background: an employee at Nordstrom’s once broke down in tears while measuring me, repeatedly telling me not to panic over my extremely large breasts, as though I hadn’t noticed them until she came along to warn me. And due to my size (considered “plus”) and the fact that I thrive with a physical disability, plenty of people have called me “brave” when I post bikini photos (do they know, I wonder, that my queer, disabled, big-titted body is perfect?).

So, to save you the hysterical measurers, the side-eyeing assholes, the pavement pounding, and the potential COVID risks, I share with you the spoils of my searches. I hope you find this helpful! And please, if you have information about a brand you love that isn’t featured here, reach out through Instagram (@piperjdaniels).

justfemmeanddandy.com

Everything but Water

(everythingbutwater.com) Swimsuits here can be extremely expensive, and it’s difficult to find anything over a size 10. If you can find a larger size, the suits are of a beautiful quality, but the bikini tops might not be appropriate for high-impact activities like ocean surfing or lap swimming. (I learned the hard way so you don’t have to.)

Genderbender LLC

(genderbenderllc.com) Offers cute compression tops, swim tanks with built-in binders (for comfort and safety), nipple cover pasties, a variety of tucking and packing bottoms, and correct pronoun masks, in sizes XS to 4XL.

H&M

(hm.com) Generally a good, size-inclusive, and reasonably priced selection of swimwear, as well as active wear that can double as swimwear. This might be a good place to experiment with different styles, see what works best on you, and then go forth in search of slightly more durable (and ethical) options.

Monif C

(monifc.com) Black-owned company Monif C has been making swimsuits for “plus-size body shapes” for over ten years, with colors that “complement and accentuate deeper fleshtones.”

SheFit

(shefit.com) Technically, SheFit is a sports bra company that promises “3x the Support,” and I am here to tell you, they’re not messing around. If you’re planning on having an active afternoon, or if you’re hoping to maintain a modicum of modesty, I’d suggest purchasing

a SheFit bra, and pairing it with bikini bottoms from another retailer. The tan lines are a little intense, but if it’s my tits against the ocean, I’d go with SheFit every time.

Torrid

(torrid.com) The hands down, number one choice for me and all the voluptuous folks I know. I almost missed out on my Torrid bikini, the one everyone compliments me on and asks about, because of sticker shock—I didn’t want to pay just over eighty dollars for a swimsuit.

Luckily, my shopping companion talked me into the purchase, and I’m so glad they did.

The bikinis at Torrid are amazing—there are so many fun prints and colors, with myriad styles and inclusive sizes—but most importantly, they hold everything firmly in place.

If you buy one swimsuit this summer, invest in one from Torrid. If the thought of going into the store to get measured freaks you out, I would highly recommend taking your own extremely careful measurements for maximum fit and satisfaction (even if you buy clothes regularly from the store).

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Additional Resources For inspiration: Check out #MySwimBody on Instagram. It’s predominantly white and AFAB, but there are a variety of body shapes and swimsuits on display.

For additional Black-owned swimsuit companies: Fleshtone Blog (fleshtone.net/blog) For more options regarding size-inclusive swimwear: Meet Curve (meetcurve.com) Venus (http://www.venus.com/plus-size-swimwear) Swimsuits for All (swimsuitsforall.com) For safe and carefree swimming: Check into spaces and events that are size and queer-inclusive.

Per their website, “ChunkyDunks (chunkydunk.org) are an annual summer series of fat liberation and body positive group swims. Starting in Portland, Oregon in 2005, the dunks have a long and joyful history . . . Organizers rent public pools and offer up a focused and intentional space where all bodies are respected.”

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laurence hart I Walk Into a Store and Do Not Think What if They Don’t Carry My Size?

A clothing store that refuses to stock their shelves for any body prepared to hand them money for said clothing is a joke and fat people are not the punchline. The word fat is not a spit bullet in the “war on obesity.”

Between hanging pants and shirts there is room to dance and twirl. No tiny corners in the back of the store for the largest of us, no bruises from bumping into racks spaced for bodies smaller than mine.

There is no plus size. No extended size.

I have never cried in a fitting room because my mother loved her body so much I learned to do the same. The cellulite dimpling my thighs and ass is cute.

Like dimples framing a smile.

Long sleeves and cardigans are reserved for cool weather and in the warm sunshine unsheathed fleshy arms sweat and glisten.

When I say I am fat, no one says You’re not fat, you’re beautiful. People think BMI means Buying More Ice cream or Big Motherfucking Iceberg or Better Mind the Ichthyosaur.

There are no weight limits. Roller coasters are full of fat bodies that loop de loop and jiggle with joy. We no longer sardine ourselves into flying tin cans. Dignity matters more than profit. When I need Plan B, it’s made to work for me. My cheeks never blossom into plump, red strawberries when my family reminds me I was called dumpling butt. Shame is a dead language, a bitterness tongues no longer taste. A sweet tooth is not a curse. There is no lingering heartburn of better work this off at the gym, no sour bite of are you sure you don’t want the salad? justfemmeanddandy.com

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Stretchmarks are marbling in the statue of us and no one carves themselves smaller.

Guilt is not a side dish served with every meal and eating is pleasure. There are no teas, no pills to shit and vomit yourself into a thinner you the world has called better.

My body is not so loud the doctor cannot hear why I need them. Their first suggestion is not a 95% failure rate. The word diet no longer exists and every body is a miracle.

justfemmeanddandy.com

the glow-up

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untitled jb bergin

I asked a college friend how to do my makeup, so we found a time where both of us were free and we met at her dorm and she taught me about the cupid’s bow. Marking X with the lipstick on your top lip before filling in the rest. She explained eyeshadow to me: how to start in the nook between your eye and the bridge of your nose with the lighter shade and gradually move darker as you move to the outer crease. She told me that I could apply liquid eyeliner with many small strokes. Small accuracies instead of one, long, meandering mistake. We used Scotch tape to make a sharp wing. She was very patient and said my hand was very steady and I said it was because I was holding my breath and I remember that I learned how to hold my breath for makeup from being a kid cast in high school theater productions.

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My understanding of my body as a queer body begins with productions.

It begins with shows, with performing on stages and realizing that I could be beautiful and complicated and unresolved on a stage and that could be the truth of me. My understanding evolved when I realized that I could leave a stage and continue to pursue my beauties and my complexities; that I could stretch out my unresolutions and lay down on them and dream with them. As queer as they are, as queer as I am. I once lived with a friend who taught me about highlighter and blush. This is something I’m still working on. How to blend shimmer and flush into a smooth image. A two, as opposed to a one-plus-one. How to navigate when natural becomes theatrical. In every way, I began as a theater.

justfemmeanddandy.com

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When the pandemic started, my sister talked to me about how she was perfecting a “natural” makeup look. It made me think, What was natural to me? If it makes me feel like me, it is natural. I decided to take my nail polish off. See how long I could grow my natural nails and how well I could take care of them. I read about ways to keep nails healthy, dipped them in Vitamin E oil, cleaned them daily. People asked me if they were real and I was proud of their realness. They made me feel like I was real.

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Before I took my nail polish off, I would talk about myself as a ghost because I didn’t always like my situation. It was my housing, or a bad job.

It was okay because I was a ghost through it all. I don’t know where that logic came from, or what I thought I was protecting. Maybe it was easier to imagine myself as a shadow, a quiet thing. Being a ghost is actually a very loud thing to be. A haunted house is just a type of immersive theater. The best ones make you forget what you know. Everything that I know, I’ve been taught. I’m not sure where everyone else ends and I begin. I’m trying to navigate how much of myself is a shared experience with all the people who have taught me, and how much of myself is me, and I don’t know yet how the math works out. This is the special theater of queer living. We are the cast of our dreams. I’m not at all discouraged by this lack of knowing.

In fact, I have learned to love the not-knowing, because around the corner will always be an opportunity to learn. Around the corner from there, is the small city block of things that I know. I know that I feel most like myself when I am made up, when my hand is coloring in the canvas of my face. I know how to breathe through my motions as a way to soften them.

How smooth we can be when we are in motion. I hope I continue to move, with the speed of my breaths, with a steady hand, with a learning heart, with my queer body.

justfemmeanddandy.com

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zoë bracken 70s ambient sound i. listen to plantasia on the first day of winter. if you can find a warm core under layers of frost, powder white, and see where a seed would grow, then i think i could trust you. we were cold some days and if my fingers trailed along your arm’s length you’d kept me at bay. ii. i own seven pairs of hoop earrings pinned against the wall —ready to be called upon as arms. curving into heart shapes and laced with beads losing their paint (stolen, borrowed) 1 my mother’s, 2 stolen from lovers, 3 gifted by sacred friends. they stay above smokey kohl and brick red lipstain stealth & strength iii. when you look at me, i have no idea what reflects back. in moments i think i am the raw honey melting in your tea and on your tongue; in others, i am the long to-do list (take out the trash, weed the garden, call the doctor) which inevitably never gets done. i might be an image of you or of your father. just listening to ambient sound.

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AFRODISIAC

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 75

moriah katz The Covid Years Are How Later Plays Catch Up In the hallway, there is a drawer full of pictures of me. Of the hundreds, only one glossy square holds me in braids. I made sure to keep that picture on hand for most of my life, pointing to it whenever I felt brave enough to ask my mother to love me. Like this, I want my hair like this. Which is to say, I thought my hair was worth taking care of. Maybe even the rest of me, too.

Later, she always said. We’ll try it again later. Later like, after the birthdays stopped mattering, the baby teeth had fallen, and the tears dried up. Later, past the graduations, and the first apartment, and the second, and the third. Later like, if you want something done, the only option is selfhood. Later, as in, I am twenty-three and still teaching my fingers how to knit tenderness into my roots.

Now (which is later) I point to myself and say, like this, I want my love like this while my mother rests her back against my knees. She cannot see me, despite the eyes she used to say hid at the back of her head. I don’t search for them in the tending; I know her hair is worth taking care of. I’m looking forward to the rest of her, too.

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no scrubs

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 77

becca fang Titanium forceps pinch nipples pink, looking for that snug sliver of skin where the needle will go once the fridge fresh lemonade can has done its job of numbing what a strange ecstasy these paid for wounds this metal contraband the punctures that render us unmaternal titanium bar laid like a dam to delay the escape of milk reclining freshly penetrated opening lemonade with our teeth pleased with the pin pricks in our ancestral crest feeding vanity’s thirst through holy breasts

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78 • just femme & dandy

My Punk Isn’t For You kansas ths bird

Punk fashion has always felt unattainable to me. Whenever I saw it in media it was skinny and male and there were no mobility aids in sight. It wasn’t until my late teens that I became interested in the 70s British Punk movement and other variations of punk culture.

Realising that my disability stopping me from working didn’t stop me from having worth was the real kicker; I had the power to be what I wanted. I experimented with cutting off my sleeves, showering things in safety pins, and wearing my boots everywhere. I eventually allowed myself to make my fashion accessible for myself; it was revolutionary to afford myself comfort. Shaving my head was the biggest step I made, freeing myself from the sensory hell of long hair that had plagued me my entire life.

Engaging in punk fashion and culture was what helped me realise that I didn’t owe anything to anyone. As a trans person, I didn’t owe femininity, masculinity, or androgyny to anyone. As a disabled person, I didn’t owe anyone an explanation or an excuse for why I needed support. Wearing more and more outlandish outfits gave me the confidence that I’d lost during puberty. I could stim freely without caring what people thought, I could speak my mind loudly, I could disagree with people, and I was allowed to be angry at the injustice I saw in the world.

I find that the modern image of punk that people think of is very sanitised. They’re angry at something (probably their mums), they dress poorly, and they live off of government benefits instead of getting a job. There is little to no discussion (at least in Australia) of why punk is even a thing. The discontentment of the middle classes, tearing up physical norms of how we’re expected to behave or appear when the ideal is impossible to reach, the frustration of life and society boiling inside you until you just want to scream. Saying fuck you to anyone or anything is the simplest rebellion, and if you can do that with the music you listen to or the way you dress, then I’m a fan. Enjoying my life as a disabled person and living it to the fullest as a trans person is the biggest fuck you I can think of to a world that thinks I’d be better off dead.

justfemmeanddandy.com

(GET YOUR) THRE AD IN THE GAME

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 83

Tips from a trans athlete on how to get the same athletic advantages trans people have gillian maurer

1. Defend your existence on a daily basis. Nothing gets you swole like being told repeatedly your existence is invalid, and having to find new and exciting ways to say that you are a human with a right to basic dignity.

2. Submit yourself to rigorous scientific testing. Medical science, social science, genetic science, if it has a test, you should be the subject. As you know, Guinea pigs are one of the most athletically capable species on earth, and this is primarily due to their frequent testing. If you can get your friends to debate the validity of your test results in front of you, that’s just a little bonus. Think of it as an extra rep at the end of a long day at the gym.

3. Figured out how to verbally defend your existence? Add in physically defending yourself as well, since that trans advantage™ means you’re about to be at significantly higher risk of physical assault than your cis counterparts.

4. As you’ve probably heard, medical advantages are a big part of why trans athletes are so hard to beat. Much of this is thanks to the frequent medical malpractice and discrimination they endure while trying to access basic care, and the advantage only gets better if they are wrapped up in trying to access financially inaccessible gender affirming care—so go for it! Ask your doctor how many ways they can simultaneously pathologize you and deny you access to care for an optimal athletic advantage!

justfemmeanddandy.com

5. Did you know your job can help give you a competitive edge too?

Workplace harassment and discrimination in employment can help build superhuman endurance—a definite advantage in elite athletics.

6. Worried you’ll lose your advantage when you’re off the clock? No sweat, higher rates of housing discrimination and houselessness will keep you sharp and ready even when you’re trying to relax.

7. But when I’m on vacation for the holidays, I might get outpaced by a cis person with a more dedicated training regimen, right? WRONG! Since you’re now gifted with the advantage of having family members disown you, distance from you, or actively cause harm to you, spending your off time with transphobic family is a GREAT way to refine your competitive edge.

8. As you may have intuited, many of these advantages are even more pronounced for trans femmes. Don’t forget that if you want the *best* advantage, peppering in a healthy dose of trans misogyny will increase all of these advantages by making them more intense.

9. Pro tip: if you want even more edge, try sprinkling in other intersectionally impactful social constructions like race, citizenship or criminalization. Those cis folx will be no match for your athletic prowess!

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 89

jd hegarty femme fatale final girl (with lines from heathers, 1989) I love my trans body / the man at the store asks if I will wear men’s running shoes / the woman watches me bounce in overalls on the treadmill and he/hims me / the staff at the bike shop wear pronoun pins / the he/they is the most helpful / I name my green bike duke / as in heather / as in heather duke / as in I want to be one of the popular girls / as in I want to be the mythic bitch / as in I may look great in green but I own the color red in my heart of hearts / as in why are you pulling on my dick? / I love my trans body / I himbo my way up rock faces in three layers / I love my trans body / adriene tells me to hold myself / tells me I am strong and I am gentle / my love is god / my love is femme / I record a video and delete it because I hate the way my body looks / my love is god / I have three pairs of shorts on / please no one look at me / please no one see my body / I avoid the washrooms / the walls are painted with trans pride colors but why am I the only one / I ride my bike / I ride my bike / I ride my bike / I get sick / I’m a dead girl walking / I become something else / I build and shape and sculpt my trans body / I climb rock walls / I femme / I stretch / I yearn / I run and run and bounce / I know I can be beautiful / just not today / I cannot carry all of these layers / my muscles shrink / regroup / stretch / yearn / femme/ I cannot carry all of this weight / I drop layers / I stop hiding / I wear bike shorts / you can see it all / why are you looking? / why aren’t you? / I ride my bike / I zip / I huff / I bounce / I smile / I joy / I fall / I climb / I run / I fall / I stretch / I climb / I run / I am on top of the world / I am the strongest I have ever been / I am soft / I am gentle / I am strange / I look like hell / I look like paradise / I love my trans body / my love is

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Sew What

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 91

czaerra galicinao ucol Thrifted Barong, or I look like the boys I hoped would sweep me off my feet and now I can do it myself Miles away from anyone that knows our every crease and stitch, we found love in this suburban Goodwill.

You caught my eye in the women’s blouses section and I rushed dizzy to you, made sure I wasn’t imagining things between forced frills and neutral tones.

But yes, you had it—sheer but firm quality, golden embroidery falling past waist, faint initials of previous owner right below collar in permanent marker.

I scooped you up because do you know what atrocities happen here?

You could’ve been bought by a white reseller, jaggedly cropped and upsold at 3 times the price, tagged exotic, oriental.

I couldn’t let you fall to this fate.

The gendered tag stings an overt truth: we’re never going to make sense to them, will we?

I’ve only seen others like you on my dad, brother, uncles, grandfathers; all the men in my life marked by you, and yet, in this thrift store, they see me and say girl, see you and say woman, see us and say them.

In their minds our inherent softness is the domain of the feminine.

At checkout, my heart fireworks, chattering on the car ride home.

“You are so lucky,” Mom smiles.

At home, flames cool into gentle laundering.

Mom hand-washes, presses piña, hangs outside door.

Night comes—our first date.

Broad shoulders fill out the top like water filling a long-dry creek.

I press you over chest binder and exhale into the boundary breaking. justfemmeanddandy.com

92 • just femme & dandy

the etcetera jj rowan

CW: mention of r*pe at the etcetera, lynn teaches me early to thrift. sometimes a building is one thing on the outside and another on the inside. sometimes you approach a building so nondescript its color & texture don’t survive with you. inside, you’re home. you’re in someone’s home. you’re in someones’ homes, any home but yours. sometimes a (girl) is one thing on the outside and another on the inside. sometimes you’re assigned a girlhood. sometimes you put on what anyone else has forgotten about. get forgotten. forget. sometimes you put (her) on etcetera. / after her death, gg taught me about receiving what’s passed to you. the first thing i hang in every place i live is gg’s hat: bright red wool l.l. bean. matching grosgrain ribbon band. the exact right color & texture. i’m often thinking about this hat. or about the heart-patterned dress shirt i wore to visit family that i might love them better. or paul’s denim shirt with the loon embroidered on it, how my brother and i both showed up to paul’s memorial wearing his clothes. maybe once a year, i wear the hat. it holds me, but it doesn’t feel like me. it holds how i struggle to locate my body inside things that are said to also hold meaning. maybe it’s the hat that contains my final form. a reminder to keep going etcetera. / justfemmeanddandy.com

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 93

the etcetera is like someone’s house overfull of things in a tidy sort of way. full enough to get lost. tidy enough to steer your loss. until just now i’d completely forgotten about the second floor: a theater of sporting goods and dress clothes, also known as costumes. how many easter sunday outfits does the etcetera provide? white straw hat: check. high-waist pastel dress: check. cropped jacket: check. pov: it’s easter, you’re a (girl). you’re second-hand pure. you find an unscuffed-enough pair of white mary janes to fit your growing feet, worn with new white tights that won’t make it from sunrise service to potluck. there is, at least, the satisfaction of decorating your tights. earth’s texture, grass’s green smudge. it’s an etcetera of costumes, and not just upstairs. it’s an approximation of girlhood. it’s the best you can do: the etcetera’s large caverns are quiet, and away. we all seem to breathe better in here. you get lost and then you take your time. try on some other people, some ways of being you won’t think about for a couple more decades. do you recall your age the first time you noticed a bowtie? do you remember your earliest feelings of envy? of leaving your body in the full folds of long pastel to imagine a thick ribbon done up at your throat? and then it’s halloween, the etcetera provides a suit. you make a dashing groom to laura’s tiny bride. sure, it’s a disturbing display for children, but it’s allowed. in the photo, you look like you haven’t yet but are going to figure something out. you are open to figuring etcetera. / while thrifting into and through my twenties, i experimented with castoffs from men i dated. m, whose discards became a uniform: worn-soft five-to-a-pack undershirts and alreadythrifted button-ups that taught me to love discordant plaids. much later, another left his boxers in my bed, the first pair i ever wore. my fashion quivered, and femme became a costume i sometimes put on. i wasn’t thinking about it: i was falling in love with a woman for the first time. my desire became multiple: for people, for color & texture. i couldn’t place my body but i could place on my body. could place my body in. / years after those early etcetera days, lynn and i are thrifting three thousand miles away, in deep nowhere. sometimes we’re digging through boxes. i adore this store and its limits. unlike the etcetera, which felt like a forever of options, this little hole is less curated than catch-all: a town’s worth of little discards, every local who dies with a closet glut. a structured blazer. a white faux-leather pencil skirt. a new easter, friends: resurrect me. that summer i learn to sew a dress with thrifted fabric & pattern by sweating and swearing in the heat of the day. gunmetal singer’s song. orange with white polka dots. white & orange plaid lining. a square halter so my shoulders can burn a different summer in another time zone. blaze orange for deep maine, brought to you by the castoffs of rural california. i do a pretty good job. i misunderstand myself very well. i hope someone finds it secondhand and considers its mistakes charmingly vulgar. justfemmeanddandy.com

94 • just femme & dandy

the thing about thrifting, about handing-down, is the ghosts. we put on so that someone can take off. when i release a floral dress i’m raped in to the thrift wild, its full skirt and scoop neck show up a few weeks later where i work and it’s something else. it’s a piece in someone else’s closet. it’s not a wearable memory. i’ve taken it off. we put on & take off: little spells we cast, lines we cast, characters cast for us. question &/or answer. something floods back into my body for a moment. it’s not much & it’s not nothing. it’s just a dress i was just its ghost etcetera. / after multiplicity stayed, after i searched for brighter colors & bolder textures at every thrift store i could find, after i was photographed in yellow and purple, after learning to layer flannel tights to walk maine winters, after the three of us moved into little blue, a house with its own outfit, i moved out alone: i packed up my clothes to discard every stitch. i haven’t stopped thinking about s’s color palette, the way she layered clothes on the hangers, a gallery of putting on. i stopped thinking about m’s closet immediately. i purged years of thrift to exorcise twice the heartbreak, and then i met a man who committed my body to memory too diligently: bought me my first real heels in my mid-thirties, bought me dresses that reminded me the kinds of shapes i was taught i contain, and should conceal, lest i appear desirous. i was to appear desirous: i went full costume, full femme, learned to turn on the ball of my foot, learned how each skirt moved in a spin. my body changed under a blur of movement, in the stress of constantly forgetting. color fell away, and texture, and knowing. i buckled into womanhood, hard. i lost my balance, fell back against category to steady me. i was identified, woman, and told where a woman goes on the dance floor. there is a part here that isn’t concerned with what i put on. / eventually, i wear the bowtie, open back up to the etcetera of becoming. i thrift fabric’s ways of collaborating in this: roll a waistband, cuff a sleeve. leave it unbuttoned & tie. button up a little higher, crop it a little shorter. i keep femme in rotation, let womanhood go: for the first time, the search is for what feels good. and true. and expansive. what lets the ghost of me go over & over etcetera.

justfemmeanddandy.com

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 95

The World’s On My Back megan mckinley

I found a coat at Goodwill.

It was hidden among the rows of itchy coats and soft furs. The puffy sleeves of leather stuck out as I dug through the arrangement of fabrics. It reached out to me, grabbed me by the arm and dug its nails into my skin, begging me to take notice of it. Please, please see me.

And I did. The color was the first thing I saw. It was a shade of blue and black, the two colors dancing together on a painter’s palette made up of fabric to create a beautiful stormy gray. Was it made to look that way or was it weathered from age? My fingers glided across the color as if I expected it to really be made of mist that settled over the ocean on a cloudy day. The leather was one of the softest things I’ve ever touched, and it dare rivaled the hideously gaudy fur coat that sat to the right, hogging the spotlight and clamoring for the attention I wouldn’t give to it.

I pushed the luxurious furs to the side and picked the leather coat up off the racks. It felt heavy in my hands. My shoulders sagged under the phantom weight.

Yes, the color was as extraordinary as a hurricane and yes, the leather was as soft as roses and yes, the weight was as heavy as a hug, but it was the inside of this coat that made me fall in love. Fall as madly and deeply in love as you’re able to with an article of clothing.

Because the fabric inside was marked up with maps. Maps of the globe, outlines of our world, marked with Unknowne Land, Magallanica, and Europa. Old star like compasses pointed North to the sun that stared longingly at the moon, and the moon who stared longingly at the compass. Every ocean and river and border swam and trekked its way across the fabric, foraging a path through the arms and hem and collar. It was colored like old parchment, weary and faded, the kind of color writers fantasize about; that dreamy, romantic, looks like it smells of old books color that promise good stories and day-long daydreams. And that story color was splashing the maps that would be pressed against my back and chest and wrap me up in its endless adventures.

So of course I bought it. It was only $15. What a steal, right?

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96 • just femme & dandy

I didn’t even try it on before I made the purchase; I trusted the sag in my shoulders. It would swallow my frame the way Black Holes swallow up galaxies. I would love to be a galaxy if this coat would let me share its suns and moons.

I was wary of wearing it out. I kept it hidden in my closet for a week. Maybe I feared that it wouldn’t keep me warm enough throughout the increasingly colder days of Iowa in winter. Maybe I didn’t want to expose it to the world in fear that other people might notice its unique beauty and take it away from me; what if the person who owned this coat before me saw me walking around wearing it and, realizing they’ve made a horrible mistake by throwing it away, demanded they take it back? Or maybe I was afraid of the smell. Yes, the smell.

Because as anyone who shops at Goodwill knows, there is a distinct old smell that lingers in every knitted sweater and baggy pair of mom jeans.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the smell comes from living in the backs of closets, the same place where people shove their problems under shoeboxes and cram their skeletons into stained dresses, before they dig it all back up again, throw it all in a garbage bag, and then thrust it into the hands of the unsuspecting Goodwill employees to hang them on racks for shoppers to find and take those ghostly memories that were not theirs home with them. And my beloved coat had that smell. Granted, I wasn’t sure if the smell I picked up was from the skeletons or from the fact that it was old leather. Very old leather.

A week had passed and I had done nothing but shove my coat into the back of another closet with a different family of skeletons and a grab-bag of problems, rather than giving it the love and attention it deserved. So one day while getting ready for class I decided to wear my coat out for the first time.

I picked it up off the hanger and ran my fingers over the material tenderly, admiring the print as the suns and moons with their old faces stared off in their own reverie. The tag at the lapel said it was made in Korea by the General Clothing Company LTD, a clothing brand that can only be found on Poshmark and eBay now. I searched for the tag that would tell me how I could wash it because what if people noticed the smell of the coat and thought I was the one emitting the odor of secrets and unresolved trauma? I found the desired tag I was looking for and in doing so, discovered something even more remarkable.

OUT SHELL: 100% GENUINE LEATHER LINING: 100% POLYESTER I suddenly found myself holding it more delicately. I had never encountered anything made of genuine leather before in my life and suddenly I was holding an entire coat that was made from nothing but. I held it the way I would hold a child: awkwardly and uncomfortably and in fear that it would squirm out of my hands at any moment. How was I supposed to hold something this precious? How could I just shove it in the back of a closet for so long?

How could someone just leave it on the racks of Goodwill when it should be kept safe and untouched.

I called my mom. She answered on the third ring.

“Hi sweetie.” justfemmeanddandy.com

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 97

“Hi mom. So, I have a question for you…”

I explained to her that I found a coat. A beautiful, magnificent coat. But it smelled. It smelled like Goodwill. She laughed, because she knew exactly what I was talking about; my mother is no stranger to stuffing problems in garbage bags. As I was speaking I thought of how many years my coat must have seen come and go. After hearing it was made of genuine leather, she told that I definitely shouldn’t wash it in my washing machine. She suggested that when I come home for Thanksgiving I bring it with me and take it to dad’s dry cleaner.

They were good friends, dad trusted him, he hung out there for a half an hour every Saturday morning to chat while he was picking up his church pants. Before hanging up, I blurted out the last of my thoughts on the subject.

“How could anyone just throw it away?” I asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie. I can’t wait to see just how amazing it really is.”

“Yes, it’s fantastic. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And it only took me about five minutes after that conversation ended that I didn’t want to wash the coat. I didn’t even want anyone else touching it.

I imagined the story and the history that was woven into every stitch, the ghosts of past wearers I held hands with through time when I stuffed my hands in the coat’s pockets. It wasn’t just a coat to me anymore, it was a collage of people who had worn this coat before and had lived their lives in it, saw the same beauty in it as I did. Who knows how many people left their mark on this coat. How many lives has this coat lived? How many nights has this coat spent with its arms wrapped around another to shelter them from the cold that will inevitably weigh us all down? How many owners has it seen come and go and where in the world have they traveled together? The mountains and oceans it carried were telling of its long life. I felt the past and the present converging into one, and I readily standing in the center.

I didn’t want anyone to touch it.

Don’t get rid of the perfume or cologne that’s in its pores, don’t fade the fabric of the suns and moons that have seen countless faces before mine press their world against their back, don’t dust out the skeletons. This is my coat, my treasure. A treasure that someone stuffed in a garbage bag for me to find on the racks in between faux fur and pilled sweaters.

Someone had lived their life and done all the living they could do in this coat and didn’t throw it away but gave it away to another soul who would live their own life in it and make their own mark and tread across their own world. And that soul was me.

And perhaps one day I will realize that I’ve told my story in this beautiful old coat, I’ve made my mark on it and I will pass it on like a legacy to the next person who will create their own mark, live their own lives in it and carry the entirety of the world on their back with the suns and moons as their guide and the starry compass leading the way.

But for now, this coat belongs to me. And I have so many more stories that need to be told.

justfemmeanddandy.com

solemates

untitled (2) beyza durmas

volume 3: SUSTAIN • 101

These Boots Were Made For Who? amanda nevius

I fell in love with Fluevogs the first time I saw an ad. The bright neons, soles of ridiculous sizes, and oversized buckles all reminded me of the shoes the Whos in the Jim Carrey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas wore. Memories of my family of origin laughing at the Whos’ ridiculous clothes ran through my mind, so I assumed they’d be a cheap thing few wanted. But I quickly discovered they were high end and outside of my price range.

Moving to the city on my own opened up a whole new world of thrift shopping. Here, on-season, high end clothes actually appear. All I was ever able to find in my rural home state–1980s—were JCPenney clothes from someone cleaning out their basement. When I discovered that the city’s thrift stores also had a high rate of turnover, I began making regular once-a-month visits.

The thrift store employee who organized the store the day I met my boots knew what they had, because they were not ostracized to the shoe section. No, they’d placed them conspicuously on top of a clothing rack that happened to be at my eye level. My heart fluttered the instant I saw them. I hoped they were Fluevogs, although I suspected they had to be knock-offs. These were the sort of work boots a 1960s scifi movie would costume their skyscraper builders with. They weren’t black or brown but bright turquoise with matching laces and blue soles. It was a turquoise that I felt like I’d never seen in the natural world but that also, somehow, felt like an external version of my soul.

I barely breathed as I darted to the clothing rack, reaching for them before I even fully arrived. When I pulled them down, marveling at the smooth leather, I saw they were real Fluevogs—from the DDFT pull tabs to the Fluevog name on the bright soles. I pulled the tongue forward to inspect the sizing, expecting my usual poor luck of a pair not quite my size.

But—miracle of miracles—these were my exact size.

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102 • just femme & dandy

I inspected them more closely. The turquoise of the upper was actually mixed with white in a mock lace pattern. I don’t usually like lace because it’s so itchy, but seeing it as a pattern on something so perfectly smooth let me see the beauty in lace for the first time. But I also noticed they were barely worn. A boon, right? Well, I assumed their near mint condition would warrant only a minor price reduction from the usual hundreds. I sought out the price tag, and my jaw dropped open. They were marked at just $50. It felt like a sign from God. These boots were mine.

It was the first pair of shoes that I bought because I loved them, and not to fit an external purpose. They weren’t a pair of black flats for job interviews. They weren’t the cheapest pair of running shoes for my workouts. There was no reason for buying these beyond the fact that it felt like a part of my own soul hailed me from them. I brought them home and immediately wore them the next day. Unlike any other pair of shoes I’d ever owned, these didn’t require a few days of playing chicken with potential blisters forming on your feet until you and the shoes get used to each other. They enveloped my feet in blissful comfort from day one. I found myself strutting down the street. They screamed, “I am here! I am me!”

I immediately started wearing them daily. It wasn’t until I did so that I had any conception that I was making some sort of queer fashion statement. I’m a bisexual cis woman, and, when I bought the boots I was early in my relationship with my now-husband. I think of myself as femme if pressed, but, deep down I’m not sure how much I really live up to the name. I went to Sephora once in my twenties to buy makeup for my wedding that I never used up before it expired. I routinely forget to put in earrings. I don’t “do” my hair. I shave so infrequently that I constantly have to push off the subscription renewal for my Billie razor head replacements. But even so, somehow, I hadn’t realized how others coded me as straight.

Until I started wearing my Fluevogs. justfemmeanddandy.com

104 • just femme & dandy

It was subtle, but I could see people seeing the queerness in me. Whether it was other queer people I didn’t know coming up to me with complements or cis straight people saying things like “Really? Those shoes with that dress?” or giving a quizzical eyebrow or look that said “Wow, I can’t believe you’re wearing those.” But actually neither scenario really mattered to me. After a couple of months, I realized that I loved the boots and didn’t care what anyone else thought of them. If I was going someplace where I couldn’t wear these boots, then it likely wasn’t someplace I wanted to be anyway. I’d been holding myself back from buying the fashions I wanted to wear. Sometimes because of the cost. Sometimes because I wasn’t sure where I could wear them. But after these boots, I started buying and wearing what I wanted to. Because I realized how much happier my whole day was when I was true to myself, even if other people didn’t like it.

The first thing to wear out was the laces. I couldn’t find blue ones, so I bought black replacements. The boots were still beautiful to me, and I kept wearing them until the soles wore out. Then I discovered I could get them resoled at Fluevog. When I stepped inside the store for the first time, my precious boots in a bag rather than on my feet, I discovered how rare they are. The clerk told me they’re a special edition. She was floored that I got them for $50 at a thrift store never worn. But I also found out the rareness meant the blue soles were hard to come by. She kindly sent an email to all the Fluevog stores in the entire nation pursuing them. Then I got the call. One store had them and sent them to my store. I was able to drop off my boots to get resoled—in blue.

Picking up my resoled boots was one of the last things I did out and about at the tipping edge of the start of the pandemic. When there were some rumblings in the news about a virus, and there were questions about whether or not our city should host a planned conference. I never would have imagined this would be one of the last errands I’d run before being sent to work from home. Then being asked to stay home as much as possible. And I’ve worn them every day on my mental health walks around the neighborhood throughout the whole pandemic. From the early days, when I joked light-heartedly to friends about how my husband was the only person I’d let within six feet of me. To this New Year’s Day when I snapped a photo of my feet surrounded by confetti, my husband, not well enough to walk with me, shocked that this somehow managed to be the hardest New Year’s of the pandemic yet.

But even surrounded by the sparkling confetti, to me my boots still manage to be the brightest thing in the picture. The bright blue cheering me up and reminding me I’m still here, still unapologetically me on even the darkest of days.�

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FROM THE GROUND UP vicki johnson

I got my first pair of Doc Martens in London in 1985. It was my junior year of college and even then I knew this would be a lasting relationship. I had a pair for all the years that followed. The familiar heft of the thick soles and the ritual lacing up of my boots carried me through new places, scary times, late nights, and a low budget. They gave my politics gravitas, and to my body they lent gravity. With those boots on my feet, I felt grounded and powerful.

As long as I had a pair of Docs and a weekly thrift store visit to change up my wardrobe, I was good to go.

Years later, after decades of being vegetarian, I went fully vegan. I stopped wearing leather and wool and other animal products. My curated collection of boots and belts felt sad and off-putting. Sad because of what I now recognized as animal parts, but also because they represented years of my life, searching and finding just the right things that now left me uncomfortable. I donated the lot and went looking for replacements. By then I was older and my priorities were shifting. I went through a series of accidentally vegan (read: cheap) boots here and there. They weren’t comfortable or long-lasting. Nor was my desire to think too much about it. I was busy. I had become a parent, and beginning with my pregnancy, I wore slides and Crocs and flip flops and sneakers, because who cares and who has time, am I right? I watched my kid grow until she asked for her own Doc Martens and for trips to the thrift store so she could shop. I said sure as I laced up my worn-out sneakers and wondered what had happened to me.

Fast forward to 2022, last week in fact: I open the singular box with the flip top and the black and gold lettering. I pull back the paper and lift out a heavy Dr. Martens 101 Felix Ankle Boot. I admire the gold stitching paced around the edges, the ridges in the thick translucent sole, the shiny black boot-ness of it all. I look for the gold pull tab on the back, differentiating it from a regular DM, and for the words “suitable for vegans” printed inside. Why put off the inevitable, I had asked myself a week or so earlier. Don’t wait. Get the shoes you love. Allow yourself an assist in this hard world. Remember your first love. Get grounded again. justfemmeanddandy.com

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abby macaluso when i got doc martens for christmas i was only thirteen it wouldn’t be for a few more years until i’d realize what they’d mean to me when i got older, i bought a pair of wide-leg jeans and a lavender sweater vest i put on my docs, i felt like myself in that i wore them with flare pants and frilly blouses, skater skirts and stockings they were a staple of my wardrobe i stood taller in those boots i’m so glad i got doc martens for christmas a pair of shoes that carried me to my soul.

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The Space Inside a Shoebox jesse galea

“We already got you measured,” Mum says, tying my shoelaces. “These are your size.”

My feet are aching inside white sneakers, toes squished together. They’re too small, but Mum isn’t listening. She’s frazzled, anxious that I won’t get to school on time for the athletics carnival, so I won’t race the fifteen hundred metres, so I won’t qualify for interschool, so I won’t get into state championships, so I won’t be something to be proud of.

“I can’t run in these,” I say, trying to wriggle my toes. “My feet are suffocating.”

She scoffs, tugging the laces into a taut double-knot and motioning for me to give her my other foot. She doesn’t wait for me to move before she grabs my ankle and pulls it towards her, yanking the laces tight.

Mum wouldn’t let me wear my old running shoes. She says I grew out of them, but I say I wore them in. They fit when I first got them, but I’d changed shoe size since then and my toes rubbed twin holes in the sides as I grew. She said the holes meant they didn’t fit, but I could run in them and that’s all that mattered.

“These are exactly your size,” she repeats. “Besides, they’re the biggest ones they sell here.”

I don’t know why she isn’t looking at the other half of the store to find bigger shoes, but it’s not my place to question it; she’s paying for them.

Besides, it’s how it’s always been. * When I was a kid, my favourite shoes were a pair of off-white high-top Converse. I wore them every day, until they were held together with disintegrating canvas and hope.

Once I got over my fear of getting them dirty, I started drawing on them. I covered them in permanent marker doodles and pen scribbles, inside and out. Under the tongue I confessed my crushes and admitted my fears, on the sides I wrote lyrics to my favourite songs, justfemmeanddandy.com

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and on the underside of the sole I drew galaxies to run atop the stars.

Every few weeks, I’d wipe the toe caps clean before covering them in new designs and new words and new dreams.

I cried when I started puberty, mostly for reasons I didn’t understand, but also because I outgrew my shoes. I tried to keep them in my bedroom anyway, a reminder of something too big for me to know how to articulate, but they vanished the next time Mum cleaned my room. * I’m sitting on the floor by the door, my back against the wall. My feet started hurting hours ago. Once I see someone else take their shoes off, I kick off my heels and fling them towards the corner of Jacob’s bedroom.

The room is hazy around me, voices melting into incoherent vibrations in the air. I scan the room to see four vaguely familiar blurred faces. There are three people on the bed. I know their faces but not their names. Jacob’s work friends, I think.

Jacob is next to me on the floor. He’s not as drunk as I am, since he’s an over-anxious host constantly making sure everyone’s having a good time. I don’t know what sort of time I’m having.

I’m picking at the carpet beneath my hands when I notice a pair of cherry red Doc Martens beside the bed. Their surface is shining, calling to me. I try to sit up to reach for them, but the world tilts and I sit back again.

“You good?” Jacob asks.

I nod. The world keeps spinning. Or maybe it’s my head.

“Are they yours?” I ask, gesturing towards the Docs with one boneless arm. I don’t wait for him to answer before I ask, “can I wear them?”

I watch his mouth form the shape of a yes and reach for them again. The world dips and spins, but Jacob steadies me.

Up close, the shoes are gorgeous. They’re everything I want to be. They stand out, not pristine but still bold, and will take whatever gets thrown their way without letting it damage them beyond repair. If anything, their damage gives them character. The scratches, the scuffs, the slight wear on the leather. Evidence of life.

I pull them on and clumsily tie the laces. There’s something odd I can’t place, like something is missing.

“They fit?” Jacob asks.

Or like something isn’t missing.

My feet, conditioned to curl my toes before shoving them into too-small shoes, aren’t in pain. In the rush of trying on Jacob’s shoes, it didn’t occur to me to shrink myself down.

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“They fit perfectly,” I say. * I’ve never been good at fashion. I don’t have a sense of what looks good and what my friends think is cool, so I try to fake it. It works until it doesn’t. Now, looking at the reflection in the dark window of the train heading into town, it doesn’t work.

Besides Jacob, my friendship group consists of myself and four girls. Four other girls, I mean. And women, I mean, not girls; we’re adults now. We’re women.

A shudder of discomfort runs through me after referring to myself as a woman. I chastise myself for being a bad feminist. As a woman—there it is again, that unsettling wrongness—I get infantilised often enough, I don’t need to be doing it to myself.

Sandwiched between my friends on this otherwise empty train, I feel out of place. Even after consulting the group chat for outfit advice earlier, I feel like I’m wearing a costume. I’m not dressed that differently to them, and I’m wearing the same black heeled boots as Emma, but it feels different somehow.

She’s at ease. I’m unbalanced. * The doctor prods my broken foot and asks if it hurts. It does.

He prods my big toe and asks if it hurts. It does.

He prods each of my swollen toes and asks if it hurts. It does.

He comments on my curled-in toes. I tell him it’s because I wore too-small shoes throughout my adolescence.

He asks if there’s any possibility I could be pregnant. I say no.

He tells me to decrease anxiety and stress and my feet will get better.

I tell him my foot is broken. He tells me about birth control. * Unsurprisingly, months of isolation from friends and loved ones changes the way you see yourself. It also strengthens the allure of online shopping to feed that growing chasm beneath your chest.

I stop having friends around to compare myself to. I learn how to exist within my skin and occupy every inch of my body. My toes uncurl, my shoulders straighten, my chin rises. I let my leg hair grow out. I run my fingers through it, the coarse texture not repelling me but instead filling me with a sense of being whole. It’s an unfamiliar sensation.

I stop filtering exclusively for men’s shoes or women’s shoes in my online searches, instead prioritising size and style over labels. I stop listening to brands and adhering to expectations. I stop looking for neat and easy answers. I unequivocally stop giving a fuck.

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When it’s hard, I fake it. It’s often hard.

A brand-new pair of cherry red Docs arrive at my door. I fantasised about changing into the perfect outfit before they arrived so my first time wearing them would feel powerful, but I don’t. I’m too impatient. It feels powerful anyway.

The pain of wearing them in pales in comparison to the euphoria radiating through me as I walk around my apartment. The pain lessens with each tentative step until I forget to count my steps at all. I stop expecting pain.

I draw galaxies beneath the soles.

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triple threads

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jesse smith IM FEELIN THIS after Måneskin / Damiano David ladylike a colleague asked of me handing over a bagful of size 8s i don’t think that black suits you like this does baby pale chiffon waterfall of air softly squeezing into skin the sleeves lace delicate webbing me chiffon fraying hairs straining under its faint wrap the chill print ing me between its pattern & through this barely veil: fem gems kissed to fem fabric see, he swung his 5-inch heel over the mic tipping champagne in his counter-act & my lip twitched with his grin hands glitter ing up our chest chorus playing its grip at my throat ’s soft gendered skin this is gendered heavily neither voice scratching he trickles to my fingers tips letting in tips presenting me at the wrist blue & peach-webbed i catch siamo fuori di testa ma diversi da loro mouth him into this fit slick my hand through my hair tongue hangin g hips locked forward scribble the sleeves up tucked at the waist & buffing over this heave material into our ribs & tip throat open ed claw my tonsils -off/key- fly in my throat donking the seeable notes under the tongue hitting nonnote surely voice tugging twice for the octave upcough it up fall child into the breast-film he grinds revving against my diaphragm i slip crossing over my chest laced-arms kissing them tog

IM FEELIN THIS refers to Damiano David – singer of Eurovision 2021 winning band Måneskin: the 5-inch heel refers to the band’s Eurovision interview, the italicised Italian lyrics from their winning song “Zitti e Buoni.” “tips” is inspired by Rebecca Goss’ titular poem “Girl” (2019) which theorises feminine lineage as “how my mother […] would tip my head / towards the world” (9). justfemmeanddandy.com

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Evolving Human Nature through Fabric and Bodies: a conversation with Ezio Costa interviewed by kirin khan

I connected with Ezio Costa through a mutual friend. As I looked through photographs of his work on Instagram (@ezio_costa_ ) I was struck by his juxtapositions - glitter and color surrounded by darkness and cement, models transformed into creatures through almost skeletal structures within garments that push the contours of the body to extremes, crossing gender norms but also moving beyond them towards something else entirely. Something strange and striking. Something, in its essence, truly queer.

We spoke over the phone on a sunny Friday evening. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Kirin Khan: What’s your thesis about? And before I get too far into this, what pronouns do you use?

Ezio Costa: He/him, but I personally like to play more on the genderfuck side of things, so I use he/him/she/her - for me it’s never a fixed thing. I’m working around questions that arise during my studies in fashion, and how plural masculinities from (R.W.) Connell’s theory are influencing the evolution of fashion, but also how fashion is influencing the evolution of masculinities.

KK: That’s fascinating. What drew you to fashion, how did you end up in this academic and industry space?

EC: That’s always a weird question for me because I wanted to do this since I was seven. I grew up in an environment that was not fashion-oriented at all. At the time, I was living on a boat with my parents. We were living in the south hemisphere so our clothes were just whatever was not too warm. And neither of my parents are extremely fashion-oriented. My mom is justfemmeanddandy.com

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more visual art oriented. So I don’t really know why I got into it - probably because I was absolutely fascinated by the movie Chicago as a kid, it probably sparked something in me in terms of costumes and dances.

KK: The drama.

EC: Exactly! Apart from this, I don’t really have an answer. It’s more that I’ve always wanted to do this, I’ve been sticking to it since I was a kid. The only time I nearly changed my mind was in high school for a time period where I was contemplating doing direction for movies. I was studying cinema in high school and was like, maybe there’s something there. But in the end, fashion always felt right somehow.

KK: That’s a good sign that it’s your calling, when it just clicks.

EC: Exactly. Especially when it’s present in your life for so long. I think I turned that (unknowing) into a sort of strength. I got into to fashion without looking at what was happening in the fashion industry. I was not drawn by the industry, the dazzle of it or wanting to be a star designer, dressing stars, these kinds of things. I just started drawing dresses and kind of kept on going. My idol from when I was a kid was (Christian) LaCroix, I was absolutely fascinated by what he was doing. I think until I started studying fashion I had a very, very small knowledge of contemporary fashion. I was really into high fashion from the early 2000s obviously, McQueen, LaCroix, Galliano, all very crazy, very artistic. But I was never one of those kids looking through fashion magazines or Vogue for fashion weeks, and I still don’t really do it, weirdly.

KK: That’s really interesting. So what are you influences? What do you look to?

EC: I look to artists, mostly. I look at illustrations, photography, etc. In general, when I build up a project, I just have this vague idea around one piece of art or one artist that I like, the visuals, and then I’ll just gather images around, do this huge mounting board and then reshape everything.

KK: Are there particular artists that have been drawing your attention lately?

EC: In these last years, I’ve been really drawn to the work of Matt Lambert or Jason Ebeyer, again linked to masculinities and sexualities. You’ve probably seen my second year collection on Instagram, it was really centered around Ren Hang and Matt Lambert. Edward Burden have also been very present in my references. More recently, I really wanted to do a project centered around Italian futurism. There’s a lot to do around this idea of movements and still captures. I also really like details.

KK: What about these artists appeals to you or inspires you?

EC: Most of the time, it’s a mix between something very aesthetic, and something very weird.

KK: I love that.

EC: Most of them have this sort of double edge, where what they’re producing is very beautiful, but at the same time, it would be disturbing for people. They often go for sexualities, naked people, gay sex, proper porn. Sexuality and gender are very present in my

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work, especially in my bachelor’s (degree program), I worked around my own experiences and my own relation to gender growing up.

KK: Tell me more about the role gender plays in your work.

EC: When I started studying in France, like a lot of kids, I wanted to do crazy women’s wear.

I was completely repelled by menswear, what people were wearing and what fashion had to offer. I arrived at the academy and at some point realized that actually, it was more interesting for me to work on men because I could use my personal experiences and kind of create what I would like to see and wear. There was way more room. So I started my main collection in my second year to work around gay identity in teenagers—how you could go into a deep depression because you don’t feel accepted, but at the same time, you’re supposed to feel very joyful. It’s this kind of mix of things, so (the work) was really about construction. In my third year, I was working on bears, the opposite. When I was growing up, as a teenager, the whole thing for gays was to be a twink, like everybody had to be a twink.

KK: I remember this.

EC: You had to have no hair, be very thin, it was impossible. So I was like okay, we’ll try, and I was like a little chubby teenager, I mean, a full chubby teenager, so I was really not fitting on that part. I was trying very hard and at some point I was like, let’s not. Let’s try to accept who you are, even though you’re not happy with everything, be good, at least, with everything. I’m not really part of the people that say you should just deal with what you have, and love what you have. There’s always room for changes and to try to be who you actually want to be. But in the meantime, you need to be able to satisfy yourself, so it doesn’t ruin you psychologically.

KK: Right, like it can be really destructive to take a critical lens and turn it on yourself, versus working towards a self transformation that is more embodied.

EC: Absolutely. Which is why in my third year, I worked on bears, and the whole idea of transforming your body into a bear. How on the opposite hand, we’d have twink models, and I would imagine they wouldn’t be happy being twinks, so they could change parts and change their bodies through fashion.

KK: When you shifted towards bears, was that gearing the fashion or more about playing with the male body?

EC: You can see it in the High Bear Nation collection video. Before, I used to use clothes to shape the body in terms of negation, trying to cinch and reduce and reshape into a proper body—think masculine, feminine, corsets, etc. But third year, I was like, I’m just gonna add. I just wanted to add on top.

KK: Interesting. So bears were like a physical representation of excess.

EC: Exactly. But it was also the whole idea between humans and animals, I tried to play on that double notion, using a lot of transparent materials in that collection. The whole idea was to completely reshape the body into something else but still be able to see what lied underneath. It was clothes reshaping the body but still letting the body through to have this double lecture, a bit of everything. One of the main parts was negating the shoulders for justfemmeanddandy.com

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example, because if you look at an animal, most of the time it’s the head and shoulders and back just one in front of the other in a row. Something I like to say about my work as well is that I try to see the clothes as the body and the body as the soul. So we are reshifting that body-soul connection, where your body becomes an embodiment of what you are, and then clothes are just what you are presenting, your shell around you.

KK: I love that. Tell me about your process. You mentioned you pull a bunch of images together. Is that like, mood boards?

EC: Yeah. For example, when I am near the end of a collection, and am preparing the next one—I’ve been doing this every year for school, to where it’s not thinking anymore and it’s just executing. So I’ll go on Pinterest for example, just gathering 500-600 images throughout the summer. A big random thing. And then as a starting point, I will make different mood boards around themes and systems. For me, it’s always about trying to develop a sort of language.

KK: Tell me more about that.

EC: So, if you see my Master Collection, it was based on addiction, drugs, psychedelic journeys, losing yourself, out of the body. So I had one or two pages about body modification and double vision, two pages about chemical drugs, scientific approach to colors, microscopic germs, I had a very joyful part about drugs—lots of patterns, lots of colors, kids imagery— and then there had to be the opposite of that, the most disturbing parts of hallucinations, for example. I pulled all this stuff together and it creates a sort of story. A lot of people will redo collages, they’ll do their own drawings, their own prints, but for me most of the time, this is enough and I can just navigate through everything. So if I go under hallucinations, I have my reference pictures and then I can extract systems from them. For example, I’ve been working with getting out of your body, and then I know it’s going to be a multiplication of fabrics or two pants on top of each other. Then I have this visual language, what I want to say, which is the principle of how to use the fabric and the right shapes—it’s gonna be bounding, it’s gonna be extending, it’s gonna be wrapping around—once I have that it’s something I can just dispatch on all my looks and just play around with it. This allows me to make something balanced.

KK: I noticed in some of your more recent photos that you use masks a lot, or covering the face. Tell me about that.

EC: Always. It actually started in my second year, because I was working a lot around the body and how you would reshape it. Connecting back to what I was saying earlier, if the body becomes the soul and the clothes become the body, if I leave the heads out of the equation, it feels like something is missing. I feel like I’ve not reached the end of what I wanted to say. It’s a natural thing where if I don’t make a mask I feel my look is not complete, it would lessen the intention of the rest of the silhouette. It would lose meaning somehow.

KK: So to complete the transformation of the body through your art, you have to include the face.

EC: Exactly. It’s really about taking everything into account. Most of the time I’m even justfemmeanddandy.com

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covering the hands in one way or another. If I leave body parts out, especially arms or legs, or the set of hands, it’s because most of the torso is visible, for example, already. I don’t like to comply with what clothes are supposed to be, especially because all of this is schoolwork—I don’t have the imperative of selling or marketing. So I decided to go completely to the end, to what I really want to do. Things like leaving the head out, or having sleeves end above the hand so it’s practical, or the pants can’t be too wide, otherwise we cannot move, etc., are restrictions I don’t have to impose on myself yet. It’s nice for me to be able to use the full canvas of the body in the end, to express myself.

KK: That makes sense. I’ve seen runway shows where people will wear bodysuits that cover the head and face, but it’s still not usually part of the piece itself, to your point, because there is still a selling or marketing imperative. Whereas in your work, the depersonalization transforms it from like, “this is a person wearing something” to “this is something.”

EC: Exactly. I always say I’m doing monsters. My little creatures after each other.

KK: I love that expression. You were talking about plural masculinities earlier, how does that figure into your work?

EC: I’m still implementing the idea of feminine and masculine extremes—taking hyper masculinities and hyper femininities and sticking them together instead of finding middle ground. This is how you create over-the-top as well. It creates a sort of tension that works, like in painting where you use red and green, the colors fight and arrange themselves to create something interesting. Whereas I often feel when I see works trying to do the “in between” or middle ground, “so we’re gonna go a bit more feminine but not too much”—I tend to see that as a lack of commitment. It hides the extreme. So that’s why I like just switching and playing with those codes. For example, last year I used a lot of military references. I made this one jumpsuit that’s very based on menswear with pockets and military gathering at the bottom, but I made it in a full-on flower print with pink leopard lace everywhere, and balloon sleeves.

That’s how I like to play with things, taking something very masculine in shape and slapping ultra feminine color and prints on top of it or doing the opposite.

KK: When I looked at recent photos of the X-trasy collection, the clothing itself was very bright, but the imagery was very dark.

EC: I always like to use bright colors, it also keeps it fun somehow. That collection started with Dumbo and The Pink Elephant Parade—that very colorful and disturbing imagery. I was always describing the collection as “Dumbo and the Satyricon from Fellini had a baby in Berghain.”

KK: Nice.

EC: So that was a bit of the mood. When it came to the presentations, I wanted to keep a rough punk aesthetic, since the feminine aspects of the silhouettes might have been too strong in a nice little shoot with a white background. So I found this place that is actually a club that was closed during COVID so we could literally have the entire club room for a day. It was fantastic. We made all the pictures with two flash, no lights, no arrangements. I wanted justfemmeanddandy.com

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something hard, dirty, very masculine in a way, it helped to blur things too, where you couldn’t tell where the top started, the bottom started.

KK: I really liked the dark. It adds a different feel. It makes it a bit like what you were talking about with drug use, rave culture, dressing loud, fun and all of that, but then you’re using drugs and it can get dark. The juxtaposition of what we’re wearing and how we feel inside. And your use of light really emphasizes that.

EC: I was thinking a lot as well about when you’re clubbing and at the end of the night they put the lights on. And you’re in your zone, you’re in a good mood, everything is beautiful in your head. You’re doing your trip with your friends, the music, and then suddenly you have this blunt realization of what’s happening, how dirty the room is, how dirty everyone around you is. I wanted to capture that about drugs, how it can be really nice and suddenly turn very frightening.

KK: One of the things about being interested in fashion is that even within the arts it can be viewed as trivial or superficial. Art in general can be dismissed, especially when there’s war, injustice, pandemics. What would you say to people who view art as trivial or not as important right now?

EC: I think they are right. It’s weird to say but if I elaborate a bit—they’re right. When you’re in times of crisis, like we have with Ukraine, and you put yourself next to it, we’re doing insignificant things. We’re not needed. Maybe we can raise money, but paintings are not going to make things better in the immediate. It’s not food, it’s not going to win battles. It’s not going to answer very concrete problems. I think it can still be important, because it takes the weight of cultural perspective, it can bring awareness and try to make people change their minds.

Art can make society evolve with it. It’s indispensable to societies in general. But in the face of atrocities, I feel very useless and powerless against all of this.

KK: What do you think then is the value, the role of aesthetics or even pleasure in our lives? In the face of mass human suffering.

EC: At least in my life, it always took the role of inspiration. It showed me what life can be, how far you can take things, how emotion can play into your life. It’s about aspiration, something I’ve always loved to do and always wanted to do. Inspiration is really important to me. When I look at a painting, I want to paint. I listen to music, I want to make music. For me that is where art is interesting, it can unblock situations for you, whether it’s aesthetic or not aesthetic, process-oriented or whatever, it unlocks a sort of human nature in all of this.�

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NonBinary Identity Through Hanbok yoonmi kim

I was taking an anthropology class with another person who was nonbinary. At the time I already knew I was aro spec and ace spec, but still getting to grips with it. I casually mentioned to them that I really didn’t get “gender” as a rigid binary and they lit up and said, “Exactly! That’s how I feel.”

This was before COVID. Before this conversation, I had desperately tried to double down on my femininity, but I found it exhausting. People around me kept saying I wasn’t feminine enough, didn’t try hard to fit this ideal. And the conversations women had about how to be a woman seemed so alien to me.

In the silence of COVID, there was a freedom that I could do as I wanted with my clothing and my expression I had not had. Without the pressures of society, I found myself fluxing and being fluid about my gender. There were days I could and wanted to wear feminine makeup, but other days where the thought was atrocious. And I kept wriggling in and out of skirts during the day, staring at why I was doing that. I tried so hard to blame Korea, my adoption, my upbringing, and say to myself that I was a Tom girl, but that conversation with my classmate kept ringing in my ears and other memories from my childhood that confirmed it.

I was also exploring my Koreanness, and gradually over the last few years, I’d been making hanbok and wearing them in public more and more. They were so comfy, and got rid of some of the feeling of being constantly stared at for the wrong reasons. They became my expression, my solidarity, but I wanted hanbok to also reflect that feeling of what I felt inside.

I wanted to know if I could make it into a masterpiece of nonbinary art.

So first, for those who don’t know, the traditional hanbok is made of several pieces.

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Those are: Paji: The pants. These are baggy pants that were traditionally tied at the hip. They could be made of ramie, cotton, or silk.

Chima: This is the skirt portion worn by women and male musin during Korean shamanistic ceremonies. Traditionally it is a wrap skirt overlapping in the back. The overlap originally was put there to make it easier to go to the bathroom and to go horse riding.

Since Koreans rarely ever ride horses, it’s retained in some versions merely for the tradition.

The modernized version is sewed up, but is marked by being tied in a similar fashion to the traditional chima.

Jeogori: This is the top. The Jeogori is different for men and women. The men’s one is longer. And the Joseon version of the woman’s after Mid-Joseon is shorter. But they used to be the same no matter what the sex.

Sokpaji: Traditionally under the chima for women, which means loosely bloomers.

(There might be several layers for yangban (Nobility) women).

Through a lot of research, I found that older hanbok were more genderfluid. Many of the pieces were worn equally by men and women. In fact, many musin, or Korean shamans, purposefully wore androgynous hanbok. There are hanbok redesigns that fit contemporary androgynous ideals, or tried to make them more business-like. But none of them acknowledge genderfluidity or gender flux. Korea was still behind on re-updating ideas of gender and restoring some of the gender flexibility it had before Joseon.

I thought hard about it and found a way to make the whole outfit flexible so it could have any gender expression I wanted and still express my heart as a Korean. I did betray the original Korean design by adding pockets 80% larger than a man’s pockets.

The two keys I focused on was the ability to layer different gendered clothes together and pockets. I handsewed without a sewing machine all of the pieces and patterned loosely from traditional patterns.

With each look, one can flux and make fluid anything . . . the skirt can be removed, covered, moved up or down.

The full length chima can be used or taken off.

With multiple jeogori both masculine and feminine types, items can be added or removed throughout the day. What gender the wearer is feeling can be expressed through layering and easy removal of items without compromising the design.

And lastly, the pockets which are by design 80% larger than a man’s to get revenge on men shrinking pockets for everyone else, I hid between the seams of many of the items.

Convenient, but not visible. And on and in everything. Because if you’re going to make custom clothes, include pockets. The only item I did not add it to was the shortened Jeogori.

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The white earrings, the fan, the Vans shoes which express nonbinary identity through their colors and the gat itself were not made by me. However, everything else was either made by me from scratch or modified, such as the hairpins.

I found that a lot of my dysphoria, about my body, my image, and self was managed by simply wearing hanbok of different types and allowing myself to flux and be fluid in whatever way I pleased. It was easy to have a male or female or in-between silhouette. Because hanbok, by nature, are naturally loose fitting, any self-consciousness about outside stares I had melted away. I think that one can also reimagine clothes from history by thinking about layering, or ones own ethnicity to do the same. A little imagination, layering, revenge on small pockets and patience can make it work.�

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About the Contributors SG Huerta is a Chicane writer from Dallas. They are the author of the chapbook The Things We Bring with Us: Travel Poems (Headmistress Press, 2021), and their work has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Infrarrealista Review, Variant Lit, and elsewhere. They live in Texas with their partner and two cats. Find them at sghuertawriting.com or on Twitter @sg_poetry.

Felix III is a Queer, Mexican-American composer, musician, and artist based in Brooklyn.

Their electronic dance project, Felix III, are tales of unlearning the damage caused by poverty, homophobia, higher education and heartbreak. And the great sadness of not living up to the American Dream that we are conditioned to believe in as our ultimate goal - all to a beat.

Check out his latest music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnlQ06vmrcc.

Wren Awry is a food writer, editor, and archivist-in-training. An anthology they edited, Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid, is forthcoming from PM Press in 2023. You can read more of their work at www.wrenawrywrites.com.

Tyler Espinoza is a portrait, food, and fashion photographer based in Tucson, AZ. You can find more of his work at www.tylerespinozaphoto.com. He really loves his cat.

Zachary Paugh is accustomed to most climates, having grown up in Goodyear, Arizona and graduating with a Bachelors of Arts in Theatre from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.

He joined the Houston Ballet in 2021 after working at both Zarkana and KÀ by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, Nevada from 2016 - 2020. At home on the fringes of space, Zach is a creative with a big heart and a hopeful perspective.

Autumn Elizabeth is a writer, scholar, and all-around outlaw. They have an MA in Literature from Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg and Université Paris Diderot and also studied literature and creative writing with former Missouri Poet Laureate David Clewell at Webster University. They are a founding member and main collaborator of the Alternative Justices Project, Executive Director of the non-profit District Commons, and currently working on expanding their radical family through the birth and stewardship of a tiny human. Their writing has appeared in a variety of publications including: When Women Waken, Cactus Heart, The Rumpus, the Sage LGBTQ Encyclopedia and the Journal of Bisexuality. Additionally, Autumn’s visual/written crossover works have appeared in several exhibitions around the world including the No Time for Time exhibit at the historic Red Victorian in San Francisco and the Post 11/9 exhibit in Chicago. Autumn lives and works on Tongva lands in Los Angeles, CA.

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Liz Jurkiewicz (she/her) is a lifelong Disabled, trans, non binary, queer mom. She graduated from Suffolk University in Boston with a degree in print journalism. She has been working on her autobiography since 2015. Liz writes often about the intersection of Disability and trauma in her life. She lives with her partner of almost 22 years and their child.

Originally from Chicago, Vivien Wise is an artist living in Philadelphia. She received an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies from the Tyler School of Art in 2020, and a BFA in Fibers and Sustainability and Social Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. Vivien is a twin, an avid quilter, bicyclist, and lover of breakfast. You can find her at her day job managing the warehouse at Tuft the World. You can see her work at www.vivienwise.com.

Piper J. Daniels (she, her) is a queer antiracist intersectional feminist fighting the powers that be in Southwest Florida. She is the founder of Epiphany Author Services, a manuscript consultation firm that centers the works of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ writers from inspiration to publication. Her debut essay collection, Ladies Lazarus, won the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award, was longlisted for the PEN Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award For the Art of the Essay, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ nonfiction. Recent work appears in the Texas Review, Essay Daily, and Foglifter, among others. Of all the spirits who dwell on this planet, she loves her dog, Omar Little, the most.

Laurence Hart (she/her) is a bisexual dragon sitting atop a hoard of notebooks in Louisville, KY. When she isn’t writing, she is playing board games. Her work has appeared in Clementine Zine, Folx Gallery, FreezeRay Poetry, Stone Fruit Magazine, and Second Chance Lit. She is the author of Disorders and Dating Apps (Nanny Goat Press, 2021).

JB Bergin (they/them) is a trans nonbinary femme film photographer, musician, and writer based in so-called Cleveland. They shoot and hand develop 35mm and 120mm film. Support them on Patreon at patreon.com/hellojohnbergin.

Shivani Kshirsagar (she/her) is a queer writer based in Hyderabad, India. Her works have found homes in Horse Egg Literary, Hungry Ghost Project, and in The Alipore Post among others. She can be found on Instagram as girlwiththemane, and on Twitter as nakkorebaba. zoë bracken is a dyke New Yorker living in the Hudson Valley with their eyes set out west.

She is a pre-school teacher, farm stand girl, poet, and aspiring ceramicist. Her previous work has been published by Argot Magazine, Boilerplate Magazine, and Process: Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship.

Moriah Katz is a Black/Jewish writer based out of Berkeley, CA. She is the current non-fiction editor at Stellium Literary Magazine, and forever lover of good food. Her work can be found in Stellium Literary Magazine, DeifyCbr.com, Queer26, Black Lawrence Press, and more. She holds a degree in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Becca Fang (she/her) is a Belfast-born, Brighton-reborn lesbian writer with a flare for magenta drenched melancholy. In her time away from being a poet and novelist, she can be found faffing about in the kind of outfits that make old ladies say, “Oh, that’s a bit different.”

Her work has appeared in The 6ress and is due to appear in Bandit fiction.

Kansas THS Bird (any pronouns) is a 21-year-old trans butch lesbian from Australia. They are mentally ill, autistic, and have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). They identify as a punk, and spend my spare time creating zines, art, and sewing. Kansas studies modern history at university and aim to use the knowledge they gain making the future better for queer disabled people, particularly through making museums more ethical and accessible. jd hegarty (she/they) is a poet, an anarchist, and a sunflower living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a loud grey cat and a demon tuxedo cat. jd’s work can be found in Name & None, Crab Orchard Review, Mortar Magazine, 45th Parallel, Inscape and elsewhere. Their first chapbook, On Passing, was published by Red Bird Chapbooks in 2017 and their self-published chapbook of sad gay love poems, the clearest blue, is available for free at jdhegarty.com. They can be found on twitter @YourAuntieJD. Gillian Maurer is a non-binary/trans multimedia artist working with a range of approaches from oil painting to mural work to live performance. The thread connecting all of their work is the exploration of resistance and liberation in the context of community. As a queer/ trans person this comes from lived experience, and as a white/housed/able-bodied person on occupied Anikituwagi (Cherokee) territory, this comes from standing in solidarity, stepping back to listen, and using visual language to celebrate the stories and experiences that other community members are gracious enough to share. Without this community context, the exchange of ideas and action in the work of liberation and creation, or without accountability in mutual support, this work couldn’t exist. With this in mind, Gillian believes strongly in the power of creativity to spark critical discussion, and builds their praxis around bringing form to liberatory ideas and movements through creative collaboration.

Megan McKinley is the Texas Review Press Publicity Fellow and the nonfiction editor for Defunkt Magazine. They were selected to be the 2022 Summer Intern for the National Book Foundation. Their work has been published in Variety Pack and forthcoming in Gutslut Press and just femme & dandy. They are completing their MFA at Sam Houston State University in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing. They currently reside in Huntsville, Texas with their cat. jj rowan (they/them) is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect. Their most recent chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can find them notebooking on Instagram (@stepswritely) and sign up for their periodic newsletter, actual motion, at www.jayjayrowan.com.

Czaerra Galicinao Ucol is a queer Filipino writer from Chicago. A graduate of the Asian/ Pacific/American Studies Program at New York University, their work has appeared in Locked Horn Press, The Offing, Marías at Sampaguitas, and beestung. Their debut poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Sampaguita Press in 2023. They were a nominee for Best New Poets 2021 justfemmeanddandy.com

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and Best of the Net 2021. They are the Programs and Communications Director of Luya, a Chicago-based grassroots poetry organization centering people of color. Find them on Twitter and Instagram @czaerra.

Amanda Nevius (she/her) is a queer lady who likes to share her passion for approachable sustainability and hope for the future through her writing. She currently lives in New England with her husband and their talkative tortie. You may find her online at opinionsofawolf.com/ publications.

Vicki Johnson (she/her) is a former band nerd, White House staffer, and nonprofit director.

Now she mostly talks to animals and writes for young people. Her forthcoming debut picture book is Molly’s Tuxedo, illustrated by Gillian Reid (Little Bee Books, June 2023). She’s a 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow, and a single lesbian parent of a college-bound teen. Find her earnest and supportive posts on Twitter at @vickijohnson and IG at @vickijohnsonwrites. Read more at www.vickijohnsonwrites.com.

Abby Macaluso (she/they) is a lesbian poet from St. Augustine,Florida. When she is not writing, she is often immersed in volunteer work or writing letters. She serves as an ambassador for The Letter Project. You can find her on instagram @abbyamm.

Jesse Galea is a transmasc non-binary writer living and studying in Western Australia. As a Creative Writing student and bookish spreadsheet enthusiast, they’re never short of books to read and never opposed to receiving more recommendations. They’re interested in characterdriven stories exploring diverse experiences of gender and sexuality. Recently, they can be found in Pulch Mag, #EnbyLife, and Coze Journal, or on Instagram @JesseGalea_. jesse smith (they/he) is a queer poet and reviewer from the UK, with an MA Creative Writing: Poetry from the University of East Anglia. their poems and reviews are published or forthcoming with Stone of Madness, Delicate Friend, honeyfire lit and more. they are the founder and poetry reader of the gamut mag (@thegamutmag) and a volunteer reader for just femme & dandy (@femmeanddandy). find them on twitter and instagram @jessesmithpoet.

Yoonmi Kim is a Korean born in Jeonju, Jeolla, raised in Cheongmu, Gyeongsang, adopted to the US. Yoonmi majored in Cultural Anthropology (concentrated in Social Systems), minored in Comparative Literature and has a heavy academic interest in East Asian media and media exchange. Yoonmi Kim is NB and an eclectic creative, mostly focused on writing and occasional fashion design. Pronouns are open in English.

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About Our Team Addie Tsai (founder & co-editor in chief) (any/all) is a queer, non-binary writer and artist of color, who lives and teaches Creative Writing, Dance, Humanities, and Literature in Houston, Texas. He received her Master of Fine Arts from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and her PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. She is the author of the young adult novel, Dear Twin. Unwieldy Creatures, their genderswapped queer biracial retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is forthcoming this fall from Jaded Ibis Press. Addie is a staff writer at Spectrum South, and co-editor of Fiction and Features & Reviews at Anomaly. Find them on Twitter: @ addiebrook.

Sarah Sheppeck (co-editor in chief, the glowup, sew what) (they/she) is a graduate of U.C. Riverside’s Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. They earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Rochester and their Master’s in Secondary Education and Curriculum from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Born and raised in upstate New York with stints in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and the woods of northern Maine, they are now back in their home state with her pit mix, Chloe, and their cat, Rita Moreno. Find her on Twitter: @ EpicSheppeck.

Simone Person (managing editor, the mane attraction, fat + furious) (they/them) is a Black queer femme, two-time Pink Door Writing Retreat fellow, and casual goth who grew up in Toledo, Ohio and small Michigan towns. They are the author of Dislocate (Honeysuckle Press, 2018) and Smoke Girl (Diode Editions, 2019). Their work explores the aftermath of trauma through poetry and prose. They live with their perfectly terrible cat and wonderful triple Pisces partner. You can find them at simoneperson.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @princxporkchop.

Jen St. Jude (sole mates, get your thread in the game) (she/they/mx) is the managing director at Chicago Review of Books, and has work in Gigantic Sequins, The Rumpus, and Catapult. Her debut YA novel, If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come, will be published by Bloomsbury Children’s in 2023. Find them on Twitter: @jenstjude.

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STOO (solemates) (they/she) is a non-binary/transfeminine singer-songwriter and actor who lives in Houston.

Since graduating with a BFA in Musical Theatre from Sam Houston State University, STOO released two musical projects, “COSTUME by Bling St.” and “SUPERSUIT” (with the latter receiving the top honor in Houston Chronicle’s Best Houston Albums in 2017) and performed in multiple professional theatre productions and performance art events. Most recently, STOO has been named Outsmart Magazine’s “Favorite NonBinary Actor” in 2021 and was NonBinary/Gender Nonconforming candidate for Pride Houston’s Grand Marshal. Find them on Instagram and Twitter: @stooizm.

Jo Davis-McElligatt (no scrubs) (she/her) is queer Black woman and mama to the best kid ever. She is an Assistant Professor of Black Literary and Cultural Studies and affiliated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Texas, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Black studies, comics studies, and southern studies. She is the co-editor of three collections: Narratives of Marginalized Identities in Higher Education: Inside and Outside the Academy; Narrating History, Home, and Nation: Critical Essays on Edwidge Danticat; and BOOM! @*#&! Splat: Comics and Violence. She is currently writing her first monograph, Black and Immigrant: The New African Diaspora in American Literature after 1965. Find her on Twitter: @jcdmce.

Kirin Khan (triple thread(s)) (she/her) is a writer living in the Netherlands who calls Albuquerque, New Mexico her hometown, and Peshawar, Pakistan her homeland. She is grateful for fellowships from PEN America Emerging Voices, SF Writers Grotto, AWP’s Writer to Writer program, and SJSU’s Steinbeck Fellowship, and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and Tin House. Her essay Tight was nominated by Nat. Brut for a 2018 Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Corporeal Khora, The Margins, Your Impossible Voice, 7x7.LA and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter: @ kirinjaan, and her work at kirinkhan.com.

Sky Cubacub (cancel & gretel) (they/them) is a non-binary disabled Filipinx queer from Chicago, IL. Rebirth Garments is their clothing line for the full spectrum of gender, size and ability. They maintain the notion of Radical Visibility, a celebratory movement based on unapologetically flaunting our bodies through the use of bright colors, exuberant fabrics, and innovative designs. Sky was named 2018 Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune and is a 2019/2020 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist and a Disability Futures Fellow. Rebirth Garments has been featured in Teen Vogue, Nylon, Playboy, the New York Times and many more! Find them on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter @rebirthgarments.

Shannon Kwit (volunteer reader) (she/her) lives in New York, sketching on the subway and engaging with books of all genres.

She is very fond of walking. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Oregon and at long last is meandering back to the world of writing. Her editing can be seen justfemmeanddandy.com

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on beauty product packaging, a book on the history of National Pro Fastpitch and correspondence with her landlord. Find her on Twitter: @shannonkwit. jesse smith (volunteer reader) (they/he) is a queer poet and reviewer from the UK, with a BA English Literature with Creative Writing and MA Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of East Anglia. Their poems and reviews are published or forthcoming with Stone of Madness, Delicate Friend, Eggbox Publishing, UEA New Writing, Public Menace, honeyfire lit, Gutslut Press, and just femme & dandy. They are also the founder and poetry reader of the gamut mag (@thegamutmag). Find them at their website jessesmithpoet.wordpress.com and on Twitter and Instagram: @jessesmithpoet.

Briana McCormack (volunteer reader) (she/they) is a non-binary artist and writer in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Applied Math and a minor in Creative Writing. Their writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review and 3Elements Review.

You can find their paintings in The Charles Carter and winnow magazine. She loves questions without immediate answers, a good bit, and hypotheticals. You can find them on Instagram @ brinooner and @paintyourdarlings or on Twitter @wheres_my_pen.

Keet Geniza (designer) (they/she) is an illustrator, writer and graphic designer born and raised in Manila. Their work is deeply influenced by unshakeable childhood anecdotes and their experience as a fat, brown, nonbinary first-generation immigrant. Their work has been published in Broken Pencil magazine, just femme & dandy magazine, Masq magazine and others. They also contributed to the Eisner Award-winning anthology, Menopause: A Comic Treatment. Keet illustrated the graphic memoir Kimiko Does Cancer (Arsenal Pulp Pres, 2020), and their illustration work was nominated for the Joe Schuster Award for Canadian Comics. Keet lives and works in Toronto.

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