I didn’t come out until the very beginning of college, when I was 18 or 19. That time was kind of my queering into fashion, but it was definitely not a sexual thing at all-more like playing with identity and self. My friend Erica and I decided to start creating these fake holidays where we would get dressed up for high school-I took it really far, and would show up on a random Wednesday in the middle of April with a shattered mirror hot-glued to a t-shirt, or wearing everything backwards, or wearing all these button downs layered on top of each other (that look was inspired by a Viktor & Rolf collection that had just come out).
Queerness really emerged for me around 2004, when I was 15 or 16. Growing Up, Coming Out is a series of personal reflections from queer American designers, released every day this month.
