Our Future: Gay Men and Fashion

There are very few things that I would wager to call essential to the gay experience, but fashion is certainly one of them. The relationship gay men have with fashion extends beyond culture and into the realm of near-naturalization. Indeed, there is a long-standing association between gay men and high fashion, but what I'm talking about goes much further than that. I'm also talking about the unpretentious middle-aged gay that wears Sperrys and chinos because he can't stand how sloppy, baggy jeans and chunky dad sneakers look; the art school gay who has strong opinions on whether Zara or H&M has better ripped jeans; the vocal anti-scene gay who gets off on looking frumpy. The majority of gay men probably don't care much about fashion, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many that aren't making active choices in regards to how they dress, for better or worse. It's something that seemingly extends beyond all lines we might be inclined to draw between gay men, whether that be geographical, cultural, or otherwise.

Defining what it means to be gay in America is difficult. There isn't a whole lot that binds gay men together that's particularly concrete, at least when compared to most other minority groups. Our history in America exists mostly within subtext before the late 20th century, and what culture and history we do have hasn't been very readily available until recently. The club, hook-up, gym fueled lifestyle many would claim to be the modern incarnation of gay culture is actively rejected by a significant part of our community. Communities in San Francisco and New York that for years have been associated with gay life are rapidly becoming gentrified, pushing many of the men that defined those communities in the 80s and 90s out.

However, what we do share is experience. Every gay man has had to experience coming out of the closet. Every gay man has probably felt some form of discrimination based on his sexuality. Every gay man has felt the need to hide his sexuality from someone before. Maybe most importantly, every gay man has likely come to the realization at some point or another that every action, every mannerism, every choice of word might give away his identity unintentionally. How people choose to navigate those experiences varies, depending on if they're in the closet or not, how actively they wish people to associate them with being gay, and so forth.

Fashion, more so than being the vain and frivolous activity many believe it to be, is a form of storytelling. Whether intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious, the way one dresses is often the most immediate indicator of who they are as a person. Fashion can reveal wealth, status, ones' understanding of social dynamics, taste, emotional well-being, personal interests, and more. These things are not something that one can easily opt out of either. Unless one plans on leaving the house nude, it's impossible to avoid the implications of fashion. However, this also means that if one is in control of how they dress, if they understand the story they're telling through their clothing, then they can influence how others perceive them.

Similarly, gay men cannot just decide to stop being gay, but what we can do is learn with time how our actions implicate sexuality. Out of necessity, we learn what message certain mannerisms might send, what people might think if we show interest in certain things or act a particular way. We're forced to acknowledge that outwards presentation sends a message, and for our own wellbeing it's essential we learn how to control that message.

In this sense, fashion might be one of the only avenues of life that gay men across the board have a stake in, as it's one of the few areas of self-representation where we have full control. The message that gay men attempt to send with their sense of fashion varies, but the function remains the same. Whether their style is fashionable or unfashionable, revealing or modest, flashy or dull, the end goal is the same: influencing others' perception through conscious choice in attire.

On a more public and widespread level, homophobia in America has typically functioned more insidiously than other forms of oppression. Rather than being outwardly violent, it's often expressed through inaction and silence. Historically, it's hinged on the fact that gay men could easily be pushed out of sight, that if gay men were denied the right to exist publicly, they would be incapable of gaining social mobility. But what our relationship with fashion exposes is that through years of silencing, we've learned a level of awareness and control that straight people will never be able to manage.

Kyle Mangione-Smith is a filmmaker and student living in Boston.