Indice dei contenuti per July - August 2020 in OUT

Ask a lot of butches about fashion and many feel a bit removed from the hyper glam and glitz we often see coming off the runways. But there’s a sense of ease in most of the pieces in Ferragamo’s pre-fall collection that every casual dresser can admire. Every piece here is a wardrobe staple you can toss in a suitcase (if we ever get to travel again) and it’ll come out looking as amazing as it did in your closet. Even though there’s structure (especially in the trench detailing which we’re living for), the best part of these pieces is how fluid they are—following the silhouette of the body of the person it’s on and in the gender expression of the wearer. The pieces, many modelled on multiple genders, look…

I got into acting because I was doing too much cocaine after I graduated high school,” says actress Rachel Crowl with refreshing frankness. The multi-talented performer (she’s also a photographer and musician) exudes a cool confidence and quick wit that is immediately disarming and endearing. This woman knows exactly who she is—and knows how to have fun with it. I made a deal with the universe…. You can have my acting career if I can have a decent quality of life. “I graduated high school in the ’80s, and I was supposed to go to college because I was an upper-middle class white kid, and that was the expectation,” continues Crowl, a woman of transgender experience, on how she got her start on the stage. “But I was not having…

“OH DAMN,” says hip-hop artist and life coach Adam Darko with a heavy sigh when asked what the word “family” means to him. “If you asked me this a month ago, you wouldn’t get the same answer, a year ago, not the same answer—but now, family to me just means connection. Just, you know, unconditional love; people I can simply be with effortlessly. This is what I would define as family, right now, at this moment.” Darko, a 24-year-old transgender man who migrated from Algeria to Malaysia, and has now settled in Montreal, Canada, admits much has changed for him in recent months. His career path recently took an unexpected and dramatic turn, and not just because of the global pandemic. Sharing his music and bits of his personal story…

I CAN HONESTLY SAY Ricky Martin and I go way back. Not as friends, mind you (we’ve only met a couple of times), but we were born a couple of years apart and he hit the music scene when I was a teen (and he was 12). All of the tween girls I knew then loved him. He was on the cover of Bop, Teen Beat, and Tiger Beat magazines just about the time I switched over to reading Cosmopolitan (ditching the teen crush tabloids for essays about sexual self-empowerment). But just a few years prior, I had a poster of Menudo on my wall—that was the Puerto Rican boy band that made Ricky try out three times before they finally accepted him in 1984. The rest, really, is history.…

Even as the media has largely moved on, social justice protests have continued nationwide. As summer turns to fall, whether you’re on the frontlines or just walking masked-up through a local park, you’ll want to coat up. DKNY’s coats are industrious street wear in timeless and sometimes muted colorscapes: cerulean, slate grey, and navy. Lots of pockets, removable hoods, logo embossed puffers, and sealed, waterproof zippers make them perfect for LGBTQ+ aesthetes as well as pragmatic shoppers. (All styles available at DKNY.com or Macys.com.)…

Many pop stars who are signed to a label in their early teens find it hard to discover their authentic voice from the get go. In a way, it’s its own skill to weave one’s truth inside their music and sound. At 29-years-old, Rina Sawayama, the Japanese London-based singer-songwriter, fashionista, and rulebreaker, has already done that work. Having dropped her debut album SAWAYAMA to critical acclaim—Sir Elton John even named the sleek, pop album one of his favorite records of the year—Sawayama is cultivating an international family of fans, with her art at the center. Sawayama would argue that queer people are especially drawn to her music because it’s “authentic and very honest.” One listen to SAWAYAMA and you can tell she’s a pop obsessive. The album is an eclectic…

2020 was set to be a big year musically for Ricky Martin. He’d come into it with a Latin American tour on the books, which started in Puerto Rico in January before he traveled to Argentina and Chile, then landed in Los Angeles. But when Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down the state of California with a shelter-in-place order in March, the rest of Martin’s tour was postponed. As a result, the singer experienced something he never had in three decades of performing at sold-out arenas, on television, and more. He was hit with anxiety. “I went through this mourning process of me letting go of the possibility of ever performing in front of 20,000 people again,” Martin says in a Zoom call from his Los Angeles home. “That’s what they…

What do you do when both founders of a collective are suffering from COVID-19, suppliers and textile mills are closed, and you still need to get a spring 2021 collection together? According to designer Serhat Isik and photographer Benjamin Alexander Huseby, who founded the Berlin-based fashion collective GmbH in 2016, you pivot. GmbH’s Spring 2021 collection, which premiered (in a sense) at the online Paris Fashion Week, started as a rather pragmatic project, they say, “in our attempt, at first, to make a small commercial collection with the limited resources and time we had.” While running a business during a crisis, they renamed the collection Spring (as opposed to Spring/Summer) to indicate “both a sense of abruption of time, but also a new beginning.” And their collection “Rituals of Resistance”…

THERE’S A SLIVER of truth in the old adage that opposites attract, at least in the case of Brontez Purnell and George M. Johnson. Both Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto and Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends explore the meaning of queer Black identity, but their narratives reflect the different lenses through which these stories were experienced and retold. Johnson’s words can be as lyrical as they are jarring, often viscerally grabbing at the reader’s emotions in probably much the same way they seized the author as he wrote them. As a journalist, his talent for essays has been honed in Buzzfeed News, Essence, and elsewhere. Purnell is a also a journalist, as well as a musician, singer, dancer, performance artist, and author of the book Johnny Would Love Me If…

HOW WOULD you move if your body was celebrated, and movement was weight-neutral and loads of fun? During this isolation period, it can be hard to find the passion and energy to encourage movement, especially if that movement comes from platforms that see your body as a problem. Not everyone can get on a Peloton bike and move in a way that makes them feel good. Movement should be joyful and doesn’t need to be focused on weight loss. Cristina Hoyt, MS, a clinical nutritionist and body image coach, asserts that linking movement and weight loss is actually seriously harmful. “If you don’t see a scale change, you think the movement is worthless or not right for you—when it really should be about getting into your body, moving, and having…

THE FUTURA’S SO BRIGHT This summer trans actress Laverne Cox helped reveal Silhouette’s new unisex relaunch of their iconic ’70s Titan Minimal Art Futura Sunglasses on Instagram Live. Fashion art darling Ashley Longshore brought Silhouette’s “A Vision of the Futura” campaign to life with paintings of Cox (left) and supermodel Coco Rocha, which were auctioned off for Direct Relief. If the look’s familiar it’s because the original Futura frames were worn by style icons including Sir Elton John. @silhouetteeyewear RESISTANCE FASHION As protests rage and we’re gripped by a global pandemic, the world feels like it’s in a revolution. Which is why statement clothing is giving me life. Mr. Saturday’s spring/summer 2021 collection, “Where Life is Just a State of Mind” designed by the brand’s founder, Joey Gollish, took inspiration…

The French ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron is a tour de force. Throughout his career, he’s racked up an Olympic medal alongside partner Gabriella Papadakis and is a world champion four times over. This only scratches the surface of the accolades the skater, who has broken multiple world records, has earned. Earlier this year, Cizeron opened up about his personal life. While he shies away from the term “coming out,” the athlete posted a photo of himself and his boyfriend on Instagram for International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. Though he had already spoken about his sexuality to friends, this was the first time he had spoken publicly about his intimate life. Since then, he’s continued to do so. Here, in his own words, the resident of Canada writes about…

The art of drag has a longstanding history of helping trans women activate their transitions; the gender journeys of queens like Gia Gunn, Jiggly Caliente, and many before them, serve as proof. But trans men are rarely centered in conversations about drag, something makeup artist Kade Gottlieb, known to many as performer Gottmik, hopes to disrupt with his own experience as someone transmasculine who does high femme drag. “It’s kind of confusing on paper when you just put it down,” he concedes. For so long, the Los Angeles-based artist who has worked with Heidi Klum, French Montana, and more, felt like the desire for his presentation to match his identity was at odds with his love of drag. He thought, “Maybe I can just live this girly life, and I…

A lot of progress has been made when it comes to visibility on screen, but Hollywood still has a very long way to go in representation, especially when it comes to the people in charge of creating that media. The overwhelming majority of the entertainment industry is still very male, very straight, and very white. Although we’ve seen an increase of programming that centers narratives of women, people of color, queer people, and other often marginalized groups, the change taking over popular culture is still, for many, slow to come. Maisie Richardson-Sellers, best known for playing not one but two roles in The CW’s cult favorite DC Comics series Legends of Tomorrow, hopes to correct that. The queer, 28-year-old, Guyanese-British actress is out to change Hollywood by being the kind…

Between caged children, separated families, and the constant fear of deportation, it’s not easy being an immigrant in America these days. It’s even more difficult as a gay immigrant, which is why Carlos Brandt is reaching out with his Dear Queer People podcast. “I was excited and scared, but very grateful for all the people that I can call friends today and the opportunities to build a support system that I didn’t have and has been hard to find,” says the brawny and brainy journalist-activist. Helping ease that transition for others while also improving himself through introspection and self-reflection was always part of the Dear Queer People plan, says the native Venezuelan, who was aware of his sexuality early on. “From the Spice Girls to Britney Spears, I always knew…

Can’t make it to Los Angeles or New York City for the best in-person spa solutions for your mug? Well, thanks to Face Gym’s online workouts, you’ve run out of excuses, my friend! Whether you try out a couple of sessions in a Zoom group or become a solo die-hard, a one-on-one calisthenics training session will leave you with popping facial muscles you didn’t know you had. The specific how-to movements using FaceGym.com’s PT Kit of Gua Shua Beauty Restorer, FaceGym Balls, and Gold Derma Rollers will inform habits you can take with you all the way to your golden years. Seriously. (The Olivia Newton-John-ish “Physical” 1980s-inspired headband will surely seal the deal!) Face Gym’s Training Sticks are genius as glide-on skin treatments, heat-activated during your real gym workouts. This…

I WAS NEVER the gay teenager who experimented with curious “straight” boys. It’s not that I wasn’t open to it. Believe me, as a closeted horny gay kid in Texas, I fantasized about it constantly but the opportunity passed me by—until now. Earlier this summer, I was on my way home from the gym—in full mask and gloves, and before Los Angeles gyms shut down for a second round of closures—when I saw a face I recognized on Grindr. “Just moved here,” his bio read. I made the move from New York City to L.A. last fall, so I figured we must have met at some point while I was living back east. Suddenly my phone buzzed and I saw the dots moving: “I know you,” he wrote. Then it…