Table of contents for February/March 2021 in OUT

WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANIC ATTACK, suffocated by that heart-pounding feeling of dread, comfort feels about the furthest thing from reach. So maybe it makes sense that Daniel Henson — who knows that near-drowning anxiety so well — would found Leisure Lab and offer a life raft of comfort, one minimalist outfit at a time. The made-in-Los Angeles online brand got its start with men’s shorts and during lockdown expanded into elevated essentials made of sustainable fabrics for everyone, from tailored-fit pants with four-way stretch to breezy tank dresses. Instead of chasing trends, Leisure Lab focuses on fit and feel for outfits to take you from workouts to hangouts (or, during a global pandemic, from the home office to the couch). From the slick everyday pants to…

Kiss the ring of refined decadence. Atelier Versace Fragrances bestows us with a super luxe collection of six flacons available only at the company’s private boutiques and Saks.com. Cédrat de Diamante ($330) boasts a heightened zest of Italian lemon with injections of pink grapefruit and natural aromatic woods of cedar and vetiver. Figue Blanche ($380) serves up fresh fig and Italian mandarin pulp, enhanced by sensual neroli, bergamot, and jasmine. How and when these ingredients get picked, plucked, and unearthed is key to these royal scents. (Versace.com) Fragrance, by definition, is moody. It should be defining and sensual, create a positive response, and (hopefully) produce sexual attraction. But how much of the right scent in the right place makes you memorable, powerful, or confident? The best scent should appear to…

Since the Spice Girls first split 20 years ago, Melanie C, a.k.a. Sporty Spice, has gone on to have a successful career in the music business, becoming one of the United Kingdom’s most cherished artists. Her new album, titled simply Melanie C, is perhaps her most introspective work yet. The track “Into You” tells the story of an outsider who finally becomes aware of their power: “Wasn’t ready for love / Just wanted somebody to hold me / Now I know I’m enough /I’m better when I put me first / I’m ready to love /But I’m not feeling lonely / ’Cause I know I’m enough.” Of course, equality has also been at the root of “girl power,” a phrase that still resonates 20+ years after the iconic music group…

“We have to trust that people know what they’re talking about…” Satchel Lee, the daughter of legendary director Spike Lee, will make history as the first queer Golden Globes ambassador. As ambassadors, she and her brother Jackson will assist with duties during the 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards, airing Sunday, February 28, at 8PM EST on NBC, as well as raise awareness around philanthropic causes. Satchel chose to focus her efforts on access to health care for LGBTQ+ people, partnering with Callen-Lorde, a NYC-based organization helping the queer community through comprehensive, judgment-free care, research, and education. The organization will receive a $25,000 grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Satchel’s behalf. Her brother chose to support Big Brothers Big Sisters, the nation’s largest donor- and volunteer-supported mentoring network, which…

“If someone put a recording device in the kitchen, they would get spoilers…” When Molly Knox Ostertag and Noelle Stevenson got married in 2019, they thought their first year as a married couple would include an exciting honeymoon, several work trips, and plenty of travel. Instead, they’ve spent nearly the whole year together in their Los Angeles home (dubbed “Wife City”), working in home offices down the hall from each other with their pet dog, Winston, and two cats, Fig and Toast. In many ways, it’s much better than the year they expected. “My favorite part is just G-chatting each other from other rooms,” Stevenson says. “I’ll send Molly a joke and I’ll hear her laugh, and then she’ll yell a response back at me. Or she sends me something…

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the global pandemic altered our lives; shutting down stores, restaurants, gyms; readjusting our personal and professional priorities; and forcing us to update our office space as work-at-home culture became the new normal. It’s been one year since Zoom meetings became a household phrase. One year since our travel plans were postponed. And one year since my favorite gay bars in West Hollywood started closing down. But, like you, as the world changed around us — with many LGBTQ+ people suffering disproportionally — some of my only escapes from the growing work hours and endless uncertainty were through television and social media. Over the last few years, LGBTQ+ creators have forged new kinds of storytelling and built a global mainstream audience unlike…

“In the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, the fashion was just insane…” CREATING AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE on film begins at the most basic level: a sketchbook. For costume designer Paolo Nieddu (pictured above), who was tasked with bringing the life of bisexual blues singer Billie Holiday to the screen in Lee Daniels’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday, finding the perfect palettes, anchored in the allure of 1940s fashion, was not an easy task. But this wasn’t his first rodeo. Nieddu had been preparing for this business his entire life. When he was growing up, art was his favorite subject in school. Like many designers, he was obsessed with art supplies, especially colored pencils, and when he wasn’t “sleeping in class” he found himself sketching. Still, he never thought he’d end up…

Wherever you are in the world, it’s virtually impossible to miss McDonald’s famous arches. Most people associate the iconic symbol with burgers, fries, nuggets, and American comfort food. But lesser known is that McDonald’s has been a pioneer in workplace diversity and inclusion for decades, ensuring that LGBTQ+ employees are treated equally with their straight counterparts. Not only does the company routinely receive a perfect 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index, but its gay vice president of U.S. operations-development, Tim Andersen, has made it his mission to empower and uplift LGBTQ+ workers. Andersen’s relationship with McDonald’s started when he was 16 years old, having begun as a crew member in Watertown, S.D. This gives him a unique understanding of how the work he does…

Historically, the number of disabled characters created, written, and played by disabled people is razor thin. Despite the fact that one in four Americans has a disability, their lives are seldom reflected on the screen. In fact, a 2016 study by Ruderman White Paper showed that only 2 percent of TV characters are disabled and 95 percent of those roles are played by nondisabled actors. But there’s a new sheriff in town. Ryan O’Connell, the gay and disabled creator, writer, and star of Netflix’s Special, the only show about disability that is run by a disabled person who also stars in it, has made it his mission to course-correct Hollywood’s “history of loving to profit off the pain of marginalized people,” often without actually employing a person from the community.…

Have you wondered how powerful figures keep the intimate details of their private lives, well, private? Confidentiality agreements and gag orders aren’t entirely new, but in the age of cyberbullying and instant sharing a sophisticated digital update is required not only for the rich and famous, but everyone. PlayNice is the first platform legally protecting people from cyberbullying. For a little over $2, users sign an agreement with each other that is legally binding. In it, both parties promise never to harm each other online — whether it’s in the form of revenge porn, revealing trusted secrets, outing people in the LGBTQ+ community, or intentionally starting rumors with the purpose of harming one’s reputation. A party who violates the agreement can be held legally responsible through arbitration. Creator Eric Masella…

“A lot of sex isn’t sexy, and that’s OK…” The films that rocked America when I was growing up — Brokeback Mountain and Milk, to name a couple — were touchstones for queer cinema. I rented the DVDs (back when DVD rental stores existed) and watched them in my bedroom while my parents were away. These movies were historic, and were preceded by decades of change in TV and film that saw increasing realism in depictions of queer life. But as I got older, the depictions never evolved to look like my queer life. And I want that to change. In academia, “queer theory” emerged around the time that queer representation on-screen began to shift. The first major film to focus on gay characters was The Boys in the Band…

A brighter spring awaits… Aries Mars-ruled Aries, you have entered 2021 on a mission — if only everyone else would get on your level! You may feel more misunderstood than ever with Mercury in retrograde until February 21, so take some solo time for grounding, recharging, and perhaps a mani/pedi. March’s new moon in your sign will kindle your inner fire again as well as a fire with a romantic or professional partnership. Theme: Connection. Taurus Venus in Pisces asks you to be fluid and flexible in February, queer Taurus, an effort that will pay off in your romantic relationship(s). You are working to plant seeds in your career house, but things may not be going exactly how you envisioned with Mercury in retrograde until the 21st. When Venus enters…

“His fabulousness is his armor…” In the first episode of It’s a Sin, the new Russell T. Davies drama set to debut on HBO Max in February, Ritchie Tozer is giddy. He’s moved to London, he’s enrolled in school, and he’s ogling boys — one long-haired figure in particular. As these things go, Ritchie is still a touch shy about his sexuality: He’s “bisexual, really ’cuz then you can fancy anyone in the room” and “there’s double the choice.” But it’s still that one boy he ends up with at the end of the night. The pair, played by Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander and Nathaniel Curtis (in the show, the long-haired Ash Mukherjee), are practically falling over one another. Their clothes peel off as they stumble through the…

His name, as well as his preeminent work in the pop art movement, is among the most recognizable in the vast universe of modern art. But before Andy Warhol became a household name for his colorful incarnations of pop culture (which include the now iconic repeated images of Marilyn Monroe, Mao Tse-tung, and Campbell’s soup cans, among others), he spent over a decade sketching the human figure — most often, erotically charged male nudes. Though Warhol once famously stated that he was “afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning,” he certainly did not seem to lose inspiration in the human form, having produced over 1,000 from-life sketches during the 1950s and early ’60s. In Andy Warhol. Love, Sex & Desire: Drawings…

When Los Angeles nightclub owner Douglas Lambert and editor Marin Scott Milam teamed up to launch Playgirl’s first issue in 1973, no one could have anticipated the public response. At the height of the feminist movement, when print titles continued to objectify women’s bodies against the backdrop of a growing revolution, Playgirl offered a different perspective. The magazine welcomed the notion that women, in fact, could be authoritative voices on sex, culture, and their own existence. At its peak in the mid-to-late ’70s, Playgirl was selling nearly 1.5 million copies at about $1 per issue. It was revered for its tasteful male nudes as well as its provocative storytelling, welcoming contributors like Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Joyce Carol Oates, Eve Babitz, and more. But over the decades, as the internet…