On Tuesday April 24, Queer Alliance put on its 3rd annual Anti-Fashion Show, previously known as the Drag Fashion Show. It was held in Covel Commons, and it incorporated personal videos, spoken word, and fashion to create a memorable event that gave insight into what it means to be a queer person of the world today in a society that typically rejects anything that is not rigidly and obviously heteronormative.
The fashion show was used not merely as a way of showing off people’s designs or bodies, but rather, to make a larger point about what our bodies represent as a queer person, and how our fashion shows the world what we think of ourselves.
Model and 4th year Halleh Hashtpari said, “This outfit portrays how I dress most of the time. These are all my clothes.”
A highlight of the show was the spoken word performances, with two performances by Terisa Siagatonu and one by 2nd year student Eric Adams. Both performances focused on shame felt as members of the queer community, and misconceptions about their style of dress, their bodies, or their sexuality as a whole. Siagatonu summed up the theme of the night when she said, “Fuck the gender binary. Fuck feminine expectations. Anti means to go against. We are going against people saying ‘You’re too fat. You’re too gay. You’re too everything.’”
The audience really connected with the show and its larger message about loving yourself despite the societal pressures of being queer or being outside the heteronormative binary. Tyler Huxtable, a 4th year linguistics student, said, “I liked the edgier aspects of the show. It provoked thought and planted that seed in your mind, such as issues of sizism or race within the LGBT community.”
Check out these backstage shots from the show after the jump!
