first of all I am quite devastated to hear that Fosse was straight. Is this true?? I do remember researching Michael Bennett a few years ago, though, and he was definitely bisexual (stormily on both sides).
the weird thing about fashion though -- is that it almost always turns out to be the case that the major (male) designers were/are, in fact, gay: Pierre Balmain, Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga, Cardin, Saint Laurent, Lagerfeld, Galliano, Gaultier, Lacroix, McQueen, Armani, Valentino, Versace, Halston, Marc Jacobs, Dolce and Gabanna, Calvin Klein (I changed my mind on him, he may be bi but leans strongly towards gay!), Bill Blass, Narciso Rodriguez, Tom Ford, Jack and Lazaro from Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen, Nicholas Ghesquiere, Alber Elvaz, Olivier Theskyens...etc, etc
I am convinced of the heterosexuality of Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, and (apparently?) Roberto Cavalli. (And some mid-century Italians, like Ferragamo and Missoni and Ungaro.)
What is looking really weird to me right now is how very difficult it is to do any research on this -- real research, because hardly anyone has ever written about it; but also, the internet is really, really terrible when it comes to gay fashion history. You basically have to not just GO to Pride but ORGANIZE it to get Wikipedia to mention that you are gay; whereas almost any old heterosexual marriage gets duly noted. And googling is so hopeless -- page after page of dumbass people asking absurd questions on yahoo, plus of homophobic propoganda of various kinds.
Even GLQ encyclopedia is not excellent in the area of fashion -- the articles are all by this dude Shaun Cole, who is THE queer fashion history go-to scholar it seems -- but his work is mostly on what gays wore, not their roles in design/production. (Also -- if you were about to publish a book that would be basically THE source on the history of gay fashion in the 20th century, would you really choose to call it Don We Now Our Gay Apparel?)
The only thing I like on the internet is Fashion Designers With Homosexual Prefrences, which sounds kind of offensive but is actually I believe Icelandic or something. It is a slideshow subtitled: "They love aesthetics, beauty and innovation from the bottom of their heart, but they also love the same sex," which cracks me up.
the weird thing about fashion though -- is that it almost always turns out to be the case that the major (male) designers were/are, in fact, gay: Pierre Balmain, Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga, Cardin, Saint Laurent, Lagerfeld, Galliano, Gaultier, Lacroix, McQueen, Armani, Valentino, Versace, Halston, Marc Jacobs, Dolce and Gabanna, Calvin Klein (I changed my mind on him, he may be bi but leans strongly towards gay!), Bill Blass, Narciso Rodriguez, Tom Ford, Jack and Lazaro from Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen, Nicholas Ghesquiere, Alber Elvaz, Olivier Theskyens...etc, etc
I am convinced of the heterosexuality of Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, and (apparently?) Roberto Cavalli. (And some mid-century Italians, like Ferragamo and Missoni and Ungaro.)
What is looking really weird to me right now is how very difficult it is to do any research on this -- real research, because hardly anyone has ever written about it; but also, the internet is really, really terrible when it comes to gay fashion history. You basically have to not just GO to Pride but ORGANIZE it to get Wikipedia to mention that you are gay; whereas almost any old heterosexual marriage gets duly noted. And googling is so hopeless -- page after page of dumbass people asking absurd questions on yahoo, plus of homophobic propoganda of various kinds.
Even GLQ encyclopedia is not excellent in the area of fashion -- the articles are all by this dude Shaun Cole, who is THE queer fashion history go-to scholar it seems -- but his work is mostly on what gays wore, not their roles in design/production. (Also -- if you were about to publish a book that would be basically THE source on the history of gay fashion in the 20th century, would you really choose to call it Don We Now Our Gay Apparel?)
The only thing I like on the internet is Fashion Designers With Homosexual Prefrences, which sounds kind of offensive but is actually I believe Icelandic or something. It is a slideshow subtitled: "They love aesthetics, beauty and innovation from the bottom of their heart, but they also love the same sex," which cracks me up.
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