How a queer fashion show took on New York Fashion Week

“Hard to believe this all started in a tiny Brooklyn bar,” says dapperQ creative director and CEO Anita Dolce Vita. DapperQ was founded in 2009 as a queer fashion blog. Since then, it’s expanded into a multiplatform brand that includes a book, panels, fashion shows, and the celebration of the full spectrum of queer style through its sibling project, Hi Femme!

This year marked dapperQ’s 10th Annual Queer New York Fashion Week show at the Brooklyn Museum, which featured designs from ALEGRÍA, BoiPKG, DYKEMINT, Zoe Grinfeld, Hesta, Soid Studios New York by José González, and Transguy Supply. A particularly meaningful milestone from the event for Vita occurred in 2017, when dapperQ produced a youth LGBTQ+ fashion show for NYC Pride’s inaugural official Youth Pride. At this year’s show, Vita ran into one of the models who participated in that important first event.

“Eight years later, they were glowing, thriving, living in their dream of modeling, beaming with queer joy. We embraced with such a tight hug, and they told me how much their journey with dapperQ meant for them in finding a safe home where they could be loved as their most authentic self,” Vita says.

The brand is personal for Vita too. “[DapperQ has] helped me challenge my own assumptions rooted in gendered fashion, unlearn the parts that no longer served me, and embrace the components that led to my femme liberation,” she shares.

The femme-presenting lesbian admits she once felt invisible while running the publication and even felt pressure to present a narrative where masculinity was the aspirational gold standard, and that femmes were represented by, as she puts it, “cisgender, heteronormative, fatphobic, transphobic, ableist, and white-centered fashion media.” She eventually realized that both of those ideas were fallacious and rooted in the binary. “As a result of my personal evolution and journey, the brand has expanded to be inclusive of the full spectrum of queer style,” says Vita.

While Vita has witnessed many changes over the years in elevating queer aesthetics, she notes that times feel particularly fraught now. “Exhibitions are being altered, delayed, or canceled under mounting pressure,” she warns, explaining how her work with the team is pushing back on this. “DapperQ’s runway stands as a vital platform for self-expression and community assertion. Over the past decade, dapperQ has forged a powerful partnership with the Brooklyn Museum, transforming its hallowed Great Hall into a runway that doubles as a stage for queer resistance and artistic expression. This year’s anniversary show honored that legacy while looking boldly toward the future.”

What does that future look like? Vita has a vision: “The goal of dapperQ and of queer style is not to make everything and everyone gender ‘neutral’ — which often equates to masculine or androgynous aesthetics — but to free us from the societal construct that clothing items have to be assigned to specific genders at all.”