What is fun about fashion is its temporality, in a way what the industry proposes is always elements of the moment and sometimes even of the future.
Fashion is a field that is strictly connected to our persona but I would also say to our inner side and our category of spices (because garments are one of the elements that distinguish our pieces from the other ones).
Fashion, garments, clothes, all elements that evolve with us, directly or indirectly have to connect too many fields at the same time.
We are living a generational change, the millennials are gaining the spaces of the previous generations and are introducing what they care more everywhere: from sustainability to inclusion.
Fashion in less than a decade has changed a lot and a lot is changing, collection after collection.
In less than a decade, fashion has started to talk in new languages or, to better say, in new dialects where new individuals are involved.
Garments have been garments for ages, a sweater is just a sweater and it will be used by everyone without any exclusion and this, will be more and more the general idea of garments because, in the end, they are merely objects without an identity.
It is our communication; the idea of representing fashion that changes day after day. In the last years, we have started to live a “new” step of our evolution: representing and accepting fashion through different individuals: the more and more inclusion of the transgender community inside our life !!!!
With this phrase I don’t want to say that it (the inclusion) has started recently, that we never had other forms of inclusions or that we have not had any kind of inclusions before, I don’t want even to say that inclusion is the correct term because it is really bad to talk about inclusivity between human beings, this word is really discriminatory and this is not what I want to do.
What I want to express is the fact that the results of a long process are coming out and the transgender community is becoming a part of a bigger context.
We’re seeing transgenders in movies, on catwalks, on tv shows, on magazines, or on social networks. Even so, transgenders have started shaping the fashion industry. Be it transgender models, fashion designers, directors, and/or brand owners, they have really changed the way everyone perceives fashion.
And honestly, we at ZeroKaata admire it a lot: a new and better “Fashion Space For All”.
Therefore, in order to acknowledge this change, we’ve curated a list of 6 Transgender women who are shaping the fashion industry.
All these individuals are connected to our present and for sure they will be part of our future too!
PIERRE DAVIS
Pierre Davis: fashion designer and creative director of No Sesso.
Honestly, she is one of the most complicated people to talk about because there are soooo many reasons why it is hard to start or to focus on a specific point.
Let’s start with the creations: No Sesso.
The brand, present in Los Angeles since 2015, is one of the most contemporary and genderless brands that you can find around. Really avant-garde, full of historical inspirations, completely dedicated to celebrating the Afroamerican community’s fight to try to promote these ideas in a super all-inclusive way.
Pierre Davis has been the first transgender designer to have designed, created, and presented a collection at the New York Fashion Week.
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/pierrehommes/
Have a look at No Sesso’s Collections: https://nosesso.la/
THEODORA (TEDDY) QUINLIVAN
Theodora Quinlivan is a famous transgender model.
American, raised in the northeast of the country, she was “discovered”, in 2015, by Louis Vuitton’s creative director, Nicolas Ghesquiere.
Her importance inside the fashion world has not been just connected to the catwalks, even if we can include as names Carolina Herrera, Dior, Saint Laurent, Jason Wu, and of course Luis Vuitton and Chanel, for them, since 2019, she has been the first transgender model that has ever been hired from the French brand.
She also became a sort of activist, promoting the fighting against, especially sexual misconducts by brand’s workers inside the fashion industry.
As a victim of these kinds of actions she not only stopped working for a brand that has inside people accused of sexual misconducts, she openly started to support and find solutions for such cases.
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/teddy_quinlivan/
HUNTER SCHAFER
If you are a fan of tv-shows, you could have seen Hunter in one of them!
Do you recognize the face? If not, Euphoria is the name of it, she was playing the role of Jules Vaughn.
American, lived between the north and the south of the east coast, she has always fought for the LGBTQ+ community
Really interesting how she has been able to concretize so many different projects despite her young age.
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/hunterschafer/?hl=en
INDYA MOORE
With more than 1.5 million followers on social media, India More has been nominated as one of the most influential people, from Time magazine, in 2019!
Since the teenage years, Indya worked for big fashion brands like Gucci or Dior.
Indya also opened the Jasun Wu show for the spring/summer collection of.. this year!!! Yes exactly, in the middle of the pandemic.
Moore is one of the first models who restarted to “own” a catwalk (the show was socially distanced and well organized to preclude any form or problems).
Activist, model but also actor, Indya has played in movies/tv shows since 2017, starting from Saturday Church and moving, more recently to the more famous Pose, a tv show about the ballroom of the ’80s in New York.
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/indyamoore/?hl=en
Life is beautiful and always unpredictable! Sometimes we leave everything to dedicate our life to few things, like a religion or a philosophy, sometimes we change from a job to another one, sometimes we do something else.
Mimi Tao was a Buddhist monk one day and the “day after” a super top model running catwalks of the super important brand!
She has been the first trans model modeling for Project Runway, her story is almost legend.
Fighting for what we want is always special and Mimi Tao is one of the life’s proves!
She also right editorials and work in the fashion magazine industry.
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/mimi_tao/?hl=en
GOGO GRAHAM
Another super talented fashion designer!
Nowadays being a fashion designer is not easy, so many people dream to be one of them and being someone, having interesting ideas or being able to produce/create nice garments is something really really hard.
What to say, Gogo Graham was able to do it!
After she finished the university, focussed on the fashion industry, started to create a project mostly dedicated to trans people.
She designed for trans people, garments that could have been perfect for transgenders because most of the garments take the shape of the classical measurements of male and female bodies.
She is also a promoter and activist of trans rights.
Instagram Profile Link: instagram.com/gogograham/
ISIS KING
Isis King, the last of our transgender people discussed in this article.
Why this person? Why ending with this “king” of the fashion industry? (Kind used in the more neutral way, like the highest title ever)
Because Isis King is everywhere!!
Isis is a fashion model, an actress, a fashion stylist, and a designer, present in movies, present in television, visible on the web, or in magazines!
After obtaining a degree in design and illustration, Isis lived a really hard moment in life due to the transiting moment. In 2009, she attended American next top model!
Since acted in more than 15 movies, did podcasts, motivated students in schools all over the USA.\
A peculiarity about her modeling career is the fact that she has been part of Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty collections.
Now, isn’t that amazing?
Instagram Profile Link: https://www.instagram.com/msisisking/?hl=en
Website Link: https://www.kingisis.com/
So, these were 6 Transgender Women who have shaped the fashion industry.
Do you have other names to add to this list? If yes then tell us in the comments below!
Also Read: 10 Companies That Hired Transgenders In India
