Blogger Nicolette Mason Talks Queer Fashion on New PBS Show “First Person”

The last few years have seen an increase in the visibility of LGBTQ issues: TV shows like Orange Is the New Black, Brooklyn 99, and movies like The Imitation Game, have brought a wide array of gay, lesbian and trans characters with funny, poignant and relatable stories to the screen—regardless of your background.

Fashion in particular, has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to sexuality. Trans models like Lea T, Andreja Pejic, and Hari Nef regularly walk runways, land ad campaigns, and star in high fashion editorials. But at the end of the day, the industry is still making clothes for men and women—and nothing in between. With the notable exception of Hood by Air, androgyny (at least in fashion) has come to mean women in Le Smoking suits and men in kilts.

On this week’s episode of First Person, a new PBS digital series with a focus on exploring gender and sexual identity, writers Nicolette Mason, Arabelle Sicardi and Rae Tutera, sat down to discuss some of the ways that their identities shape their approach to getting dressed, and some of the issues that brings up.

Mason, for example, explains how when she was younger, she thought she needed to wear more “tomboy” or “unisex” clothes, in order to fit in with her “queer identity,” which was not true to her preference for stereotypically feminine clothes. They also discuss the way that fashion exists in a binary system—there are masculine clothes and feminine clothes—and figuring out how to develop personal style while navigating people’s perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman, or even a queer man or woman.

First Person’s “Queering Fashion,” offers a really interesting look at issues rarely discussed in mainstream fashion media. Everyone agrees that fashion is a wonderful way in which to express our true selves, but what happens when our “true selves” are at odds with the culture at large? We only wish this episode was longer than nine minutes—the conversation certainly needs to continue.

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