The Out 100 List Is Full Of Queer Fashion Icons and Activists
Louis Vuitton's inventive director of women’s collections, Nicolas Ghesquiére, has in no way shied away from championing inclusivity on and off the runway. For that reason, he has been covered in Out Magazine’s Out one hundred, a prestigious compilation of the year’s maximum impactful and influential LGBTQ+ people. He is on one among 5 special mag covers for the listing. “Nicolas Ghesquière is the women's creative director of Louis Vuitton,” Out’s Editor-In-Chief Philip Picardi writes. “‘Activist’ wasn't imagined to be a part of his job description.”
Last month, Ghesquiére openly denounced Donald Trump, after Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy chairman and chief executive officer Bernard Arnault welcomed the president in rural Alvarado, Texas for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Louis Vuitton's new leather goods workshop. Arnault praised Trump to WWD, saying, “We are very honored to have the president of the United States. I’m not here to judge any types of policies. I’m here to work with my brand and we are going to, over five years, have 1,000 people working here and that’s what matters.” Ghesquiére, on the other hand, commented on the matter publicly via Instagram, writing, “Standing against any political action. I am a fashion designer refusing this association.” Under a photo of the cover of the 1984 Evelyn Thomas club hit “High Energy,” the designer added the hashtags #TrumpIsAJoke and #Homophobia.
The designer additionally makes a point to assist the LGBTQ+ community, always casting transgender fashions in his runway show. He forged Pose famous person Indya Moore as the face for Louis Vuitton's jewelry campaign. Fellow Out a hundred honoree, model Teddy Quinlivan, who has worked with Ghesquière time and again at LV, shared her assist Ghesquière Instagram put up in October, writing: “Thank you for standing at the proper aspect of records.”
The Out 100 cover star isn’t the only designer on the list who has spoken out against Trump. In August, when Picardi tweeted the connection between Trump and the Hudson Yards, Prabal Gurung responded: “I am in complete shock. I had no idea they owned @Equinox @soulcycle. In these turbulent times when we know that white supremacy & domestic terrorism are inspired by Trump’s ugly rhetoric & racism, to openly support & fundraise is an indication of one’s integrity. Appalled.” Gurung has consistently proven himself to be a socially-minded designer who makes beautiful clothes.
The list also names 2019 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Christopher John Rogers, a fashion designer, who aims to champion the self and inspire new possibilities for occasion and celebratory dressing. When requested how identification or expression played into the development of the label, Rogers informed Refinery29: “Some days I may feel more ostentatious and some days I would possibly sense a bit greater reserved in my get dressed, so I’m interested by how garments can serve that duality. Think: pragmatic extravagance.”
Model Aaron Philip also makes the listing. She’s a gender-nonconforming trans woman with cerebral palsy who makes use of a motorized wheelchair and become signed to Elite Models last yr. “I just don’t want this to quit with me,” she instructed the New York Times. “I want to have an effect wherein different people like me are just going to be the enterprise, and like it’s nothing.”
The remainder of the fashion and beauty honorees on Out’s 100 list are Stefano Pilati, designer and founder of Random Identities; the CEO of Beautycon Moj Mahdara; Miss Fame of Miss Fame Beauty; Beyoncé’s makeup artist Sir John; MAC’s global creative director Drew Elliot; and Kylie Jenner's hairstylist Tokyo Stylez.
Ghesquiére tells Out: “The sense that being gay gives me, it’s an asset for being inspired. Maybe it’s sometimes pushing my own limits — the limits I could have just for being gay — or maybe it’s making my imagination go forward, to another territory that belongs to fantasy, to freedom. I think it has an influence in the way I design where, sometimes, pragmatism and function can have a limit.”
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