This month marks the very first Queer History Month – Pūmahara Ia Te Wā for Aotearoa New Zealand, making us the 20th country in the world to celebrate LGBTQIA+ heritage with a dedicated page in the calendar. Launched by the team at Kawe Mahara Queer Archives Aotearoa, the inaugural month is inspired by the whakataukī, “He kitenga kanohi, he hokinga mahara. He kawenga mahara, he hāpori kitea” (“a familiar face stirs one’s memories, a collection of memories is a community seen”).
Clothing has played a vital role in the arc of queer history as a way of being “seen” by one another and by society at-large. Through clothes, we can both defy conventions and align ourselves with a specific community. Fashion has long been a platform for queer pride and celebration, as well as an essential tool for resistance to the oppression of our rights and identities.
It stands to reason that LGBTQIA+, MVPFAFF+ and takatāpui people have been at the heart of fashion design for generations. Queer designers in Aotearoa are embracing that legacy while evolving in the face of shifting social norms. To celebrate the history and future of queer fashion, I’m speaking to some NZ designers about their queer inspirations and the ways in which their relationship with queerness shape their work today.
To begin, I spoke to Angela Kong, an emerging designer based in Tāmaki Makaurau who launched their textile knitwear brand, KONG, in April 2023. I caught them on a busy Sunday, between styling for a music video and a fashion shoot. We share a fairly ad-hoc approach to deciding our own personal pronouns, and he settled on requesting a “variety” – much like their current portfolio of work.
While her first collection is relatively fresh on the scene, Angela’s talent for custom-made creations traces back to their early childhood. “One of my super early memories is using Ferrero Rocher candy wrapper papers to make a dress for a doll,” she tells me on our call. “I have a lot of memories of fashion. I feel like that's definitely why I went into it: I was trying to fulfil my childhood dream!”
Today, her work is grounded in that thrifty creativity. All of her materials are sourced second-hand, often with the help of friends who’ll help her scour the corners of Facebook Marketplace. “It's actually pretty easy to be resourceful if you find community,” ze says, laughing.
Growing up, Angela says their fashion has always been inspired by what she calls “spooky” aesthetics from horror films and anime to “DIY punk”. Their early icons range from Winona Ryder to Tiffany from Chucky, and Adore Delano stole her heart in season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
“I was attracted to the aesthetic and the grunge, something a little different from the norm,” he tells me. “Spookiness and horror are kind of camp, you know? Horror is a part of queerness and horror is a form of drag.”
Examining the relationship between words like “queerness” and “difference” or “strangeness” is something that Angela has been exploring in their work with the MaeSteal Collective, a group of 10 multidisciplinary artists founded by Copper MaeSteal. Last year, the Collective’s first production centred around the theme of “the queer body in a state of distress and anxiety”. Their designs showcased “the ‘abnormal’, ‘strange’ and ‘bizarre’”, in reference to and reclamation of the origins of the word ‘queer’.
For Angela, identifying with this word is a core part of their sense of self as well as their design practice. “I feel like queerness is being political. As an Asian person, as a queer person, you know: it's just inherently political.”
When I asked about their current queer icons, Angela was quick to emphasise the communal nature of their identity. “Oh my God, I’m inspired by my friends, right? They’re the people who have shaped me!” he exclaimed. “But it's not just about dressing and style – I look up to the way they go about their lives, by their lifestyle.”
This makes sense for someone who has formed such a (literally) tight-knit community around themselves and their design mahi.
Angela also traces her inspiration back to her roots in China, through the work of her mother (herself a fashion designer) and that of the iconic Guo Pei. But it’s here in Aotearoa that Angela wants to keep uplifting our local designers. When I ask what he hopes for the future of fashion, he says it’s for “true intersectionality” within the industry, as well as greater recognition for the contribution that queer designers are making.
“Queer fashion is super revolutionary and very experimental and fun and campy. I look up to a lot of New Zealand designers because they are just so top tier.”
