Yet no one in the mainstream has ever tried to examine the impact of homosexuality on fashion, says Steele, who is director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. And, as fashion historian Valerie Steele once noted, “there is no gay gene for creativity.” But the fashion industry has been undeniably more welcoming of openly gay men than other fields have been.
There are no statistics about the numbers of gay men in the fashion industry. And while there are a host of successful, brand-name women in the industry, lesser-known ones have gone on record about feeling disadvantaged because of decision makers’ subconscious belief that gay men make better designers. Whether industry insider or casual observer, people often presume that a male designer is gay until he announces himself otherwise. The stereotype of the gay designer is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it is often assumed to be a fact. But one notion remains stubbornly unchanged from city to city, year to year. The global search is on for all that is new and different.
NEW YORK - The last of this city’s Fashion Week revelers have drained their champagne glasses and the seasonal fashion train begins to roll through London, Milan and finally Paris, where the runway presentations wrap up in October.
