La Kouyon Fruitée is a garment about unapologetic queerness. Beginning with my love for fruit, I explored the idea of perception and the idea of the queer insult ‘fruit’ – one that I have been called from a young age. I took both the literal aspects of fruit and its connotations to build a garment that explores the topics that came up in my research such as queer identity, the fetishisation of lesbianism, the straight male gaze, textures and colours of fruits and the perception of fruits. Folklore, symbolism and mythological stories based on fruit were key in finding ways to explore some of these concepts. Taking inspiration from queer culture I used knit due to the link between it and the lesbian community and the notoriously queer mullet haircut as inspiration for the skirt silhouette. I asked a handful of queer people what they would do if the straight male gaze didn’t exist and wanted my garment to reflect their responses – bright colours, revealing, skin tight, bold makeup. I took a lot of inspiration from the hand-made nature of club kid fashion which helped me create a sense of playfulness and joy which I feel is sometimes missing when expressing the difficulties queer people face. This garment is a queer celebration.
A fruity expression of queerness without care for the straight male gaze.
Sweet and fun and juicy and queer!