Witness the Queer Revolution Changing New York Fashion for the Better

One brisk morning in late December, an impassioned crew assembled on Manhattan’s East Side to capture the swiftly changing face of New York fashion. Clothes were stripped back at the photographer’s behest, so he might hone in on the striking planes of a face or map the course of an uncovered torso. Each model was celebrated as an individual and beautifully representative of the LGBTQ+ community, which has gained a new level of visibility in the city’s fashion landscape.

This sea change was caught on film by Gregory Halpern, the Buffalo, New York, native known for his reportage-style documentation of American lives through raw and evocative portraits. The glossier world of editorials had long been a subject of fascination. “There’s a playful and joyful spirit that runs through fashion work,” Halpern says, “and there are times I’m envious of that and want to indulge looking at beauty in a different way.”

Fate linked him to Cody Chandler, founder of New Pandemics, whose year-old casting and management agency has lead the fight for meaningful LGBTQ+ representation. Chandler had long been a fan of Halpern’s work and thought he fit New Pandemics’ core values. “Seeing how Greg documents people in a really egalitarian way, it seems like there’s no hierarchy between him and his subjects,” he says.

In choosing an art photographer, he also hoped to create powerful images that would be less disposable than the typical model Polaroids. The project came to fruition with support from Magnum Photos, the international photographers’ cooperative to which Halpern belongs. Magnum will often help fund members’ passion projects, and Halpern made a strong case for challenging visual norms by twisting the traditional fashion format. “I know they were interested in being part of this discussion—whose images are in archives, whose faces are being seen,” he says.

Halpern shot 16 models over the course of one day, working with a scaled-down team to “keep everything super intimate.” On the mood board, Chandler had pinned several images from Peter Hujar, whose black-and-white portraits from the ’70s and ’80s have retained a lasting power. “How powerful and intimate and simple they are,” Halpern says. “With Hujar, it was very much about the subject in the studio and it’s kept very raw,” Chandler adds. “That’s where we wanted the emphasis to be.”

Thus the clothes were chosen sparingly to enhance their wearers, not overshadow them. Halpern recalls how with each snap of the shutter, the models would begin to peel them off, layer upon layer, until they stood completely open and vulnerable. “There’s some importance in approaching fashion imagery in a less facile way,” Chandler says. “What I valued about the shoot was that it was through a documentary lens first and fashion second.”

Yet to craft a deeper narrative, stylist Joseph Viola pulled designs from emerging queer labels, many of which have been rising to the fore. Telfar Clemens, for instance, won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund two years ago and his show has since become a seasonal highlight; his body-skimming leather pants and proud logo belts graced the bodies of models like Rahm (a talented painter) and Mecca Mozelle (an outspoken mental health advocate). Gauntlett Cheng provided a sliced-and-diced knit bandage dress that clung to Miles (who starred in Christopher John Rogers’s new lookbook), as well as the delicate chartreuse crochet polo worn by Cameron Lee Phan, who walked for Nihl and Palomo Spain this season.

As it happens, Palomo enlisted five New Pandemics faces for their New York Fashion Week debut; labels like Eckhaus Latta, Vaquera, Rachel Comey, and Landlord also turned to the agency to fill their runways in larger numbers than ever before. Images have incredible power to provoke thought and change; Halpern knows that better than anyone. “There are times I think that what I do with my life is just crazy. It’s just pictures, who cares about pictures?” he says. “I’m being facetious in a way because I’m obsessed with pictures, but to be a part of this project felt good and productive—even if it was just to encourage this conversation.”

Stylist Joseph Viola
Hair Jess Dylan
Makeup Yui Ishibashi

For more information, visit magnumphotos.com.