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The fashion section for issue 3.1–2 of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly features two interviews conducted by Tania Hammidi, who currently represents a central voice in all things trans* and queer in the fashion world. Tania Hammidi is the founder of Queerture: Queer + Couture, an organization highlighting LGBTQIA fashion design, illustration, modeling, and style innovation. Hammidi also writes about fashion and dance, curates fashion shows, and participates as a model in the fashion industry. Hammidi's guest curation of the fashion section features interviews with designer Vanessa Craig and agender model Rain Dove; both interviews highlight the various politics of embodiment, representation, and production that readers of TSQ's fashion section can expect to learn more about in issues to come.—EditorThere's so much to say about agender supermodel Rain Dove Dubilewski, since her fabulous splash onto the fashion runway at New York Fashion Week in 2014. For one, Dubilewski broke into modeling by losing a bet with a friend, which is kind of hot as well as a pleasant reminder that “success” does not unfold in a linear fashion. For two, she likes animals and uses her visibility as a model to bring awareness to social issues she finds important enough to research, sometimes at the United Nations. Applying her agender philosophy to work, Dove broke onto the scene by walking both men's and women's wear for designers Malan Breton, Vivienne Hu, and Rochambeau as her debut.At 6′2″ with dark eyes and strong cheek lines, Dove's dreamy tall, dark, and handsomeness creates alluring representations of normative state power through fashion imagery. But Dove unsettles the dust by calling attention to these constructions of gender and power. And handsome masculinity is not her only look. Dove walked one of haute couture designer Vivienne Hu's “super femme” black dresses, briefcase, and work boots down the New York runway in 2015 without ado. Dove's first runway modeling job was in a pair of Calvin Klein (CK) briefs for a designer who presumed she was a cis-gendered male. As the story goes, she walked down the runway topless and in the CK briefs, to the designer's confusion. This unanticipated public explication of gender's constructed nature in relation to clothing and fashion started her rolling.As the only agender model in the world, Dove uses her voice as well as her body to confront normative ideas about gender identity and its relationship to clothing, style, and fashion design. I first saw Rain Dove walk Auston Björkman's designs for SIR New York down the queer runway at “(un)Heeled: A Fashion Show for the Unconventionally Masculine,” conceived by Anita Dolce Vita, presented by DapperQ, and hosted at the Brooklyn Museum in December 2014. But it wasn't until I saw her work it with gender-queer model Corey Wade at the 2015 “Queer Fashion Week” in Oakland, California (the brainchild of Miz Chris, presented by fiveTEN Oakland Events), and speak on a panel at “Rainbow Fashion Week” 2015 (produced by fashion designer E. Jaguar Beckford of Jag and Co.), that I understood the expansive range of Dove's abilities on the runway.From the looks of things from the outside, her agency, Major Models New York, as well as designers like Vivenne Hu, Calvin Klein, Ace Rivington, Rochambeau, SIR New York, and more are giving Dove the opportunity to express and create more complicated images of gender and sexuality, within the framework of commercial, brand-driven fashion advertising.Tania Hammidi:Hi Rain! I am interested in how the fashion industry is handling your ability to rock both menswear and women's wear as a professional model.Rain Dove: Hi! The only thing that makes someone male or female is the anatomical value that the specific clothing was tailored to when it was designed. The only thing that means anything in clothing are those anatomical values. They change the structure of the clothing and how it fits on your body. More room in the pants. Higher sitting on the waist for hips. For butts, you have the curve. So certain clothing is tailored to be more flattering for anatomy. Otherwise, social trends dictate whether you should be wearing something based on if you have a penis or not. You know? [laughs]TH:Who were your heroes in entertainment or music growing up?RD: I never questioned my gender, ever. But I did go through isolation. Right up to high school, I thought I was a very ugly woman. You know? So I knew I would not be a sorority girl, but I might be like Sigourney Weaver from Aliens. [The focus was on] action.I listened to music that told me there was going to be a time that was better. Kids feel trapped in their environment. But once you get out of high school you can choose to put yourself in an environment where people love you 100 percent. Get through. Listen to positive music, maybe some death metal.TH:How would you characterize this particular moment in the fashion industry? Is this revolution really happening, or just another trend?RD: In the past, things have been a trend I think. But now in the age of information, we are smarter than we used to be. We have access to a lot of information and can find things out for ourselves. We know when we are being duped. There are so many brands out there and so many companies to be loyal to. And most people are loyal to reflections of themselves. The companies realize that they can't trick people anymore. Like if you wear their clothes all of a sudden you are going to be 6′2″. People don't want to try to be anything other than themselves, or a slightly nicer version of themselves [in ad campaigns]. We are starting to see a trend of “real models” that are emulating real people.TH:Are we seeing buyers who are buying from the LGBTQ designers?RD: They are slowly integrating. International companies can be progressive in the United States, but this is not the case around the world. I was talking to another magazine about this, recently. The reason it is not so in your face [internationally] is because there is a huge fear that there is not enough money in the gay community—consumer power—to compensate for the loss of clientele that the company would incur to represent that community. It is business!If we want to see a change as people, we need to show those companies that there are consumers who will buy. Those companies are not obligated to be a social movement. They don't have to be the space of change. They don't have to say, “We want to do something different.” They are not obligated, any more than we are. They have to have incentive.TH:Has modeling in the fashion industry led you to discover a femininity or masculinity in yourself that you didn't know about?RD: Yes, this has been a really good journey. I used to think I was just an ugly woman! Fashion has allowed me to explore sides of myself that I never gave myself permission to be. It has allowed me to take that high-fashion female Cruella Deville vibe, and also to [model in ways] that are more masculine and unapologetic. The amount of feedback has been phenomenal! Just to see that there are so many ways to construct yourself, and it is all done through clothing is incredible.I always tell people that clothing is your bird, your feathers, your scales in the animal world. It is a way for you to really tell the world how you want to be treated and what you want to be in that environment. Do you want to be a poisonous caterpillar? Or do you want to be a jaguar or a blending-in chameleon? It is something that we use to reflect what is on the inside. It has been really great.TH:Have kids come up to you and given feedback?RD: This is the difficult thing. I have an interesting view on the trans* community. And it has a lot to do with fashion. I think there are two kinds of being trans. First we have to understand that there is sex, which is a biological thing. Genitalia hanging off our body or your ability to or not to have a baby. There is gender which is the constructed definition of how we treat that sex or what that sex is or is not. Which is interesting. My opinion on the trans community is that there are people who are bodily dysmorphic. It is a physical thing. But I think that there is a lot of social dysmorphia too. A lot of this has to do with the fashion world. So some people might not want to change their biology, but they want to be treated like a different sex, if that makes sense. And so there has been a lot of crossover with that world. A mom wrote to me recently she is giving hormone therapy to their seven-year old child. I said, “That is amazing! What were the signs?” She said her daughter doesn't like wearing men's clothes, she likes pink and ponies. All I heard [in that response] were socially constructed things. I didn't hear that this child was looking in the mirror every day and was saying, “Why do I have a penis? I don't want this.”I think it is very important that we give each other permission to be however we want in our society you know and there should not be a gender-specific construct. Clothing should not be gender specific. It is so stupid—I mean, really, it is the least of our worries. You know?TH:Who are your favorite designers right now?RD: I have a ton of different favorites because I have a ton of different sides. So certain designers accent different parts of what I want to express. If I were to go on my casual boy side, I started loving this menswear company ACE Rivington out of California. They do casual clothing, upscale sweaters, et cetera. I am working with them, and when we met, [founder and president Beau Lawrence] was still developing the branding for his company. He said, “You know I really don't care who wears my clothing as long as they feel comfortable in it.” He decided to incorporate that idea into his new campaign. That is the concept: if people love it they should buy it and they shouldn't be ashamed to wear it. I really like them as far as comfort goes.TH:The public seems to really like what you are doing! Do you feel tokenized?RD: I don't think there is another agender model in the world at this current moment. I think the final frontier is yourself—your identity. No one else can explore it but you. I think that the difference is that I talk a lot. Not a lot of models talk, or are vocal. So, definitely I get added to lists because I talk! [laughs]TH:Any pleasant surprises from your journey thus far?RD: There is diversity in high fashion. One thing I was surprised about is the way that [haute couture designers] value gender—it is something I never knew was possible. Great designers have used all kinds of people because they want their art to be expressed! But commercial fashion has very little diversity in it. Haute couture designers like Alexander Wang, Jean Paul Gaultier use very diverse models, but since they are not in the commercial market, we don't see them as much.TH:Thank you for your words and hard work, Rain!
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