Queer looks

“[Queer] style is all about identity and unfettered self-expression,” Rob Smith, founder of Phluid Project – a Manhattan-based, gender-neutral fashion brand – tells The New York Times. “At the same time it’s a political statement, a symbol of resistance against a repressive government. It’s a way of stating, ‘I’m going to push back’.”

Members of the LGBTQI community have long employed elements of fashion to identify themselves to others within the community – everything from artfully stuffing colour-coded handkerchiefs into the back pockets of jeans, to cross-dressing and wearing purple threads or silver thumb rings (it’s a real thing, ok?).

In the west today, freer to express ourselves than ever before in our collective history, we’re still using our clothes, hairstyles, make-up and other means of decoration