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Article

“Not Your Average Fashion Show:” Rethinking Black Queer Women’s Activism in Queer Fashion Shows

by
Donnesha Alexandra Blake
College of Medicine, Central Michigan University, 1280 South East Campus Drive, Mount Pleasant, MI 48858, USA
Humanities 2025, 14(10), 195; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100195
Submission received: 10 July 2025 / Revised: 5 September 2025 / Accepted: 22 September 2025 / Published: 2 October 2025

Abstract

In this study, I expand on the Black feminist tradition of rethinking Black women’s activism by examining how Black queer women’s fashion shows challenge traditional definitions and sites of activism. I present BlaQueer Style as an interpretive framework that largely draws on the wisdom and theories of Black feminism to undercover how these productions and the politics that shape them are not only sites of activism because they challenge the conventions of mainstream cultural institutions, but because they make space for the social and personal transformation of the communities they center. In this analysis of two public LGBTQ+ fashion shows, I argue that intention aside, the Black queer women founders and fashion workers and their practices and performances of centering marginalized communities, using the body to signal and subvert controlling images, and building coalition among these communities, highlight the liberatory potential of their fashion work. In a time when Black queer and trans people are experiencing misrepresentation and other forms of violence globally, BlaQueer Style is what I name the politics that presents a deep commitment to both the aesthetics and the liberation of these communities in Black queer women’s fashion work.
Keywords: black feminism; activism; fashion workers; queer fashion; black expressive culture black feminism; activism; fashion workers; queer fashion; black expressive culture

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MDPI and ACS Style

Blake, D.A. “Not Your Average Fashion Show:” Rethinking Black Queer Women’s Activism in Queer Fashion Shows. Humanities 2025, 14, 195. https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100195

AMA Style

Blake DA. “Not Your Average Fashion Show:” Rethinking Black Queer Women’s Activism in Queer Fashion Shows. Humanities. 2025; 14(10):195. https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100195

Chicago/Turabian Style

Blake, Donnesha Alexandra. 2025. "“Not Your Average Fashion Show:” Rethinking Black Queer Women’s Activism in Queer Fashion Shows" Humanities 14, no. 10: 195. https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100195

APA Style

Blake, D. A. (2025). “Not Your Average Fashion Show:” Rethinking Black Queer Women’s Activism in Queer Fashion Shows. Humanities, 14(10), 195. https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100195

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