Femme Desire, 2016

Femme Desire was a site-specific fashion installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston on October 7th 2016, that exposes the limits within which fashion designers and society put on the expression of femininity. A constantly evolving performance, Femme Desire was created by Qwear’s Fashion Director, Rupi and Qwear’s Founder, Sonny Oram. The models/performers are invited to guide Rupi, as the fashion designer, in creating unique pieces that are a departure from their usual expression of femme fashion.

Under the guise of queer fashion, femmes are restricted to certain forms of expression for fear of safety, acceptance, and the exercise of basic rights to freedom. Femme Desire dismantles all preconceived notions of gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex assigned at birth. The performance intends to raise questions about identity that, throughout this night, questioners come to realize don’t deserve or even warrant an answer.

Femme Desire emerges out of Rupi’s 2015 collection Dismantle Me, which explores the relationship between the fashion designer, the model, and the queer aesthetic with patterns evoking historical class and rebellion, gender, and sexuality. Femme Desire presents a radical, model-driven approach to the method of creating and showcasing fashion collections. This work provides the whole experience of the fashion designer’s creative method associated with curating a collection — being careful never to lapse into the traditional designer dominant role and audience-pleasing impulses.

Femme Desire examines the physicality of femme fashion — separate from the source of its meaning — in a dual transformation ritual. This work explores the expression, stereotypes, drama, and aesthetics of femme fashion, allowing the audience to experience qualities of feminine expression that are often unnoticed. Here the visible feminine aesthetic becomes a site for investigating the invisible feminine expressions and the potential relationships among those who fall outside the iconic femme fashion and fashion designers.