Gallery review: Strikg work by Hal Fischer, examg vtage gay male street fashn, leads the group show “Photography and Language” at Cherry & Mart.
Contents:
- REVIEW: 1970S GAY STREET FASHNS AND OTHER VTAGE DISVERI ‘PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE’
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- RISE OF GAY DESIGNERS
- GAY HISTORY IS BLACK HISTORY: THE 10 INS PROVE IT
REVIEW: 1970S GAY STREET FASHNS AND OTHER VTAGE DISVERI ‘PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE’
* gay 1960s fashion *
From Wong’s work, to the wild, androgyno jewelry of partners love and life Alex and Lee, to Billy Shire’s studd “Welfare” jacket (wner of the Levi’s Denim Art Contt) — all reads a b like the left-behd artifacts of a fal Summer of Love, jt before AIDS stroyed a generatn of gay men. ’75 (former Berkeley Law archivist, thor, and founr of the Gay Bears Collectn the Universy Archiv), the Gay Liberatn Front was very radil for s time.
Around the same time, a group of gay stunts formed a muny center lled Sherwood Fort, which met at the Wley Center. Across the Bay Bridge, gay and bisexual men, cludg Harvey Milk, migrated to the Castro startg the early 1970s.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * gay 1960s fashion *
In 1977, Milk beme the first openly gay elected official California’s history when he joed the San Francis Board of Supervisors. “My ia was that stunts might change their attus for the better if they knew I was gay, ” he wrote an email. It was there that Vermazen first heard discsn of same-sex marriage—an outrageo thought at the time—and the first time he met the late Sheldon Anlson, the Universy of California’s first openly gay regent.
RISE OF GAY DESIGNERS
Gays and lbians have long been “hidn om history”—cludg the history of fashn. “Reclaimg the gay and lbian past” volv more than simply regnizg that some dividual fashn signers happened to be gay. * gay 1960s fashion *
In a time where beg gay was not socially acceptable, the flower was ed to secretly intify one’s self, a reasong which would ntue throughout queer fashn. While piercgs general were beg more normalized, gay men saw a sgle piercg the right ear as an intifier for queerns. The lack of safety for gay men meant that secrecy was ccial, so the piercgs were a form of munitn that allowed them to regnize one another whout havg to out themselv.
But when one particular look cropped up the post-Stonewall gay scene of the 1970s, was so popular—and so distct—that the guys who sported were dismissed as “clon. )And while the nickname was ially pejorative, the clone perd marked perhaps the first time that gay men prented themselv wh a queer-signalg uniform that was a direct rponse to societal stereotyp.
GAY HISTORY IS BLACK HISTORY: THE 10 INS PROVE IT
“The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly, ” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men.
He pots to the gay mstrel stereotyp the 1967 film The Producers, along wh the timid-lookg guys on the illtrated vers of gay pulp books wh nam like All the Sad Young Men.
(Not to mentn the 1964 article Life magaze lled “Homosexualy Ameri, ” which scribed a “sad and often sordid world. ”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s, ” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom.