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.
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.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * gay 1960s fashion *
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. 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. “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.
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 *
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.
Drsg like a clone, he says, was a rejectn of those olr gay ’s not so easy to ppot precisely who origated the clone ial, guys who were alive at the time ually brg up Al Parker, an adult film star turned producer and director who worked om the 70s to the early 90s. (Parker would eventually bee an advote for gay rights and safe sex, producg only safe-sex films before he passed away om plitns due to AIDS 1992.
GAY HISTORY IS BLACK HISTORY: THE 10 INS PROVE IT
It was like, Oh that’s somethg wh a ltle work I uld atta, and I thk that’s why beme so quickly absorbed to the gay muny. “When I thk back on havg lived through the time, was like gay guys were pg om this stereotype that was jt culted to the culture of sissi and faggots, ” says Woodff. “The clone look was certaly about a whe gay man’s rponse and engagement wh those archetyp, ” says Ben Barry, the an of the school of fashn at the New School’s Parsons School of Dign, whose rearch foc on fashn’s relatnship to masculy, sexualy, and the body.
”)Prentg as mascule public was physilly safer for gay guys, but the clone stume pulled double duty, Barry says, tweakg tradnal masculy while also signalg to other queer folks.
“There’s this munal thg happeng right now where people are more open that they’re trans and non-bary or bisexual and not jt on the spectm of beg straight, gay, male, female. “I was 19, vulnerable, young and puttg my own inty together,” says photographer Anthony Friedk when reflectg on his first project, The Gay Essay, which documents gay culture Los Angel and San Francis between 1969-1972.