Uchronic Fashion Collections as Queer Archives

As Caroline Evans and Alessandra Vaccari note, 'fashion has a curious affinity with unorthodox models of time' as a performative and thus 'time-based and time-specific medium' (2020: 3). This paper explores strategies and aesthetics of contemporary fashion designers whose practice engages creatively with elements of queer history and memory. In doing so, it seeks to initiate a map of diverse approaches to fashion as a queer archive, focusing on the ways that specific works and collections can be said to encompass queer 'emotional experiences and intimacies' (Cvetkovich, 2014: 274).

The first example discussed is Edward Crutchley's Spring Summer 2022 collection, which is illustrative of anachronistic fashion practice. The paper focuses on looks developed from an 18th century robe a l'anglaise, an ensemble worn by the upper classes in the context of everyday life and aristocratic salons. Particular attention is also placed on the design of textiles and references to the work of Anna Maria Garthwaite, a prolific 18th century textile designer who lived and worked in Spitalfields, London. The paper also considers connections drawn to and across London's 18th and 19th century molly houses and 1980s and 90s queer club cultures.

This is contrasted with work produced by Adeju Thompson, founder of non-binary luxury label Lagos Space Programme. Anlaysis focuses on the brand's Cloth as Queer Archive project, with emphasis on the use of Yoruba textile cultures and resistance dyeing techniques. The paper uses this work to discuss how Afrofuturist sensibilities can be aligned to uchronic approaches and to extend discussions of legibility that run across both examples.

Ultimately, the paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of 'queer fashion' beyond dominant Fashion Studies frameworks of performativity and subversion. This is grounded in practice and attentive to the ways in which temporality and materiality combine to produce fashion's affective charge. Ultimately, it demonstrates fashion's ability to both communicate and satisfy a 'queer desire for history' (Dinshaw et al, 2007: 178) in a manner which is imaginative, playful and sensual.

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