From the editor: fashion and the gay aesthetic

Weeks ago in the dressing room line at the new Denver H&M, I overheard an attractive young man shout to his friend who was browsing through the sale racks near the new line of spring women’s shorts.

“I don’t wanna lose my place in line. Could you grab me a pair of black or grey shorts to try on?”

As the friend made her way over – dodging employees and racks of crumpled clothes – I noticed that the shorts in her hands: they were short. They were, in fact, booty shorts.

“I always have to buy my dancin’ clothes in the women’s department,” he told me, justifying his interest in shorts I imagined would barely even cover his junk.

I revealed my armful of men’s collared shirts and sweaters. “I totally understand,” I said with a knowing smile – “those shorts are hot!”

My girlfriend and I had just been discussing how we always start in the men’s department when we shop, sifting through colors and looks that are closer to what we’re looking for.

At first glance, my girlfriend  and I are opposites. She tends to sport Henley’s and hoodies to compliment her bold mohawk; I am most comfortable in collared shirts and loose sweaters that show a hint of cleavage. But our wardrobes are interchangeable. Butch, femme, hippie and sporty: all styles we rock, in different ways and on different occasions.

It isn’t easy to shop in the men’s department. I don’t know what size to try first; the sizing charts by the dressing room at H&M are segregated by gender.

Are we really alone in our gender-binary shopping dilemma?

After talking with coworkers and friends of the lesbian, queer and gay variety, it has become clear that we aren’t. Everybody I’ve heard from is already secretly shopping in the opposite genders’ departments. That’s the spectrum we’re on in the LGBT community.

“They need to make a store that’s more androgynous,” a friend who lives in San Diego explained. “Business at that store would be booming!”

She’s right. How often do we feel pressured to search for the perfect shirt or outfit in our “own” department, when really, the styles and colors don’t allow us to express our personal aesthetics like we’d hoped?

For our Spring Fashion issue, we have featured some of the season’s newest trends from H&M and local retailer Soul Haus. Cover models and newly engaged couple Eric Lunsford and Cody Engler, pulled off the popular orange and blue hues like true fashionistas.

Genders are interchangeable when we begin to explore our individual “look.” In the LGBT community, our style and sense of aesthetics give us comfort whether we’re out on the town dancing at Tracks, or meeting with clients in the office. Whatever gives us confidence when we sneak a glimpse of ourselves reflected in glass storefronts or rear-view mirrors.

Our community is already a driver of change, and our visions and hopes for equality make us the power players at the tables of politics as well as cultural and artistic aesthetics.

We are not constricted to being defined by society, but rather we are the ones defining ourselves. And with that comes liberation and power to create our culture and to create a community we are embraced by.

I caught a glimpse of the man trying on the “women’s” shorts while modeling a new shirt and jacket for my partner. And I can say in honestly he looked better in those shorts than two women I had seen trying on the same pair.

He looked studly and confident. If I’d seen him on the street in those shorts, I wouldn’t have pegged him as “gay.” Just as fashionable.

He wasn’t ashamed to show some thigh, and I can picture him dancing the night away or strolling downtown in the warm spring months with a casual collared shirt or screen-printed tee.

He was eager to celebrate his own beauty: not a beauty defined by New York City fashionistas and designers, but a beauty he found when he allowed himself to think outside the box and color outside the lines – a goal we can all strive for each time we catch a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror of the dressing room.