The first designers to define fashion as we know it, whose names still pack a powerful branding punch and mean millions of dollars in sales, were gay men: Cristobal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent. Some of them are closely kept, while others are everything but spelled out on a billboard-like the fact that gay men are the fashion industry’s real power players.Įven if fashion’s primary consumers are women (and many of its newest, hungriest consumers are straight guys), many of its most influential creative forces are gay men.
The fashion industry, like a popular girl’s hair, is full of secrets.
