Curtis Cassell is making beautiful baroque pieces that can be worn on and off the aisle.
Get to Know This Non-Binary, Billy-Porter-Approved Bridal Label
Curtis Cassell aims to shake the binary stereotype within the bridal world with his label, Queera. It’s not the standard tuxedo or a princess wedding dress, but rather looks with a baroque, almost renaissance feel with high collars and exaggerated puffed sleeves, modernized with slices up and down the sleeves or ties trailing up the slit of a skirt. The pieces aren’t made to fit a specific person, but rather, everyone, especially those within the LGTBQ community. 32-year-old Cassell has been creating wedding looks, among ready-to-wear, for a few years now. Billy Porter wore one of his designs—a royal blue shirt dress–for an Oscars after-party in 2021. Even Queera’s Instagram handle, @queerawang, is a tongue-in-cheek spin on “typical” bridalwear.
While Cassell’s clothes have a fantasy touch, they’re based in architecture. The designer, who learned to sew from his mother and “old ladies on YouTube,” grew up in a small town in Ohio and left to attend a small college in Chicago where he studied graphic design and architecture with a concentration in furniture. “Everything was just so on the computer and the deeper I got into college, the more I needed to make things with my hands,” says Cassell. It was around 2007, which Cassell refers to as the “Lady Gaga era” when he was making “wearable sculptures”. The local drag community caught wind, and Cassell began making custom pieces for them.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Liana Satenstein
