The designer making clothes with wool from gay sheep

A couple of hours outside Berlin, near Cologne, there’s a farm where 35 gay sheep live in quiet, improbable peace. It reads like the opening line of a queer fairytale, and in some ways, it is. Across most of the wool industry, rams that only show interest in mating with other rams over ewes are deemed commercial failures and quickly slaughtered. Some of these “black sheep” are instead relocated to the fields of Michel Stücke’s Rainbow Wool sanctuary, and are offered a different fate through fashion, and more specifically, the New York showcase I Wool Survive – a high-camp collaboration from Grindr, LA designer Michael Schmidt, and Kelly Cutrone.

Stücke, who was raised on farms, came out to his parents at the age of 24. This led him on a journey, from buying (and essentially rescuing) 21 gay sheep and starting Rainbow Wool, to reaching out to the other side of the world to share his story. So, when LA designer Michael Schmidt – who grew up in the American Midwest in a farming family – learned about this project, he didn’t just see potential for an incredible show, but a stark parallel to the ways queer people are treated for their identities today. After all, in 62 countries, homosexuality is still punishable by death.

“It’s not just an animal rights story,” Schmidt explains backstage at the I Wool Survive show, wearing a cream knitted sweater flecked with silver sparkle. “Homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom. It’s natural. Animals certainly do not choose whether or not to be gay, the same way humans don’t make that choice. So for people to learn that is a powerful first step in, hopefully, getting them to start rethinking this idea that the LGBTQIA+ community can be discriminated against.”

It was this connection that inspired Grindr’s senior vice president of marketing, Tristan Pineiro, to take a leap into fashion. After receiving a message from Stücke about Rainbow Wool on LinkedIn, “I thought, let’s create something that’s going to get a lot of attention,” he explains.

He turned to PR maven Kelly Cutrone, who connected him with Schmidt, who was her very first client back in 1989. The innovative designer, whose client list spans icons like Cher, Beyoncé, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, and most recently Doja Cat at Vogue World, as well as collaborations with Versace, Jeremy Scott and Chrome Hearts – had just the idea to get a lot of attention.

The collection arrives at a moment when corporations in the US are rolling back inclusivity initiatives, access to healthcare and gender-affirming care are under attack, and the government is imposing passport restrictions targeting trans people. “I didn’t just want to do a knitwear collection that would be lost in fashion week and be forgotten about the next day,” Schmidt adds. “You can create all kinds of interesting things with wool, but at the same time, it's the story of the wool that I find interesting.”

In just under three months, Schmidt visited Stücke’s farm, brought back boxes of wool, and alongside another OG Cutrone client – LA mother-daughter hand-knitting duo Suss and Hanna Cousins – created a collection that is more art than fashion. “A straight-up fashion collection wouldn’t make sense. I wanted to do something that would elevate this idea and celebrate homosexual desire, no matter where it exists in the human or animal spectrum,” Schmidt continues. “I wanted to cause eyeballs to turn to this issue. So I went back through time and examined all of the typical stereotypical tropes of gay fantasies. Because it’s Grindr, I wanted it to be sexy, too.”

It wouldn’t be a Grindr show if things didn’t close with a leather daddy and a leather pup

The collection plays out like a technicolour, Village People-esque fever dream, punctuated by glistening abs, jockstraps, and bubble butts. Across 36 looks, there’s a biblically-accurate Adam wrapped in a knitted lime green, tangerine, and cream boa constrictor, a mechanic in a black cable knit boiler suit, a US Olympic swimmer donning three gold medals and teeny tiny briefs, a towering fireman brandishing a knitted axe, a DTF worker in a knitted rendition of the recognisable brown uniform, a playful pool boy in bright yellow shorts stamped with a smiley face, and even a pizza delivery guy complete with a hand-knitted pie. But it wouldn’t be a Grindr show if things didn’t close with a leather daddy and a leather pup, complete with a hot-pink dildo jutting out from the wool (paging Alexander Skarsgård).

One of the most impressive parts of the offering was the knitwear illusions Suss and Hanna excitedly gushed about before the show. “Whatever designs he gave us, we turned them into a knit,” Suss explains. “A lot of the designs came out of Michael’s wardrobe. The leather jacket for the biker came from him,” Hanna reveals. Using wool, they meticulously handcrafted a punk denim vest stitched with Grace Jones’ image, leather harnesses, fitted jeans with a double seam, and paisley bandanas.

When Schmidt came out for his final bow, the crowd leapt out of their seats for a standing ovation, and Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” boomed. If the objective was to make the story the statement rather than the clothes, he succeeded. Unlike most other fashion shows, where everyone scurries out as soon as the show ends, most stuck around and pressed forward. On a podium, the 36 models danced and laughed, commemorating the 35 rams and Stücke back on the farm: a reminder that the story behind the wool – of queer lives and survival – was the real show.

Scroll through the gallery the top of the page for images from the show