Growing up homeschooled in Pennsylvania, fashion theorist Shuang Bright spent much of her early years in the mall, window shopping with her mum. She would go to Borders, a giant bookstore, and browse the fashion section, flicking through old FRUiTS magazines and manga. Those pages of vibrant Japanese street style were Bright’s introduction into the world of fashion. For as long as she can remember, style was something not just to be enjoyed but meticulously studied – a curiosity which now informs her videos online. 

Bright became a fashion content creator during the pandemic, when she, like many others, started posting outfit videos. “One of my favourite things about living in New York is that everyone puts a lot of care and effort into how they present themselves,” she says. “So then, shifting to that work-from-home environment where you are just wearing pyjamas every day was making me quite depressed.” Bright was back in Pennsylvania and had a full-time job in beauty, so she wasn’t looking to become an influencer, but her videos took off. 

These days, you can still expect interesting outfits on Bright’s page, but now they are paired with history lessons. For the past year, she’s been putting her minor in sociology from NYU to good use, making lesbian fashion history videos that inform her hundreds of thousands of followers about everything from post-war trends to Queen Latifah’s queer fashion legacy. “I like thinking about the why and where things come from. Why is this popular? What were the origins? And how did this style even evolve?” she says. “Understanding history and context is so important.”

Ahead, we spoke to Shuang about why everyone should know about the ‘three-piece law’, the aestheticisation of queer style online and the importance of preserving lesbian history in America today. 

What was your first fashion-related memory?

Shuang Bright: I had these really tall fur boots that I wore in fifth grade. They were in my favourite article of clothing. I could still wear them today, so I’m upset that I donated them years ago. They had a crazy platform heel that I was wearing at 10 years old for no reason. I mean, the reason was to be fierce. 

Who were your early style icons? 

Shuang Bright: I was just walking about this with a friend, but I really like the style in the anime Black Butler. It’s very gothic. I don’t even know how to describe that style, but I would describe my style as almost a newsboy of the 18th century. Ideally, that’s how I'm dressing.

Has that always been the case? How has your style evolved over time?

Shuang Bright: No, I wouldn’t say that that’s always been my style. When I was younger, I was obsessed with dressing quite hyper-feminine. But I would say that now, settled into my adulthood, I prefer more androgynous silhouettes.

You’ve made lesbian fashion videos for a year now. What made you want to focus on queer style in particular?

Shuang Bright: I think there’s a difference between being a queer person and also being culturally queer. I’ve noticed within the queer community, especially within the younger generations, that there seems to be a gap in understanding history. They seem to be missing that culturally queer element. And what I mean by culturally queer is that you can say that you are a lesbian or are queer, but then you don’t have a fundamental understanding of the history aspect. No shade if your only reference point to queer life is that you like the movie Bottoms, which is a great movie, but queer history is so rich. It informs the way that you are able to show up in the world. You’re only able to live this life because of all the people who have come before you, who have made all these decisions and have moved the needle to allow you to exist the way that you do now. 

Your videos do such an amazing job of pairing history with a topic popular in this moment. 

Shuang Bright: Yeah, that’s why I wanted to showcase the more historical element, but then also contextualising it with what’s going on today. So, presenting a modern-day topic, but infusing that historical aspect just so people can understand how we even got to where we are, because we didn’t end up here without all the stuff that happened before.

There’s so much queer history that has been erased or hasn’t been documented. What’s the hardest part of finding this history? 

Shuang Bright: Etymology is hard because terminology is really important. Within the queer community, certain terms get appropriated or lost. People forget the origins of where things came from, like the word ‘stud’, because I sometimes see white people referring to themselves as studs. This word carries such heavy historical context specific only to the Black community. You can only trace some of these words back so far, even though I know they go back further. When interviewing people or finding interviews in print, I can source things that, when I search online, don’t exist. 

What’s something most people don’t know about lesbian fashion history? 

Shuang Bright: The ‘three-piece law’, which is not just specifically related to lesbians. It was essentially what was called a masquerade law, which meant a person of their assigned gender had to be wearing at least three articles of clothing associated with that gender. For example, I could not be wearing pants, a man’s jacket and a man’s shirt. I would need to be wearing three articles of clothing that are feminine pieces of clothing in combination with those things. So these laws were targeted towards trans women and masculine lesbians, again, as a form of discrimination.

I think a lot of people don’t know that! There are a lot of conversations going on right now about people talking about elements of queer culture and turning them into an internet aesthetic. Why do you think that is?

Shuang Bright: There’s now an overlap of being trendy and being queer, but I still think that a queer person can spot another queer person. It all overlaps online.  Historically, the carabiner, pinky ring or monocle, which was predominantly only used among upper-class lesbians, were signals of sexual preferences. But I think a straight woman could absolutely wear the same outfit as a high femme lesbian, and you can clock it by the mannerisms and how they are carrying themselves, as opposed to there being a strong visual code. 

Is there anything you think can be done to preserve these visual codes for the queer community? 

Shuang Bright: It’s tough, because you could say that a lot of modern-day interpretation of queer fashion has already been appropriated from places like Black street fashion. So it’s hard to really make that differentiation of what straight individuals should and should not wear. I think it’s less so with how a person dresses and more so the spaces that these people are maybe choosing to occupy. 

Why do you think it’s so important to preserve lesbian fashion history, especially right now in America?

Shuang Bright: It’s really important, especially now, because we’re seeing in real time certain departments being eradicated from higher education. Gender and sexuality classes courses are being taken out of the curriculum. Censorship in this country is growing. There are certain things that I know I can’t even talk about in videos, and that makes me really upset and sad. The fact that I can’t find some of these things online is scary to me. And I also just think it’s cool to see what queer life has always been. It’s always existed, and the strength of the community is so strong.