Queer Fashion and Nightlife in Glasgow

by Jennifer Greene

The dark, seething atmospheres of Glasgow’s gay clubs and exclusive basement parties are home to unique displays of queer fashion, too shocking to be seen on the cover of British Vogue. The latex outfits are revealing, shiny and popstarish, curated and obscure. The people wearing them are confident and elaborate, yet vulnerable. Venues like Polo and events organised by Ponyboy and DRIP are where these looks take shape. Clubgoers spill out onto the street with faces streaking with makeup and sweat, wearing provocative slogan t-shirts, lace lingerie, or strips of thick leather that barely cover. Nights are captured by photographers who publish their work in queer magazines, sharing the art form that is queer fashion. 

Fascinatingly, many of the outfits you see in Glasgow’s queer clubs are entirely fashioned, sewn, and created by those who wear them, giving them a makeshift feel. A strong sense of togetherness is evident, persisting on the inclination of creativity within the Glaswegian queer community. DJs mix their own tracks, and performers create their own sets.

Queer fashion frequently disrupts traditional forms; skirts, ties, and tights are refashioned into tops, and dresses are precisely torn. The looks are eclectic, referencing cultural backgrounds and individual, artistic tastes. They allude to all manners of art forms, artists, and eras; in a single night, you might see nods to 1970s anti-fashion, the rapper Cupcakke, anime, and Alexander McQueen. It is random, bizarre and brilliant. 

Fashion is essential to queer expression; the creative dressing of the body becomes an act of liberation. Queer theorists and artists have long written about the queer body and how it is conceptualised. As Joelle Taylor explains; “My whole life has been a protest, and my body a political placard. My body has also been a battleground and a barroom, a tourist spot and a cemetery, a haunted house and a roadside memorial. What it has rarely been is mine.”
 

As our body is so many things at once, it can be treated as a material for us to create artwork upon. Queer nightclubs provide the conditions for this transformation. These looks showcase the body as a renewable source of excitement, treating the body as material and provocation. It interprets the “otherness” historically imposed upon queer communities and reclaims it through the practice of creating and wearing outfits that expose the body and shock the observer. Revealing the body is both a political and artistic choice, and queer nightclubs offer the freedom to decide that.  

The welcoming environment of the Glaswegian gay nightclub means that you aren’t policed by judgments for what you wear. Everyone in the room shares common ground. On the dance floor, intricate and perplexing outfits are elevated equally and no one is othered. Unlike a raised catwalk, with its tense dynamic between audience and model, or a parliament, where one voice speaks over all others, the queer dancefloor dissolves hierarchies. And yet it serves the same artistic and political functions as the catwalk and the parliament, being a centre for all inspired people to come together. 

Here, fashion does not have to be a sanctimonious, refined, exclusive art form; fashion is accessible to everyone and all clothes are viewed equally. People make their outfits from scratch, and the dancefloor becomes a canvas that bodies move upon like paint, colouring it with their presence. There is no strict containment and no order. Everything is chaotic, fluorescent and fashionable, until the club closes at three am.