It takes Billy Porter two seconds to reach the rail of clothing in the JW Anderson studio. The Tony and Grammy award-winning actor/style icon is in no rush – despite a full schedule of shows and having landed in London only a few hours prior to our meeting – but it is clear that he’s here for one thing and one thing alone, and that is Fashion.
Immediately, he’s diving through the rail, pointing out his favourite details – the placement of what designer Jonathan Anderson calls “found jewellery” on a jacket; the micro-knit dresses in powder pink and yellow; the silver lame capes. “This is modern day ! Cruella de Vil realness,” Porter beams, holding up a white dress with abstract polka dots. Next, he pulls out an all-white look with two large embellishments over the breasts. “These kind of are like daisies, or they could be eggs,” says Anderson with a grin. “Whimsy!” declares Porter, equally smitten.
On a second rail hang the options for Porter to wear to JW Anderson’s runway show. Scanning swiftly, Porter selects a full-length, sunshine yellow knit dress (from the autumn/winter ’19/’20 collection) and two deconstructed tuxedo jackets (from the spring/summer 2020 menswear show).
Porter’s stylist and creative director Sam Ratelle is also on-hand with ideas. “We get to create art,” he explains. “Every time we hit the carpet, it’s a performance. My job really is to elevate [Billy] to his best sense of self and to allow him the options to express himself. That’s what fashion is [all about].”
The star of FX’s (now streaming both critically-acclaimed series on Netflix) became a name on the fashion scene earlier this year, when he attended the Oscars in a velvet tuxedo-gown by Christian Siriano. The dress was exquisite, made even more so by the statement Porter made by wearing it. “It really allowed us to create a space where we can allow queer people to feel comfortable and safe,” says Ratelle. “And completely break that barrier of what gender means.”
Porter and Anderson are clearly in their element in the studio: Anderson, relaxed after a month-long holiday, is revelling in his new-found ally, as they traverse gendered-clothing boundaries together. Meanwhile, Porter is taking in every moment of what he calls “the professional shows” – his first-time FROW appearance was in January this year, and he hasn’t previously attended London Fashion Week.
Here, sits down with Porter and Anderson, to discuss how fashion can be one of the most fun ways to shake-up gender binaries.
You have both, in your own ways, reconfigured gender boundaries. What motivates you?
Billy Porter [BP]: “For me, as an actor, fashion has always been about ‘who do I want to be today?’ ‘What do I want to embody today?’ And allowing myself to explore that in a way that we don’t generally get to do very often. We have structured it so much based on gender, that it has been really fun to take those gender shackles off, and [to remove] that desire or need to be masculine in a world that stresses that that’s the ‘better’ thing to be – and [instead to] just simply . Be who you are, and what you feel you are in any given moment. So that’s what I’m doing with fashion. It’s fun.”
Jonathan Anderson [JA]: “I started as a menswear designer, and the first collections that I did were really based upon the idea of a shared wardrobe. A shirt is a shirt, no matter who wears it, right? There is no barrier between menswear and women’s. This tuxedo jacket [from spring/summer 2020 menswear: sleeves cut off, perfectly tailored with geometric wings, draped back and cinched waist] was a return to that in many ways.”
Do you think we’ll continue to label individuals and creatives, to put them in specific ‘boxes’?
JA: “Of course! And then when we put them there, we don’t want to move them out their box, which is incredibly annoying.”
BP: “It’s just human nature to want to do that. It’s easier for people on the outside to categorise and put labels on things. That’s why this whole gender conversation is so uproarious, because what are the labels going to be? But I think those those binaries are breaking down. We’re beginning to have different conversations.”
Do you feel the pressure to fit into a specific category or label?
BP: “For the first 25 years of my career, I felt very pigeon-holed. Not anymore. Now, I’m too old to feel pressure about anything. I’m gonna be 50 on September 21. Fuck pressure! I show up. I do my job. I’ve been doing it for all my life. All I have to do is be myself. The shackles have been taken off: I’m free.”
JA: “Sometimes I do. But I think people question too much in the industry today and have such a defined vision of who they want to be. Sometimes you have to be able to surprise yourself; to enjoy. The minute I don’t enjoy it, I won’t do it.”
The pace of the entertainment and fashion industries is relentless, how do you stay present?
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JA: “I stop I at the end of the day. I don’t go home and think about fashion. I have become very disciplined with it because I feel that you become so obsessed [otherwise]. And so I like to do it, drop it and then go home. Pick it up again tomorrow.”
BP: “I think you learn that as you get older, that the only way to stay sane is to stay present. There’s so much ‘What if? What if? What if?’ That’s where the anxiety comes from. When the volume comes – in the way that it’s been coming to me recently, you know – you really do have to be in the here and now.”
Jonathan, what was the inspiration behind the JW Anderson spring/summer 2020 collection?
JA: “It is carrying on from what we did last season, but there is a chaoticness to it, and a Parisian edge. It’s a lot more fluid, too. Last season was about volume, this season is about dressing up. I think we’re in this very odd moment, the never-ending saga of Brexit, so how do you show commitment to the idea of fashion? The idea of silhouette? Of tailoring? I’ve enjoyed pushing [it to] the edge. I wanted to follow through on that instead of having the pressure of sales. Sometimes you have to make it about clothing.
“I fell in love with the Canadian artist Liz Magor. She collects random things, like toys and tulle or fabrics, [encased in] boxes. So that idea of ephemera – research and being obsessed by certain things – also informed this collection.”
Billy, you’ve chosen a tuxedo dress to wear to the JW Anderson spring/summer 2020 show. How do you feel in it?
BP: “It’s a vibe, you know? I feel like a covert superhero. I have little wings. I’ll be able to fly.”