June is Pride Month and we here at UGP are so excited to honor all those in the LGBTQ+ community and celebrate equality, community, and being yourself. We are proud to have printed custom shirts for members and organizations involved with the LGBTQ+ community, and we want to acknowledge some of the important LGBTQ+ members of the apparel and fashion community.

First, we have Tom Ford, one of the truest Renaissance men of this generation. Born in 1961 in Austin, Texas, Ford would eventually move to New York City, first studying at NYU before eventually graduating from the Parsons School of Design with a degree in architecture. After just four short years with Gucci, starting in 1990, Ford would ultimately ascend to the role of creative director for them in 1994, leading a complete overhaul of the brand and pushing them back into the mainstream. Ford would then serve in the same role for Saint Laurent, before ultimately starting his own label in 2004. In 2005, he also started his own production company and has served as the director of two feature-length films, A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), with both receiving critical acclaim. 

Another member of the LGBTQ+ community currently making an impact in the fashion industry is Andreja Pejic. Once known as the “world’s first androgynous supermodel”, Pejic came out as a trans woman in 2013 and has become the most recognizable transgender model. Pejic was born in Tuzla in the former Yugoslavia. In the wake of the Bosnia War, Pejic and her family fled to Serbia, before again moving to Australia as political refugees when Pejic was just eight. Scouted as a model at the age of 17, Pejic grew in popularity and fame, eventually making waves at the 2011 Paris Fashion Week, walking in both the men’s and women’s shows. Pejic became the first transgender model to be featured in Vogue in 2015, and in 2016 she became the first trans woman to sign a cosmetics contract. 

An incredibly influential designer who is unfortunately no longer with us is Patrick Kelly. Kelly was born in 1954 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and his interest in fashion began in high school when he picked up sewing. Kelly attended Jackson State University briefly before eventually moving to Atlanta and making connections with people, including supermodel Pat Cleveland, who urged Kelly to move to New York, and then Paris in 1980 where he found near-immediate success. Kelly grew in notoriety and eventually was able to name Bette Davis, Madonna, and Goldie Hawn, among others, as some of the stars that wore his apparel. Kelly tragically passed away from AIDS at the age of 54 in 1990. He was celebrated by all those he was around, and he remains an important figure in the history of fashion.

Finally, we want to highlight Kaisik Wong. Wong was born in 1950 in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco. Wong was making his own clothes and shoes by the age of 14, and he would drop out of high school at 15 to go study at the Pacific Fashion Institute of San Francisco. He moved to New York at the age of 17, traveled to Paris, and returned home to San Francisco in the early-70s to start his own label. Wong met Salvador Dali in Paris and was inspired by him, even working in his later years with one of Dali’s proteges, Steven F. Arnold. Wong not only designed his own clothes, but he would also work as a costume designer for film. He passed away at the age of 40 from leukemia, but he is remembered as an innovator and a fashion and pride icon.

We hope that you were able to learn more about some of these excellent LGBTQ+ designers and icons of the fashion industry during this Pride Month. We stand with the LGBTQ+ community and will always remain dedicated to highlighting the successes of overlooked minority groups in the communities that we serve.