2023 Dandy Outfits and Backstories
Well, wasn't this one eventful year, eh?
Wow, what a year! I have to admit that 2023 packed a whole lot into my dandy life than
previous years before. Most of it was good, some of it was bad, some of it was downright awful, and some of it was beyond memorable
in all of the right ways. I will try to break down the moments in my dandy life month by month as best as I can.
January: Right off the bat I win an award for my lewks, the Tippy Golden Teacup Award for
"Best Macaroni Artist" (the history of the term "Macaroni" can be found here), and the visual receipt, and subsequent lewk I created
to reflect my award's colors, can be found here. I also dared to wear a delicate pink and mint green Dandy outfit at, of all places,
Mid-Atlantic Leather, this after
going to my first Flower Factory
for the year (click here to see).
February: I'm interviewed by The Washington Post!!
I am also photographed and featured alongside others in an article for Flower Factory. I am in worldwide media!
March: I started my major project at work and loving it; more work to support my dandyism craze!
April: At the time of writing this blog I have not yet been given the greenlight to share the big news, but, trust
me, it's quite big, and this is a game-changer for me as a dandy, especially as a dandy here in DC. Hopefully soon the news will be out, and I
will happily share the great and amazing news with all of you!
May: My usual Steampunk event canceled this year, and here I am with four gorgina outfits, and I was not
at all going to let them go to waste. I found out about
Balticon and, knowing that Baltimore is a short hop train ride from DC, it was an easy alternative for me to show my lewks off
(Friday,
Friday Night,
Saturday,
Saturday Night),
and thus, I went..
..and won another award
June: It's Pride Month! Pride is my time, as a black gay fem queer dandy, to celebrate
with the entirety of the spectrum of my community, our identity, our sexuality, and our presence in the world, not to mention our creativity. To
read more about my personal Pride experiences click here.
July: Hi Barbie!
And what an amazing movie, nej? To celebrate this cinematic milestone of women's empowerment I did a departure from my normal Dandy routine:
I wore shorts. I deliberately wore a summer Dandy silly pink and mint green Barbie homage feminine Ken outfit for the movie; it was silly,
cartoony, definitely not my typical silhouette, but I felt that it was warranted given the nature of the movie and the season we were in, and
you can see for yourselves.
August: If I could summarize the month of August into two words, it would only be these two words:
Marc Jacobs
OMG, seriously, this year's Provincetown Carnival was, for me, by far, one of my absolute favorite moments
of 2023. Everything from the Drag Brunch at Crown & Anchor to The Vault to seeing Skip Ransom again to the Boatslip to my "Land of Toys" porcelain doll inspired
outfits (Thursday,
Friday), but let me tell you a story:
So, Thursday my cousin and I are at The Boatslip, I in my Thursday outfit, when this
very hot guy in an andrygynous Ken-meets-Barbie outfit, flanked by his friends in identical outfits, comes up to me and says, "I really love your outfit!" I thanked
him. Moments later my cousin runs up to me and says, "Do you know who that was??". Time stopped when I found out. Marc Jacobs himself,
one of the major names in fashion worldwide, personally loved my outfit!
September: Getting finally down off my summer high, my Carnival high, my Marc Jacobs-loved-my-outfit high, I went to
Flower Factory yet again for September, crafting a lewk based solely off the fun sunglasses I bought at
Shop Therapy; something along the lines of sunflowers and the saddening end of my favorite time of the year: summer. You can find the green-and-yellow
sunflower summer lewk on my Instagram.
October: My Birthday Month.. and I gave myself one of the best birthday presents I have ever given myself, and based off of the
magical antics of Preston, Mark, Jaye, and Marik, making it happen: New Orleans, LA, my lifelong dream to go there had been, at
last, fulfilled. Everything from 24-hour bars to fried alligator to poboys to David (one of the hottest bartenders out there) to my dinner at
Mr. Ed's Oyster Bar & Seafood House, was
all I had imagined and more, and, of course, there was no way I was not going to walk down the French Quarter unless in an outfit (considering how many times in my Dandy life I have heard that
my outfits are "so New Orleans"; well, they are now!), and
see for yourselves.
November: Time to give thanks.. for my family, friends, my job, my health, New Orleans, Carnival, Baltimore, Flower Factory, my dandy art, and to be able to be included by my old goth crowd once again
for the annual Cemetery Potluck, a glorious time and setting in Washington's
Congressional Cemetery. It was elegant, delightful, a bit warm, and I think I cleaned up nicely.
December: It was unusual for Teslacon to be so late this year, but here we are.
I have to admit that it was an unusual one for me this year, and, someday, I will be ready to share the story with you all, but, for now, that's all I can say on
the matter, and, yes, I ultimately had a good time, the Afrofuturism panel was perfection, Tim will always remain amazing, Jordan and Kyle will always be my
straight crushes, and my lewks? See the ancient Egyptian influenced lewks for yourselves:
(Thursday Night,
Friday,
Friday Night,
Saturday,
Saturday Night).
But wait, there's more..
At the end of the month, towards the end of the year, TRADE snuck in a.. Ball! This was my first ball in
nearly 4 years, and I was so emotional when I found out (click here to learn more about the LGBTQ+ POC Ball Culture). I
walked in the category of "Best Dressed", and, while I only made it past the first round (didn't get immediately chopped and got 10s Across The Board), I was still
deeply and emotionally touched to be a part of this culture of which I wished I could have been a part a very long time ago.
Oh, my outfit?
-- From a Steampunk award in January to walking a Ball in December
-- From Balticon to Teslacon
-- From Baltimore to Provincetown to New Orleans
-- From a Cemetery Potluck to Barbie
-- Media, Marc Jacobs, and more
2023 was a year I will always remember, and thank you for reading this to go along my year-long journey into dandyness. Padam Padam!
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