Cripping the Catwalk: Queer Fashion, Disability, and the Disruption of Normative Bodies
During a recent panel on queerness and fashion with RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Shea Couleé, we were asked a deceptively simple question: Do clothes have gender? Shea answered that they do — that clothing carries gender and, in fact, that's how we push fashion forward. I offered a counterpoint. Clothes, I argued, cannot inherently have gender. They are fibers and plastics woven together to clothe, protect, and adorn the body. Gender, as a social construct, is projected onto fashion — not embedded within it. If we insist that clothes have gender, we risk reinscribing the very norms queer and disabled communities have long resisted. This tension — between identity and aesthetic, utility and expression, body and fabric — lies at the heart of this essay. Fashion, long governed by rigid ideals of beauty, gender, and ability, is undergoing a slow but vital transformation. When approached through the intersecting lenses of queer theory and crip theory, fashion can become more than a surface-level art form; it becomes a deeply political space where non-normative bodies are made visible, expressive, and powerful. This essay argues that the intersection of queer and crip theory in fashion challenges hegemonic ideals of the body by reimagining visibility, aesthetics, and normativity. Through adaptive clothing design, inclusive runways, and activist art, queer and disabled communities are not just fitting into fashion — they are transforming it.
Queer theory, emerging from poststructuralist thoughts and championed by thinkers like Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, and Lee Edelman, challenges the supposed “naturalness” of heterosexuality and gender normativity. Butler’s theory of performativity, reframes gender not as a fixed identity but as an ongoing performance, sustained by repetition and social expectation (Butler). Queerness, then, is not just about non-normative desire; it is an anti-normative stance, a refusal to fit. Crip theory, as articulated by Robert McRuer, works similarly to destabilize the cultural norm of able-bodiedness. In “Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence,” McRuer explains that able-bodiedness functions much like compulsory heterosexuality — as a “nonidentity,” an invisible standard that structures social life (McRuer 301). Crip theory foregrounds disability as not only a condition, but as a political and aesthetic mode, ripe with creative and resistant potential. Both queer and crip theories share a common goal: to unmake the binary systems (abled/disabled, male/female, straight/queer, normal/other) that discipline bodies into conformity. They ask: What might we create if we stopped designing the world only for the “average” body?
Historically, fashion has upheld — and indeed helped produce — normative ideals. The fashion model has often been tall, thin, cisgender, white, and able-bodied. Gendered clothing categories (e.g., men’s suiting, women’s dresses) still dominate retail experiences. Disabled bodies, in particular, have been excluded not just from the runway, but from the design process altogether. As discussed in ELLE, by Lottie Jackson “The Fashion Industry is Disabled and Beautiful,” the industry has only recently begun acknowledging disabled beauty and talent — often through tokenistic representation rather than structural change (Lottie Jackson, ELLE). A report by Purple Goat Agency notes that while disabled people represent over a billion consumers globally, they remain severely underrepresented in advertising and brand leadership (“Disability in the Fashion Industry”). This exclusion is not accidental. It is the result of systemic design choices: zippers too small for limited dexterity, silhouettes that assume symmetry, and pants that can’t accommodate prosthetics. The fashion industry, like much of Western culture, designs for a fantasy body — one that is young, thin, mobile, and male or femme-presenting. Anything outside of that is often labeled “specialty wear,” ghettoized into niche markets rather than embraced as a valuable site of innovation.
But change is happening — and much of it is coming from queer and disabled creators. Brands like Adaptista, featured in Vogue Business, are making luxury adaptive fashion visible in mainstream markets. Adaptista doesn’t treat accessibility as a compromise but as a design opportunity (Schultz). Their collections integrate adjustable closures, magnetic fastenings, and flexible silhouettes into high-end aesthetics, showing that function and fashion are not mutually exclusive. My own experiences designing adaptive clothing have echoed this ethos. In a class dedicated to inclusive design, my group was tasked with creating a garment for Jessica Jordan Ping, a social media influencer with limb differences in her left arm and leg. She shared how skinny jeans — her preferred style — are nearly impossible to wear with a prosthetic leg, since the foot cannot flex to pass through a narrow ankle. Our solution: jeans that open from the knee down, using snaps and studs as both functional fastenings and aesthetic features. These pants are not just easier to put on — they are stylish, edgy, and affirming. This kind of work is inherently theoretical. It embodies McRuer’s idea that “able-bodiedness...masquerades as a nonidentity” (McRuer 301). By designing clothing for people who live outside that “nonidentity,” we force the fashion industry to reckon with its own biases. Likewise, queer fashion — whether through drag, camp, or genderfuck performance — reveals the absurdity of gender norms by pushing them to excess or dismantling them altogether. In our panel conversation, when I argued that clothing does not inherently have gender, I was not just making a philosophical claim — I was advocating for a fashion future unshackled from arbitrary binaries. A future where design follows the needs and desires of bodies, rather than policing them into categories.
It is important, however, not to romanticize inclusivity. Queer and disabled fashion experiences are also shaped by race, class, size, and gender identity. Representation without structural change can easily slip into tokenism. Crip Camp (2020), the documentary about the disability rights movement sparked by a summer camp in the 1970s, reminds us that inclusion is always a political struggle. The film foregrounds not just the charisma of individual activists, but the power of coalition-building — messy, imperfect, and necessary (Crip Camp). Similarly, Jules Gill-Peterson’s work in A Short History of Trans Misogyny, highlights how trans femininity is policed not only by CIS normative beauty standards, but also, by intra-community dynamics. In the chapter “Femmes Against Trans,” Gill-Peterson critiques the ways some feminists historically excluded transfeminine people from their conceptions of womanhood (Gill-Peterson 13). Fashion becomes a battleground here too — a place where clothing marks one’s legitimacy or deviance. To move toward an intersectional queer/crip fashion future, we must confront how capitalism co-opts and commodifies identity. The aesthetics of queerness and disability can be marketable without being emancipatory. A pride-themed campaign that sells rainbow t-shirts while underpaying queer labor is not liberation. An adaptive line that only goes up to a size 10 is not true inclusivity.
What might a truly inclusive fashion industry look like? It might look like runways that prioritize access — ramps instead of steps, seated models, mobility aids integrated as design elements rather than hidden. It might look like clothing that doesn’t assume symmetry, or even bilateral limbs. Like garments that play with gender, shape, and silhouette in unexpected ways. Like collections co-designed by queer, trans, and disabled people — not merely inspired by them. But more than anything, it looks like possibility. Like the moment when Shea Couleé and I disagreed about whether clothing has gender — and yet both offered visions for fashion’s future that broke with what came before. That tension is generative. It reminds us that fashion is not fixed. It is a cultural artifact, shaped by who we choose to design for, and who we allow to be visible. Fashion is not just about dressing the body. It is about conceptualizing the body itself — its limits, its potential, its desirability. When queer and disabled people claim space in fashion, they disrupt not only aesthetics, but ontology. They ask: What counts as a body worth adorning? And what might we create when we no longer center the so-called normal?
The necessity of inclusive fashion was brought to the forefront when conservative commentator Candace Owens criticized the use of disabled models in SKIMS's adaptive underwear campaign. Her comments questioned the role of disability in fashion, claiming such inclusion was performative or unnecessary. In response, public figures such as Christina Applegate and disabled model Haleigh Rosa condemned her remarks, reaffirming that representation is vital, not optional. This incident underscores the persistent ableism embedded in public discourse around fashion, and affirms the importance of viewing adaptive fashion not as a novelty but as a normalized part of the industry (Wells; Rice).
Fashion is often dismissed as frivolous — yet it remains one of the most visible and immediate way we signal identity. By applying queer and crip theory to fashion, we expose the limitations of traditional design and unlock new modes of self-expression. Queer and disabled fashion is not about assimilation. It is about reimagining what bodies can be, what they can wear, and how they can move through the world. As McRuer and Butler have shown, normativity is a fiction — one sustained by repetition and erasure. But in every snap fastener, every magnetic seam, every lip sticked beard and sequined prosthetic, that fiction cracks a little more. The future of fashion lies not in standardization but in the beautiful chaos of bodies that refuse every “should.” And that rebellion through singularity is how fashion moves forward.
Works Cited
Edelman, Lee. “The Future Is Kid Stuff: Queer Theory, Disidentification, and the Death Drive.” Narrative, vol. 6, no. 1, 1998, pp. 18–30.
Edelman’s work challenges notions of futurity within queer theory, critiquing the cultural imperative to reproduce heteronormativity. This text supports the essay’s discussion of how queer fashion resists teleological norms and instead embraces non-normative possibilities for expression.
Gill-Peterson, Jules. “Introduction: Femmes Against Trans.” A Short History of Trans Misogyny, 2024.
This excerpt provides a historical lens on the exclusion of trans femmes within feminist and queer discourses. It informs the intersectional critique of fashion’s exclusions and the importance of truly inclusive design that resists cisnormativity.
McRuer, Robert. “Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence.” Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, edited by Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Modern Language Association, 2006, pp. 88–99.
McRuer’s foundational text introduces the concept of compulsory able-bodiedness, which parallels compulsory heterosexuality. This theory undergirds much of the essay’s analysis of adaptive fashion and the political stakes of disability visibility.
“Disabled and Beautiful: Inside the Fashion Industry’s Problem with Inclusion.” Elle, 14 Nov. 2023, https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/a44252398/fashion-industry-disabled-and-beautiful/
This article highlights real-world shortcomings in fashion's inclusion of disabled models and designers. It supports the essay’s critique of tokenism and the gap between performative inclusion and structural change.
“Disability in the Fashion Industry: How the World of Style Can Be More Inclusive.” Purple Goat Agency, https://www.purplegoatagency.com/insights/disability-in-the-fashion-industry/
Purple Goat Agency explores the commercial potential and ethical necessity of designing for disabled consumers. This source contributes practical insights to the discussion of market-driven and activist motivations for inclusive fashion.
“The Farfetch of Adaptive Fashion? High-End Marketplace Adaptista’s Big Ambitions.” Vogue Business, https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/the-farfetch-of-adaptive-fashion-high-end-marketplace-adaptistas-big-ambitions.
This piece introduces Adaptista, a platform seeking to disrupt luxury fashion by centering adaptive designs. It serves as a case study in the essay, exemplifying how fashion can blend style, accessibility, and market viability.
“Crip Camp”. Directed by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht, Higher Ground Productions, 2020.
This documentary traces the disability rights movement and provides powerful visual and historical context for understanding resistance to ableism. The film’s narrative of empowerment and activism parallels the essay’s call for radical change in fashion.
Rice, Nicholas. “Christina Applegate Slams Candace Owens’ Criticism of Model in Wheelchair in SKIMS Ad: 'F---ing Gross’.” Entertainment Weekly, 27 Mar. 2023, https://ew.com/celebrity/christina-applegate-slams-candace-owens-criticism-wheelchair-model-underwear-ad/.
This article recounts actress Christina Applegate’s response to Candace Owens’s remarks about disabled representation in SKIMS’s ad campaign. Applegate’s defense of inclusive fashion reinforces the importance of normalizing disabled bodies in mainstream media.
Wells, Keely Cat. “Disability Rights Advocates Speak Out Against Candace Owens’ Harmful Comments on Disability Representation.” Forbes, 21 Mar. 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/keelycatwells/2023/03/21/disability-rights-advocates-speak-out-against-candace-owens-harmful-comments-on-disability-representation/.
Wells highlights the backlash to Candace Owens’s comments from disability rights activists and creators, who used the moment to educate the public about the importance of inclusive design. This reinforces the essay’s central argument about the political power of representation in fashion.
OpenAI. Outline for Queer Theory Essay on Fashion and Crip Theory. Version 4, OpenAI, 20 Apr. 2025. https://chat.openai.com
Entry: Create a Queer theory essay outline tailored to fashion and its relation to crip theory, and generate questions in that outline to help me think critically