Machine Dazzle made these costumes for use by himself and others in a variety of performance contexts, from the street parade to the cabaret. Collectively, they demonstrate his distinctive, queer maximalist approach to design. Machine Dazzle has said, "I think you can change someone's life by walking across the room, wearing something very specific." For him, that something is delivered through the language of over-the-top, handcrafted design. These costumes add a new chapter to the history of queer storytelling through color, pattern, texture, and imagery that evoke sensuality, pleasure, and excess embellishment as forms of liberation from narrow definitions of proper taste and beauty and normative gender and sexual identities.

Museum of Arts and Design
New York, NY

11.15.22