Dan Levy

And what's the security that fashion, high fashion brings you?

I think as a gay person, when you spend a lot of your life trying to assimilate or trying to be a version of yourself that accommodates culture so as to avoid bullying or feeling, I suppose, like ostracized or othered, particularly in school,

what it does is delay your understanding of who you are.

And so the minute that I was able to a come out of the closet and be make an income that allowed me to responsibly shop for myself, I think part of my curiosity around fashion and why I have

really kind of pushed the limits, good and bad, with what I wear is, I think, based on a quest to understand myself deeper.

Because I only came out of the closet at 19, and I think to not be yourself for the first 20 years of your life leaves you wondering

who you really are in a way.

And I don't know if I'll ever fully get there, but clothes have been such an outlet for me to explore who I am, testing things.

I mean, my glasses have gotten really, really big and then they've gotten really, really small and then they've gotten really, really big again.

And I think a lot of it is just A, wanting to find

be interesting.

And I think it helps you to get there in a way.

And that's why I have,

I don't love the culture of judging the way that people dress.

And I think there's this whole wave of kind of Instagram and TikTok, you know, voices who spend their days kind of criticizing people's clothes.

Because I think

whether it works or it doesn't, you've tried something.

And that can't be criticized.

It's a vulnerable thing.

I mean, it can, it has, it will.