San Diego Pride, the nonprofit organization that produces the annual parade and festival celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, is holding its first-ever fashion show fundraiser next month.
The Fabric of Pride, scheduled for March 28 at the U.S. Grant Hotel, will feature the work of five local designers. Amber St. James, San Diego Pride's programs director, said the proceeds will support the organization's year-round programming and philanthropy.
"We wanted to introduce another way for folks to be able to engage with us in a philanthropic way and recognize that the fashion world was an untapped market that we personally hadn't gotten involved in," St. James said. "Queer people have always used fashion as a way to push back, as a way to defy, as a way of expressing what it is that this world, unfortunately, tries to stamp out of all of us."
AP Sanyal, one of the designers participating in the event, said he first got into fashion after moving to San Diego in 2017. He started creating looks for himself to wear going out to bars in Hillcrest. He later got into cosplay and dressmaking for friends attending the Red Dress Party, an annual fundraiser for organizations that serve people living with HIV.
Sanyal said the collection he's creating for The Fabric of Pride plays with gender and femininity.
"I want to celebrate the fact that we can be feminine, but we can also be powerful as well," Sanyal said. "I see this as providing a platform for a lot of young artists out there, and I'm really excited to see what all the designers have to show."
