For the past four years, one of my favorite signs that summer is ending has been meeting my friend Meg outside the Brooklyn Museum in an outfit I probably would not wear on a normal night out.
The tradition actually started before that. Meg attended the first two DapperQ shows, missed a few years in the middle and has joined me for the last four. By now, we know the routine. We spend a couple of days sending Pinterest boards and TikTok inspiration back and forth, figure out what we want to wear and meet outside the museum for photos before the show.
The Brooklyn Museum makes a pretty iconic backdrop, but taking pictures out front is only part of the fun. As more guests arrive, the entrance becomes its own unofficial runway. You cannot help noticing the outfits walking past you.
This year, we were there for Legacy, DapperQ’s 11th Annual Queer New York Fashion Week Show.
Queer Fashion Takes Over the Brooklyn Museum
Presented by queer style platform DapperQ in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum and sponsor Brooklyn Pride, Legacy took place on September 10, 2026. The evening began with a Sip and Shop featuring local designers, artists and vendors from Brooklyn Pop-Up. Food vendors, which seemed more plentiful than in previous years, joined the shops around the perimeter of the museum’s Beaux-Arts Court.
By the time the runway began at 8:15 p.m., the room was full and the energy was high.
Nine designers showed collections during Legacy: ATASHI RTW, BoiPKG, DYKEMINT, Harley De Oliveira, IGBO-SISUN, Jasmineэлийн Knits, LLESSUR, Rose Noir Designs and Soid Studios NY.
Each brought something different to the runway. There was no single look or aesthetic presented as the definition of queer fashion. Instead, the show made room for many interpretations of style, identity and gender expression.
That range is part of what makes DapperQ feel so different from mainstream fashion events. Queer and trans designers and models are not a small part of a larger production here. The show is built around their work.
The Runway Starts Before the Models Walk
The freedom of DapperQ extends well beyond the official collections. Everyone in the room gets to participate in the night through what they choose to wear.
I built my outfit entirely from clothes I already owned: jeans, a denim shirt and a white button-up layered underneath. Then I added playful pins across the shirt and even attached a few to my Birkenstocks. None of the individual pieces were new, but I styled them in a way I probably would not have tried for an average evening out.
That is a big part of the appeal. DapperQ gives you a reason to go for it.
You can recreate something that has been sitting on your inspiration board, experiment with a different silhouette or push your own fashion comfort zone a little further. No one expects you to arrive looking like anyone but yourself. Better yet, people will probably hype you up for trying.
For gender-nonconforming people, that kind of freedom can feel especially meaningful. Getting dressed is not always a simple or neutral experience. Clothing can feel affirming, but it can also bring up questions about how other people will read you and whether a particular environment is safe enough for experimentation.
Inside DapperQ, those questions become much quieter. People show up in wildly different expressions of queer style, and all of them make sense in the room.
What 11 Years of DapperQ Means
Calling this year’s show Legacy felt especially fitting.
When DapperQ began producing its New York Fashion Week show, a major runway centered on queer and trans fashion was still a radical idea. Eleven years later, the event has become an annual platform for designers and models who remain underrepresented throughout the wider fashion industry.
Its continued presence also matters beyond fashion.
Across the country, LGBTQ+ art and cultural programming are being altered, postponed or canceled under political pressure. DapperQ directly positioned Legacy as a response to that censorship. Hosting the show inside an institution as prominent as the Brooklyn Museum made that response hard to ignore.
Still, the night did not feel heavy. Its power came from watching queer people create, experiment and celebrate one another so openly.
Joy and resistance are sometimes discussed as though they are separate responses to the world around us. At Legacy, they existed together. The clothes could be fun, strange, dramatic or beautiful while the act of presenting them still carried political weight. Showing up did too.
Protecting Our Pockets of Queer Community
Most of us will never create anything on that scale of a DapperQ event. We can, however, look for the smaller pockets of queer community around us and take care of them once we find them.
Sometimes that means attending an LGBTQ+ event or supporting a queer artist. It can also look like gathering a chosen family around a dinner table, joining a local group or making plans with the people who allow you to feel most like yourself.
It was a simple ending to a night that has become one of our favorite traditions.
A room full of queer people loudly cheering for other queer people heals and holds a little piece of my heart together every year. Legacy celebrated the 11 years DapperQ has spent creating that feeling on a massive scale. It also made me think about all the smaller ways we create it for one another.
