This trans drag ball superstar revolutionized queer fashion. She also hid a body in her closet.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting some of the many incredible LGBTQ+ women of both the past and present, women who overcame unimaginable obstacles to change the world.

The adornment of the body is a deeply personal act. When considering how you present yourself to the world, you must choose to be yourself or someone else. This conundrum is what gave rise to Dorian Corey, a Black trans drag performer and fashion designer who revolutionized women’s wear. 

Blackness, queerness, and womanhood have an exceptional talent for prevailing within the frailest of circumstances, and that’s true in the fashion world as well. The earliest record of the first designer was a white cisgender straight man, whose legacy was maintained by renowned names like Pierre Balmain, Hubert de Givenchy, and Cristóbal Balenciaga. 

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There are, of course, exceptions to the pattern, such as Ann Lowe (the first prominent Black fashion designer), Edith Head (a notable woman costume designer), or Christian Dior (an iconic closeted gay women’s designer). But there is still a concerning question of the role of queer women designers – and more specifically, Black queer women designers – in the world of women’s fashion.  

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Celebrating the body

Dorian Corey, born on the billowing farms of Buffalo, New York, saw the glitz and maximalization of character before most. In her early teen years of the 1950s, she dressed the mannequins at Hengerer’s department store and became enamored with design and construction.

She ultimately moved to NYC to attend Parsons School of Design. Little is known about her time there, but based on the theatrical and boisterous costumes that accompanied her cabaret and drag career, it’s safe to assume she garnered inspiration from couture but rejected the sterilized clothing built by oblivious male perceptions.  

Charles Frederick Worth, credited as the first modern women’s wear designer, focused on cloaking bodies with princess lines and long walking gowns. Taking the 19th century into account, it makes sense men took a body-centered approach to the first attempt at couture wear for women. Men bargaining the appeal of the feminine body heavily influenced early constructions of fashion. While supposed straight women didn’t openly object to the styles; the articulation of difference in queer women was quite evident. Although leaning heavily into the feminine guise, Corey took an approach that celebrated the body rather than stuffing it into the corridors of desire. 

But Corey’s influence wouldn’t come for another 30 years. When she finally arrived on the scene, it became clear that versatility in how one can express themselves through fashion is so much stronger with more women in the room.

Corey’s legacy touches the entire queer community beyond the fashion industry as well. She appeared in the famed documentary Paris is Burning as a prominent member of the New York drag ball scene. She was the mother of the House of Corey, providing support to LGBTQ+ youth in need. She is also known for her significant influence on the development of voguing.

Feathers, beads, & sequins galore

Historical context is essential to grasping why Corey was such a remarkable feat to fashion, women, and queer folks. Coco Chanel, not even queer, did introduce a risk-taking androgynous approach to her fashion, potentially borrowed from historic lesbian Lady Una Vincenzo. 

Vincenzo tailored and fitted suits from her past lover, Marguerite Radclyffe Hall, melding the masculinity of Hall to her own feminine image. While there isn’t a record of a direct correlation, it’s hardly by accident that Chanel took the inspired trousers and suits of her male lovers and refined them to her look; a first step in honing the unspoken queerness of women’s fashion. 

Black designers would not become prominent until the 1970s and 1980s, with Corey helping lead the charge. 

As mentioned, Corey had her fingernails in fashion long before, but her influence wasn’t known until almost the end of a century. 

She was known for her vibrant and exciting use of feathers, beads, and sequins. Being a drag queen comes with a fragrant hyper-femininity. The contrast between Corey’s designs and Vincenzo’s suits shows there are many sides and faces to the manifestation of queer women’s fashion.

The biggest difference in fashion created by queer women is that the complete fantasy and story are given to the body. Corey heralded her work under a wonderous conception of what womanhood meant to her. A famed moment of this expression was Corey’s creation of a 30-by-40-foot feathered cape that was once dropped to reveal a sparkly bodysuit and then used to encapsulate the audience in a tent. It was as if she were bringing everyone into the folds of her decadent secrets. 

But having one icon does not eradicate the void obviously placed on queer women in the fashion industry. Even with Corey, there is so little information about her own clothing label, Corey Design, and its impact. Constantly forced into the shadows of men (this includes our queer brothers, often ruling the women’s wear industry and rarely making room for our sisters), women continue to fight for the chance to dictate how to adorn their bodies.

Will we forever grasp the straws of the few paving the road to freedom in self-design? 

The secret she kept in the closet

Corey died of complications from AIDS in 1993 at the age of 56. But her profile only skyrocketed from there when her death led to a shocking discovery.

While cleaning out her apartment, friends discovered a partially mummified body in her home.

It turned out the body belonged to convicted rapist Robert Worley, who had been dead from a gunshot wound to the head for at least 15 years. No one will ever know the real story behind the corpse, but many have speculated that Corey killed him in self-defense after he broke into her home.

The theory continues, according to Atlas Obscura, that she hid the body knowing that a Black queer woman would never gain sympathy from the police. Others believe the two had a tumultuous love affair and that Corey killed him in a crime of passion.

An episode of the hit show Pose, called Butterfly/Cocoon, is based on this crime, as is the play Dorian’s Closet by Richard Mailman.

 “I don’t think she had a criminal mind. She didn’t plan the murder, and when it happened, she had to think fast,” Mailman told Atlas Obscura, which describes Corey as “witty, realistic, and unflappable…[with] a self-possessed cadence and world-weary observations.”

Indeed, Corey was known for her shady one-liners, and for a particularly memorable quote from Paris is Burning: “Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think you’ve made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you’ve left a mark.”

No matter what happened, Corey certainly left her mark.