The clothes we choose say a lot about who we are, our values, and for LGBTQ+ folks, fashion can be a powerful tool for expressing identity. In Ticino, a new project called Q Haus Ticino is exploring this very concept. Led by Mahdi El Ghormi and Jelena Sucic, the project uses thematic events and drag performances to spark conversation about the ethics behind aesthetics.

I have to go out and going out means getting dressed. I am about to open the wardrobe door. My lives are there, absentmindedly placed in the chaos of chipboard shelves, multicolored hangers and dog hair. They vibrate, they move. They swirl at such a speed that they blur into each other. The textures come together in a pattern of infinite fabrics, patterns, sweat and blood. Through the mirror I see Anna Wintour, she is sitting comfortably on my left shoulder, her quadrangular glasses half lowered, she is staring at me, her clear eyes full of disillusionment. She gives me great awe.

On the other, a Bengali woman is sewing a man-sized fuchsia crop top. The round belly of the pregnant woman is discreetly hidden by the noisy sewing machine. I don't know her name and seeing her busy working I decide not to disturb her with my questions. The Bengali woman doesn't stare at me, but I almost wish she did. I feel the weight of her existence. She's young, she's probably my age.

She smiles at me.

I'm afraid that my shoulder will give way. If I had hurt her I would never have forgiven myself.

Both women await my next move. I timidly move a crimson Moroccan Djellaba along the pole on which it was hanging and a metaphysical space opens up to me made of intertwining orthogonal lines. Piled high above are several pairs of underwear with “Man” written on them. Further down there is a pile of trousers, a Massimo Dutti is in the triumphant act of sitting on an H&M which, annoyed, kneed him. The buttons of both, disoriented and in a state of secrecy, do not take part in the conflict. They immigrated from who knows what country and have promised to keep a low profile, at least until they obtain citizenship. And how can you blame them? Local buttons have been complaining for years that immigrants are stealing their jobs.

Change is never easy.

Higher up there is a conflict between two white shirts. The D&G one wanted at all costs that the other, branded H&M, recognized the obvious superiority of the first. I try in vain to find a meeting point between the parties. The Bengali lady, who had been following the argument, rolls her eyes. She doesn't see the difference. Anna listens, purses her lips, but she doesn't intervene. The truth is that they both come from the same place: a box of clothes stored in a warehouse. They look at me curiously and ask me what it's about. I explain that it is a place where people leave old things and take new ones. “New!?” The two shirts repeat in chorus. “Are you calling us old?!”.

Zohra Patrizia in her black dress at Tesoro Cafè – ph. Jelena Sucic

Everywhere I turn chaos reigns supreme. I just wanted to put on some clothes and get out of the house, but I'm still here. Immobilized in front of the wardrobe. Days have passed. Very difficult days. The last time I looked at my cell phone it was half past three in the morning on June 3rd; a moment later the battery ran out and it turned off. The challenge of being thirty years old in 2024 is all in front of me as I have been staring at it immobilely for days.

My legs don't want to move. In front of me, fiction is in the act of definitively absorbing reality. The media scandal grows fat by eating up racism, religiophobia, homotransphobia, all phobias. Post colonialism, post capitalism, post modernity, and other “post”-somethings, all together chasing each other in this ring, all in the demonic act of “post”-icipating each other, ad infinitum.

At this point the readers may ask themselves some questions. They might wonder why the infernal circles chose my wardrobe as the place of their diabolical residence. The fact is that every closet is hell. Inside mine the demons are just more aggressive than in others because they know they will be recognized for what they are.

Finally I see it. Like a dim light in the distance. I focus and observe her better. She is proud and placid. A shiny skin emptied from her body and folded awkwardly in a corner. I hear her sigh bored. Her sigh is unmistakable, it's a classy sigh. It’s the proud sigh of someone who no longer has any ambition beyond being. She gives me a languid look from below her hiding place. She wants to be once again. She wants to take me and get out of the closet.

This makes me feel safer as I feel the need for her help. She reminds me that not only my life, but also hers, will depend on the choices I make. The lives of the two women on my shoulders and of all the other people will depend on the choices I make. The fate of seven billion people in a black dress and a pair of nylon stockings.

I giggle.

It is a sleeveless dress in elastic fiber that elegantly reaches above the knee. The chest is embellished with Sicilian lace, overall it screams cocktail party glamor. Incredible how two simple items are enough to evoke a goddess. I could be a meter taller and she would still surpass me by a measurement equal to the height of her heels. She is always taller, at least twelve centimeters taller. Even from the dim light of her wardrobe corner she emanates archetype and power.

I adore her.

Zohra Patrizia is getting married with a restyled wedding dress by Melanie Zambon of Dress it Again – ph. Jelena Sucic

My legs respond again. I move a little on the spot, I take one step forward and one step back. I sigh with tiredness, but I suddenly feel full of energy. The Bengali woman who in the meantime I discovered is called Shreya smiles amused by my clumsy attempt to wear the stockings. I try to stay upright with my shoulders, I don't want her to fall.

The beard hasn't been done for at least a week, the hair on my legs has been thriving undisturbed for years. I pull my stockings up to my belly, in that way that some might consider a little ugly and inelegant. I see myself, I'm beautiful. I step into a pair of black stilettos. I put pearls around my neck and ears. Anna looks at me, she is smiling at me. I put on my 80s Burberry sunglasses. I will wear those glasses to hide my makeup on the way from the car to the dressing rooms of the Tesoro Café, on June 28th in Piazza Grande in Locarno. There, we will celebrate the anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall Inn. Fifty five years later.

I start the music. Femme fatale look and off you go, away from the wardrobe, away from the demons. After days of motionless agony I am finally free. From the height of my two meters, I swing wildly around the house. Sitting in a corner, Naomi Campbell watches and takes notes. I give her a knowing look and think that it's June, the month of pride, the month in which to reflect on my coherence, on my values.

I walk proudly, because I am finally aware. Aware that the inclusion must necessarily be holistic. Aware that all battles for a better world are connected to each other. I watch myself walk in the mirror. I'm stunning.

There it is, the perfect example that an aesthetic of respect cannot be created without thinking about those on the other side of the world who sew the clothes of protest. I fill every single step of my walk with this powerful awareness and, as ferocious as a lioness, I advance contemptuously towards the front door. I open the exit portal towards the world, but on my heels I'm fourteen centimeters taller and I end up slamming into the doorframe at full speed.

“And now I fell as bodies fall, for dead”

Dante Alighieri

Short story written by four hands with the help of my noble tenant Zohra Patrizia

04.06.24

Mahdi El Ghomri

Zohra Patrizia walking at Tesoro Cafè Locarno – ph. Jelena Sucic

In the Q Haus Ticino project, they weave in the ethics behind the aesthetics on the scene of thematic events and drag performances. This series began with Zohra Patrizia last March. She wore a wedding dress recycled and restyled by Melanie Zambon of Dress it Again.

This project explores the embedded identity feelings, questions, and meanings of each choice we make from our wardrobe. The live expression of this story will culminate in Locarno at the Tesoro Cafè on the Stonewall INN anniversary, June 28th, when the pride movement started in 1969.

The Lioness, the Witch and the Wardrobe