Be as Multifaceted as Octavia
The Icon Who Made Space Where There Was None
There are some people who don’t wait for permission to shine, they just do. Long before it was safe or celebrated, there were people like Octavia St. Laurent who dared to be different. She didn’t just break the mold, she refused to acknowledge there was one in the first place. While today's runways are teeming with boundary-pushing expressions of identity, Octavia was doing all of it decades ago, with less safety, fewer words for it, and absolutely no applause from the mainstream.
Octavia St. Laurent was a model. A dreamer. A Black trans femme visionary. A fierce AIDS activist. A ballroom legend. A fashion radical. All these words and yet, none fully capture her. She was too multifaceted for a single label. She existed in a world that tried hard to define and diminish people like her. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, being Black, queer, trans, and HIV-positive wasn’t just marginal, it was lethal. But Octavia didn’t shrink, she stood statuesque like an impossible idea of beauty. And during that time, she was impossible. She made space for herself where there was none. She dreamed out loud. And in doing so, she made the world dream bigger too.
You may have first seen her in the legendary 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, holding court with a calm that crackled like thunder. She was impossibly elegant, with the softness of silk and the authority of a sermon. In the documentary, Octavia states, “I am a woman, and I am not a woman. I am everything and anything I want to be.” This spoke volumes as she was pronouncing truth, and not just her own.
Octavia’s energy reverberates today more than it has previously. We are living in an era that idolizes individuality yet quietly encourages conformity. Everyone wants to stand out, but only within the safe lines of the current trend cycle. Queerness is more visible, but visibility is not the same as liberation. And fashion, while increasingly diverse on paper, still struggles to honor the complexity of those it draws inspiration from.
Fashion has always been inspired by queer icons. From the ballroom looks that inspired luxury runways to the confident defiance that fuels street style, Octavia’s fingerprints are everywhere. You see her spirit in every androgynous editorial, every gender-defying look on the red carpet, every Black queer model who dares to take up space without apology. She taught us that being seen is a kind of resistance. That fashion can be armor and an art form all at once.
It wasn’t just about clothes. Octavia was one of the rare few who understood that fashion wasn’t the destination; it was the language. She used it to tell her truth, to create a version of herself that reality had never imagined but desperately needed. Before there was language for any of it, before fashion caught on, Octavia was already posing, preaching, and preparing the world for its more fabulous future. She did it not to impress anyone but to survive, to express herself, and to be seen.
In the ballroom scene, she was royalty. Not just for how she walked but for how she talked and how she believed. She believed in beauty, fantasy, and transformation. She exemplified the power of self-invention. As brands were scrambling to appear inclusive, Octavia had already invented a language of style that was so personal, so political, and so glamorous it couldn’t be ignored.
Off the runway and out of the ballroom, Octavia was a tireless advocate for people living with HIV/AIDS. At a time when stigma was deadly, she spoke publicly about her status and her trans identity, refusing to let shame silence her. Her activism was deeply human and urgent. She called out the medical system. She called out racism and transphobia. And she did it in full makeup and fur.
Octavia St. Laurent wasn’t just ahead of her time. She made time move forward. She embodied a future that hadn’t arrived yet, but she lived it anyway, with full lashes, unshakeable grace, and a truth too bright to be boxed in. In every pose and strut, she taught us that liberation isn’t something you win once; it’s something you must constantly fight for. It doesn’t wait for validation. It declares itself. Octavia was the blueprint to becoming a more layered, more loud, you. Be complicated. Be contradictory. Be as multifaceted as possible. Being predictable is boring.
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