Todd Oldham Draws on the 80s To Find Hope in Dark Times

 

Iconic fashion designer Todd Oldham is finding hope for the future by calling on his experiences in the past, when bigotry and AIDS were trying their best to keep our community down.

He said:

I’ll share an observation I’ve been making recently, comparing what I felt in the ’80s and ’90s to right now. It has more to do with some sad political shifts. 

In the ’80s, the beginning of dealing with AIDS was so awful and so scary. You’d go to work on Friday and somebody would be there, and then on Monday, they’d be dead. It was just this endless thing. Then the amount of awful things being said about gay people just felt very much like what’s going on today. 

What was gorgeous about that time period, and what we can bring with us to today, was the beautiful support in taking care of your own, and making room for others to want to join you too. We hunkered down.

Suzanne Bartsch started doing Love Balls. We were there right at the first Love Ball, which was the first event to help people homebound with AIDS. We set up PAWS, which was an organization that helped people keep their animals that were home. That all came from all of us coming together and figuring out how to support our families.

I see it happening again today. The government, I think, feels not exactly on our side. It is what it is, but we can be on our own sides, and we can support one another, and bring joy and beauty to our lives. And with that beauty and inspiration that came out of the ’90s, I think we might be prepped for something spectacularly gorgeous if these metaphors are somehow tied together.