e. jaguar beckford
Designer, Project Manager, and Filmmaker in New York
Fashion frontier: Serving the 'gender-fluid body type since 2013. Jaguar Beckford first started Jag & Co. for "masculine-presenting women," she says.
As a child, E. Jaguar Beckford preferred G.I. Joe to Barbie but noticed that the action figure, unlike the fashion doll, didn't have fun clothes. "I was cutting scraps of materials and making hats and cute queer outfits for them," she said. "So my mother decided she'd teach me how to sew."
Ms. Beckford started making clothes—first for herself, then for others. "On my mother's death-bed," she recalled, "she urged me to follow my true passion."
So she left a career as an attorney to start a business inspired by her own "genderqueer" style, which is not specifically masculine or feminine, and in 2013 launched Jaguar & Co. Clothier from her family's brownstone in Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn.
"I started Jag & Co. because there was no place for masculine-presenting women," said the designer, 49, who calls herself a "gender-fluid masculine-identified queer female." Women like her can feel uncomfortable shopping in men's departments, where they also face fit issues: The female bustline, for example, pulls the material of a men's-style vest forward, making the back bunch up. Ms. Beckford compensates for this with her underarm cut.
Her splashy styles in paisley and other prints were displayed last December in a Brooklyn Museum show produced by lifestyle website Dapper Q. Ms. Beckford also founded Rainbow Fashion Week, which runs 'an Official New York Pre-Pride Event' next year June 17-24, 2016 and is part of a growing acceptance of people who present themselves in ways that don't fit typical notions of gender norms.
Jag & Co. offers clothes for a variety of body types exceeded the previous years sales. The Red "PaperBoi" trouser suit at $499.99 is her top seller along with her custom one of a kind vests, bow ties and silk suspenders.
It's about inclusion and dismantling everything we've been taught about beauty norms rooted in ableism, fatphobia, ageism, racism, misogyny, transphobia, and self-hate, gender normative, heteronormative collections to fit the fashion industry's unattainable beauty ideals. Queer style is a social movement.While she markets mainly to women like herself, she said some friends are getting their husbands into dressing more so her customers are from all walks of life.