Alejandro Palomo celebrates the past and present of queer encounters through a new collaboration photographed by Kees de Klein and Cain Isan Wittenhaus
“Who wants to scroll, choosing men like a catalogue?” says Alejandro Gómez Palomo, creative director of Palomo. “I’m much more interested in the magic of physicality.” It is an idea that runs through the Spanish designer’s work, which recasts queer desire through theatricality and the pleasure of being seen.
Since launching Palomo in 2015, the designer has built one of fashion’s most recognisably queer identities, dressing men in lace dresses, drop seat trousers and playing with the traditional ideas of masculinity. This approach underpins his collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation, which Palomo is marking during WorldPride Amsterdam with a commemorative lunch. “We’ve been trying to make it happen for a while,” he says. “We were supposed to collaborate before the pandemic. Then after the Met, we came back to this beautiful relationship.” Palomo is referring to the custom look he designed for Luke Evans, transforming the actor into a Tom of Finland figure through broad shoulders, sculpted leather and exaggerated masculinity.
Created by Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, Tom of Finland’s illustrations remain one of queer culture’s defining visual languages. Produced at a time when homosexuality was criminalised, his hypermasculine gay men defied Western cultural norms. Sailors, bikers, policemen and leather-clad workers were made into subjects for homoerotic fantasy. For decades, the Tom of Finland Foundation has protected that legacy, ensuring Laaksonen’s work is understood as both erotic fantasy and a record of queer life itself.
The artist’s imagery has been absorbed by fashion, becoming shorthand for exaggerated masculinity. Palomo is less interested in the bodies than in what happens between them. “Looking at his work, sex is only one dimension,” he says. “You’re looking at community. It’s so natural to us to be able to gather that we don’t recognise it as such. It was one of the few opportunities queer people were able to find each other.”
Many of Laaksonen’s drawings unfold in parks and other public meeting places, where men wander, observe one another and exchange charged glances. Before queer life could exist openly, parks, public toilets and forests became places to recognise one another. “There is always a sense of romance to my sexuality,” he says. “The Palomo man would cruise, of course, but I imagine he’d do it in these beautiful gardens, filled with gorgeous guys all dressed beautifully, looking at each other. Dancing in between bushes.”
Palomo’s reading of Laaksonen’s work inspired the collaboration’s accompanying editorial, photographed by Kees de Klein. Rather than recreating the darker mythology often associated with cruising, the images suggest tenderness. They recall James Bidgood’s dreamlike romanticism, stripped of saturated colour and instead rendered in black and white.
Besides the luncheon, the Tom of Finland Foundation is hosting two exhibits for WorldPride. Unlike local Pride celebrations that were born as local demonstrations within cities, the event was founded in 2000 to bring together queer communities from around the world. When asked why he chose WorldPride as the setting for the much-anticipated partnership, Palomo smiles. “It’s great because it’s more people.” The more, the merrier.
Palomo will mark WorldPride Amsterdam with a special pop-up at 58 Geldersekade, open from 30 July to 4 August.
