BCALLA’S World Of Wonder And Make Believe

Bradley Callahan is one of those people who leaves a room a little better than how he found it.

Whether it is with his smile or with his energetic and ostentatious designs, Callahan has established himself as a fixture in New York’s queer culture. In a world where homogeneous sensibilities easily become the norm, he and his brand, BCALLA, are constantly attempting to dismantle that institution. His designs have been worn by some big names and graced some bigger stages, but it’s our local community that supports him.

That doesn’t come with its obstacles however.

“The nightlife community is really what has made my brand and has supported me,” he told me surrounded by thousands of brown boxes in the middle of his studio, a shared warehouse space in the heart of industrial Bushwick. “It is amazing. I love my brothers and sisters. But it can be a little detrimental for people taking you seriously because you are having so much fun. Fashion doesn’t like to see that. For an industry that moves so fast, it moves super slow. It takes forever – it takes until somebody sees that something is making money for them to get behind it usually. So if you are far ahead they don’t care essentially.”

How far ahead is Callahan? Before Vivienne Westwood featured Colby Keller, he was in a porn presentation of BCALLA’s FW15 collection. Before drag was a household name, BCALLA was dressing queens for gigs at the queer clubs in Brooklyn. Before trans modeling agencies existed, BCALLA was casting trans models in shows and campaigns. That is how far he is.

Fun is exactly what his showing was during a special event at Stage 48 last week. Instead of a runway, BCALLA opted for a blown up wrestler’s ring. His models? Drag queens and local nightlife celebrities of course. Will Sheridan was the emcee, with Drag Race winner Violet Chachki outfitted in a referees’s ensemble hanging high above the crowd from a Lyra. One word fits it all: fun.

His latest collection, a collaboration with Print All Over Me, started with Callahan’s comic book drawings. The protagonists are three female super heroes named X, Y, and Z. “This collection was inspired by my brother’s comic book collection which he gifted me a couple years ago. It totally inspired my whole fashion career. Specifically female fronted comic books from the 90’s like Lady Death, Dawn, and Witchblade.”

“After my brother grew out of comic books, I continued on with anime, especially female fronted anime. That was a big source of inspiration for me because of the fashion element and the general story line of strong woman in good clothes kicking ass. Sounds good to me.”

Strong women occupy BCALLA’s narrative, having dressed Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Azealia Banks. Banks is somebody he is still working with on and off, regardless of the drama overwhelming her social media self. “I don’t follow that. The best thing about Azealia is she pays, she pays on time, and she doesn’t argue. She respects the people that she works with, you know? Which is hard to find in this industry, especially in this industry when people think of you as so disposable. Or there are ten more designers down the road. When you get to bigger stars like Gagas and Mileys or things like that, literally people are throwing clothes at them. It’s insane. Gaga changes clothes like three times a day when she is on a press tour. They are pulling pieces from senior collections all around the world.”

“It’s different when you work with someone like Azealia who believed in me – believes in me. She doesn’t argue with budget, she lets me do my own thing and that is a wonderful, wonderful thing in this industry.”

But the largest female inspiration in his life is his mother. “My mom is a super strong woman. She was the breadwinner for our family. I love a strong woman. They are very inspirational.”

One of the other strong women who inspires Callahan on the daily is model Maya Monés.

After traveling around for most of her childhood, Monés settled down here almost two years ago. “New York feels like home.”

“I live in the Bushwick-Ridgewod border. I like that border specificity because it hasn’t gotten gentrified. It definitely has but not to the extent that Bushwick and Williamsburg have. It feels more like home to me to be surrounded by people who are like me. It feels right.”

Like Callahan, Monés also occupies both worlds of fashion and nightlife, with various hosting gigs around the city, campaigns for Gypsy Sport, and fashion week shows for Chromat. She was also recently featured in Paper Mag, whose feature article’s headline read, “NYC Nightlife Staple Maya Monés On Transitioning And Keeping Your Queer Family Close.”

“I always wanted to become a model but it just never felt like it was a possibility because I never felt comfortable with myself growing up until I started transitioning. I am still in the process of learning how to be comfortable with myself and loving myself a lot. I just wanted to spread that and try and help other trans people who are coming into themselves. Or gender non-conforming people. People of all walks of life who need a boost. That is what I do it for.”

She, too, cites another powerful woman as her inspiration, Naomi Campbell. “We lost a lot of life behind models and personality and an appreciation for models as people. We went from the super model age of things into this new era where it is really white washed and you didn’t really have to have a personality. You just have to be a stick that had white skin to pass. Naomi brought so much more to it. She was so unapologetic about it and I love that.”

Monés is unapologetic too, especially when it comes to her quest of breaking down barriers and exposing transphobia in the fashion industry. “I think [transphobia] comes from the idea that trans is a trend and not seeing trans people as people or treating trans people as people. Specifically trans people of color. I have had to deal with all kinds of dis-respect from like very simple things like mis-gendering or trans misogyny or classicism and racism. It’s really, really, really, really real and nobody wants to talk about it. They know it’s there and they think we are talking about it when nobody is really saying shit. And everybody needs to.”

“I went to a shoot once where they didn’t have clothes for me but they had clothes for the white models sitting next to me. That is just reality. We have to deal with it. It is kind of a bitch but like I said I am not doing it for myself. It hurts in the moment but it is something we just have to push through to get where we want to get to.”

Monés knows exactly where she wants to get to, and this tenacity has broken down barriers and the high walls built in an industry easily overwhelming to the meek or mild. When she saw Callahan at a friend’s BBQ, she knew his work well from Instagram and walked straight up to him and said, “I just moved here. I am trying to be a model and I would love to model with you.”

His response? “Done.”

“She has a customized niche career that there is no blue print for,” Callahan explains. “Nobody can apply that blue print to Maya like they can with a lot of others girls. That is a good thing because she will end up doing something more special and more rewarding in the end.”

What about the blue print in fashion? How is this applied to BCALLA and how does Callahan fight against it – if at all? “The main source of fashion is to sell as many units as you can which is the antithesis of what I do. You know? A lot of factories in Midtown wont even work with you if you don’t have something like a 200 unit minimum which means you are moving at least 200 shirts which really isnt that many but it doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t like going into a store and seeing multiples on a rack. It makes me freak out a little. I like finding things and having them be your treasures and have them feel a little personalized.”

“Be your own thing. I grew up thrifting so that has set my mentality towards clothing. Where you know if you thrift something you are not going to walk into the party that night and be wearing something that someone else is wearing.” Back to nightlife, we come full circle with this narrative and space that BCALLA thrives in.

Callahan’s queerness lives out loud, and that is something instilled in him at a young age by his stay at home artist father who took care of the kids and home. “When I was getting picked on or beat up as a kid for being effeminate or whatever, my dad would show me Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams, and Oscar Wilde and that is what gave me the strength to be who I am and to accept who I am. He really inspired my creative outlet to make something of myself.”

But have they seen his porn? “My parents have always fully supported me. Even after the porno. They said they watched it all the way through.”

“Just once. Just to be supportive.”

For information on Bradley Callahan and BCALLA, visit here.

Photography by Ames Beckerman.

Helmet is Dick & Virgil for BCALLA.