Official Rebrand (OR?!) is a gender-free label born from the transformative intersections between queerness and sustainability. Nonbinary designer MI Leggett started OR?! from their college bedroom, and has since then challenged the binary from concept shops in New York and Berlin, to the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and New York Fashion Week.
OR?! “revives discarded clothing” with Leggett’s painting and alterations, “breathing new life into what was once unwanted.” Through upcycling, Leggett combats the toxic practices of the fashion industry, from fast fashion to enforced gender binaries.
Specifically, Leggett’s 2020 collection Collapse/Convulse directly responds to the unsustainability exacerbated by the pandemic. The description reads: “We do not fit this system and, as we are seeing, this system does not fit the world. This collection is an attempt to dispel the exhaustion, embrace the convulsion and forge new space within the chaos. It is also a celebration of fluidity, embracing circularity through material transformation, using upcycling as a sustainable tactic of empowerment.”
In particular, the titular We Do Not Fit the System and the System Does Not Fit the World Signage is an extra-long lattice gown made from hand-painted and upcycled linen curtains. Draping over the body like a protest sign, the gown makes a political statement. Leggett’s abstract artwork of two intertwined figures boxed within the text inspire a feeling of finding vulnerable solidarity under an oppressive system. As a result, Leggett maps the ways the body is policed onto a piece of clothing while still allowing the body to breathe.
Leggett describes their garments as gender free as opposed to gender neutral. In selecting pieces to work with, Leggett pays attention to “silhouettes that are a little bit more open” in a way that allows the person wearing the clothes to exercise creativity in showing off their figure.
The Collapse/Convulse collection features a variety of blazers, cut tops, and a bodysuit. Radically freeform, OR?!’s shapes and silhouettes stand out from the boxiness of some gender neutral clothing. Here, Leggett emphasizes that their garments “can be worn many ways on many bodies.”
For instance, the Knit Mask Top, a pleated strappy two-piece top woven from deadstock fabric, blends body image and social commentary in its mask-inspired design. Likewise, the Figures Bodysuit, cut in a way that is more open than traditional women’s bodysuits, is hand painted with a human figure made from circles, alluding to the inclusion of all body shapes. Both garments, like every other Official Rebrand piece, free body shape from clothing shape and vice versa.
With Collapse/Convulse, Leggett asks: “In such unprecedented circumstances exacerbated by systemic racism, transphobia, queerphobia, and other prejudices…Why does fashion matter?”
Leggett’s collection and overarching work directly answers the question: fashion is empowerment, a way to not only embrace but enact change. Leggett’s designs not only affirm the fluidity of identity, their practice of upcycling clothes is directly sustainable and transformative.
All images in this article are courtesy of Official Rebrand.
