Constructing Identities: Queerceañeras, by New York Italian Argentine Mexican fashion designer Anabella Bergero is a bright contribution to the X Journal and Pattern exhibition in the Art and Design Gallery at FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology in Chelsea, Manhattan, Dec 13, 2021 – Jan 23, 2022. fitnyc.edu 🇮🇹🇦🇷🇲🇽🏳️🌈
Queerceañera
Queerceañera is a cultural reference to the Quinceañera, the birthday party and social debut of a Latin girl when she becomes a woman at fifteen. The Sweet 16 party is equivalent. It’s a coming out party which has special meaning in the LGBTQ+ community.
If you’re not Latin, the Quinceañera might seem silly, but it’s a very serious event in Latin families. Not everyone follows the tradition anymore, but if your daughter wants a quinceañera, you better start saving now.
Bergero explains her process: “The rite of passage Quinceañera is deconstructed and re-articulated through a new framework. Queerness, lo Cuir, as a framework exploring the performativity of sexualities, gender norms, and social constructs. This exhibition examine Quinceañera rite of passage through such lens to re-imagine celebratory rituals where fluidity, multiplicity, and the expansion of constructs around gender roles hold space for other configurations of becoming or coming of age.”
We always love to see La Virgen de Guadalupe, Lucha Libre masks and Mariachi Charro sombreros. These are iconic emblems of our heritage, but Bergero uses them as references, not the endpoint.
Bergero has a highly-developed fashion sense. To really see yourself, you have to get outside yourself, and Anabella Bergero does that without losing herself. She has the big eye.
Anabella Bergero
Bergero is an FIT Fashion Design MFA ’20 and inaugural SUNY Performing Arts Creation and Curation Prize winner.
We love her work. She draws on our diverse cultural heritage, but her style is Latin Futurism. Bergero’s Latin future is colorful and bright (like us, LOL). Oh, and everyone is included. That’s important.
As a “Cuir,” Italian-Argentine raised in Mexico woman,” now based in the USA, Bergero has a unique perspective on multicultural identities. She is exploring how that all comes together in New York City. There is no better place in the world to figure out how we all get along.
Anabella has already achieved a lot in Buenos Aires, Mexico City and New York City. She has been tapped by the powers that be, and is already well on her way into the fashion industry.
We think Bergero has a bright future in both fashion design and costume design. If you want everyone to turn and look at you when you enter the room, Anabella Bergero is your designer. (Hint, Hint performing artists.)
As the Spanish Harlem Orchestra sings, “luchemos unidos por algo mejor” (we struggle together for something better). It’s here. It’s now. Bergero is in the house and our shared future is bright.
anabella-bergero.com
Instagram @anibergero