All my life, I’ve been an outlier, rarely resembling those around me. I grew up Black, queer, low-income and raised by a single mother in a town where most of my peers did not understand those intersections. Against that backdrop, fashion has been a means of control for me, a tool for navigating the world and the spaces I move through each day. In middle school, a time defined by a combination of rebellion and resistance, I tried to navigate the weirdness of the world by using clothing as my creative outlet. Others might reflect on their middle school outfit choices and think “Oh, how tragic!” But I realized that my style was the only part of my identity I had control over. And, as someone who was already on the margins, conveying my identity through fashion was the only way to feel some sense of control over my marginalization. Being goth/punk (I’ll spare you the photos) was the only thing that felt emblematic of my identity.