Sky Cubacub identifies as a QPOC, or genderqueer person of color, and disabled because of ongoing anxiety and panic disorders. As a high school student, they became interested in fashion, creating garments out of chain mail. “It gave me strength,” Cubacub says. “It was emotional armor.” A friend’s mother taught them how to sew unitards to wear under the chain mail (“chain mail was too naked for high school”), and Cubacub became interested in making clothes for other gender-nonconforming people.
“All devices look very medicalized and pathologized,” Cubacub says. “I want to make clothing that’s celebratory and sexy. It’s not just a device to achieve basic OK-ness.” Instead of using a conventional runway, Rebirth’s fashion shows are like dance parties, featuring people of all shapes and sizes, some in wheelchairs.
