Beyoncé continues to be an icon who pays tribute to other icons. In a new photo released earlier this week by the fashion house Mugler, the pop legend is shown wearing a “red cowgirl ensemble” from the 1992 “Cow-Boys” collection by the French designer. According to the caption, the Western-inspired look was shot for a vinyl edition of her acclaimed eighth album Cowboy Carter.
Once the image hit the internet, many observers were quick to point out that the look was originally worn by Connie Fleming, a transgender model who was a muse for both Thierry Mugler and Vivienne Westwood.
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Fleming has previously shared footage of her walking the runway wearing the design on her own Instagram:
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In April 2023, Fleming gave an interview to Models.com about her work as a model at a time when it was much harder for transgender people to make inroads in the fashion industry.
"When I started, there were a lot of things I wasn’t put up for or could do because it would be seen as subversive or pushing a narrative,” Fleming said. “Both Thierry, Vivienne, and [Jean Paul] Gaultier – and there were a couple of others – wanted to show the world beauty, in all of its aspects and configurations, and they didn’t put it out there as a spectacle.”
Fleming’s career stalled when she was outed as trans several years into her career, as she explained in an interview alongside fellow trans trailblazer Tracey Norman in V Magazine. (Norman’s career also stalled after her trans identity was outed.)
“The word was out,” Fleming recalled “I saw the ice closing in around my ankles. I thought, “Okay, it’s over.” It was really ‘out’ out. I was going to be ex-communicated. So I was like, I had a good run, let me find some other avenue. Those were the sort of challenges of being trans and Black at that time in the early ’90s when they could say anything and make the narrative what they wanted it to be. Also at this time, all the talk shows were trying to target trans people and push this message of, ‘Oh, this is a trend in fashion.’”
That makes it especially gratifying to see Fleming being elevated now by one of the biggest pop performers on the planet. Beyonce’s latest visual reference is just another example of her highlighting the contributions of Black LGBTQ+ people in creative arenas, including fashion and music. She consistently referenced the queer and trans community’s influence on house music, which served as the inspiration for her album Renaissance. And beyond references to the Progress Pride Flag, Beyoncé also spoke (and sang) about the influence of her uncle Johnny — who was gay and living with HIV — on both her lifelong love of music and her previous album’s sound.
Part of the ethos and mission of Cowboy Carter has been to show that Black people are central to the creation and proliferation of country music. But her visual reference to Fleming adds an additional layer of context, proving that Black queer and trans people are absolutely foundational to Western imagery.
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