Seam Queen is one of Philadelphia’s greatest spectacles. The fashion competition show is a round–robin of the city’s premier fashion designers and nightlife performers. Hosted the last Sunday of every month at Franky Bradley’s, a Gayborhood favorite, it’s undoubtedly bold and queer. During my evening there, I saw everything from a three–piece burlesque reveal to Björk's “It’s Oh So Quiet” to a sequined male exotic dancer’s recreation of Marilyn Monroe’s love affair with JFK. A suite of chess players surrounding the legendary Mz. Peaches in a floor–length ball gown to an egg–shaped dress with a poppable yolk. The clear winner however? None other than Thomas Lauria.
Lauria is Philly’s foremost rubber wear designer and winner of Season Two of Seam Queen, having fortified their craft for the past four years. Before working in latex, they worked as an art fabricator for major artists in New York. Now, they spend their days behind the CNC router and manufacturing of a custom woodshop in Northeast Philadelphia, wherein their studio is located. To visit them, I trekked straight from the airport to the upper reaches of the El to find a castle–looking factory building settled into the charming Frankford neighborhood. Through old barn–style doors, via the sawdust–filled chambers of the woodshop, and then feeling like livestock going up a haunted house–esque freight elevator, they brought me to their light–filled studio space.
Upon formally meeting Lauria here, after only having a brief parlance to snag this interview at Seam Queen, I immediately knew I was working with one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Exhausted after my flight back from visiting my family, Lauria lapped me in art historical references, industry knowledge, and, of course, their ever present wit. Before even beginning the interview, we picked up a convivial dialogue as we caught up like old friends do. It was clear we could find common ground in wanting a world like Lauria’s—one filled with community, self–expression, and creativity.
“I want to be someone who just studies and makes articles of clothing and works with materials and tries to communicate through clothing, because it's what's always been top of mind,” they say. We share a love of clothes and similar upbringings, both feeling stifled being a little weird and quite gay in straightforward suburban communities. Where I still feel like I’m figuring myself out, admittedly intimidated by Lauria’s drive and talent, they’ve found a way of life through craft.
“I went to school for jewelry and sculpture. I did two bachelor's programs at Temple when I was there,” they say. “I don't care about jewelry. I don't care about anything. But, the idea of learning three [dimensional] modeling—I can't draw a straight line—having the computer handle all the straight lines and precision work that goes into building stuff was crazy.”
Despite the clarity now, it doesn’t mean their self–discovery was easy. As they put it, studying sculpture prompted them to ask the kind of soul-searching questions like, “Why are you in this basically misfit [group]? We're just kind of gluing two–by–fours together and waxing poetic, but why are you at this sharing circle?” They’re similar questions I’m asking myself now, as a Penn student wanting a similar life yet feeling the pressure of the contemporary, preprofessionalized college world. It’s a feeling that I have to figure myself out in four years—to know my life path and dream job by graduation.
But, getting to talk to Lauria about their journey reassured me of the joys of building a life for yourself more than any of the straightforward corporatese Career Services could throw at me. In contrast to the typical networking and resume extension Penn students focus on, Lauria emphasized building a repertoire of ability in their ongoing education. Speaking to a real, working artisan, like Lauria, shows the multi–pronged approach we can all take to guarantee success. There’s merit to learning practical skills, like in the jewelry department, but also just as much in figuring yourself out, whether in sculpture or life at large. Lauria gave me faith that there’s no linear path to becoming a “creative.”
Instead, it’s just hard work. As they put it, “There isn't a book I can read that's going to instill that hands on, practical knowledge of seeing something through or exploring a process.” You have to be dedicated to pursue the life of an artist, instead of displacing the labor onto some intern or junior like you might in finance. It requires a lot of someone, sacrificing time and energy to pour into skills that don’t always translate to a steady career. Despite latex clothing being such a passion of Lauria’s, the intensity which pursuing craft requires—splitting time between the full time job at the workshop and the all–encompassing world and community of rubber—has made them feel “trapped in their own life.”
And I get it, I feel hindered in my own creative practices, especially when it comes to believing in myself or finding time. But instead of digging into myself, Lauria taught me I could learn to express it outward, through creation. It’s a conscious choice to try at artistry. In their words: “It's not really about me being plucked out of the ether and given this skill set. It's that I have a very specific upbringing and a very specific adolescence that have led me to thinking that the way forward in my life is to engage with these processes and pick them up.”
It was this insistence to continue learning about new processes and discover their own limits that drew Lauria to Seam Queen. “I'm too cheap to go to grad school, so like, this can impose some rigor on me, and, you know, I'll make some new friends and have people because I need more rigor and no, I don't,” they say. “I think I learned I do not need more rigor.” What shines through about their wisdom is having the balls to focus on something and stick to it—at least until you get good. And they’re great.
Already winning two challenges at the time of writing this article, their work is, to me, the most impressive at the competition. For the Seam Queen challenge I attended, they were able to manipulate latex to do things it normally can’t. Designing for the drag king Cyrus K. Stratton, they felt “forced to level up.” In a material known almost exclusively for catsuits and skin–tight garments, Lauria adventured into the exact opposite, designing an inflatable zoot suit befitting Stratton’s campy masculinity. It’s not just the technical knowhow of feats like figuring out how to make rubber have stiff collars, but their care for their collaborator, too.
What I gathered most from getting to know Lauria is that they care. They care about fashion in a city that is “no New York” despite it putting stress on their work, having more community in places like Chicago or the U.K. They care about Philly nightlife enough to withhold their free time from themselves to design these elaborate looks for performers. They cared about me enough to want to meet again—we talked for almost three hours, and even rode the train back together. Thomas Lauria is a special person, dedicated both professionally and personally. I know that is not only what made them win, but what will carry them far.
