OUT100: Darrell Thorne & Bright Light Bright Light
Performance Artist and Costume Designer & Singer-Songwriter
Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle
The Moment: May 4, 1993: Tony Kushner's Angels in America debuts on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
Darrell Thorne maintained a superhero's duality for 14 years, donning a shirt and tie by day and hitting the clubs by night in his decadent, flawlessly executed costumes. This year, after Steven Klein spiced up Brooke Candy's "Opulence" video with Thorne's signature headpieces (made of everything from deer antlers to bejeweled thermoplastic), the artist has seen his nightlife career swerve into the world of fashion, with Numero magazine, Paper, and Vogue Japan knocking at his door. Thorne (standing, left) calls his aesthetic "extreme fantasy," the escapist product of growing up in a "pageantry-free" family of Independent Missionary Baptists. He also moonlights as a spokesmodel for HIV Stops With Me, but he's left the day job -- meaning if you want to find his Clark Kent clothes, you'll have to dig in the back of his closet.
Call it an outing of the soul: In 2010, Welsh-born indie singer Rod Thomas rebranded himself as Bright Light Bright Light, a moniker he says he created to reflect his love for '80s electro-pop and also to distract from any presumed "melancholy" provoked by the natural ache in his voice. In the years since, Thomas (seated, right) has fittingly had a vibrant artistic ascent, culminating in 2014 with the release of his second album, Life Is Easy, and a tour with his collaborator and "musical hero," Sir Elton John. Proof of his buoyant evolution is in the tracks: Thomas's latest single, "Everything I Ever Wanted" -- a collaboration with the LGBT choir Pink Singers set to drop just in time for World AIDS Day -- hits a cloud-parting crescendo.
Photographed at ACME Studio, Brooklyn on August 15, 2014
Styling by Michael Cook. Wings designed by Darrell Thorne. Groomer: Angela DiCarlo
