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Lucire Fashion 2003

Jack Yan explains why Panos Emporio’s selection of a cross-dresser as a swimwear model caused shockwaves in Scandinavia and is intended to have wider, global implications

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY PANOS EMPORIO

 

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ABOVE, FROM TOP: Rickard Engfors models the Callisto, Orce, Sappho and Hecate from Panos Emporio.

Initial capAST AUTUMN IN GÖTEBORG, I was chatting to Panos, founding designer of Panos Emporio, about his latest range. He was visibly excited about the concept—Unlimited Love—with its positive message. In a year of war and in the wake of the Anna Lindh assassination, Unlimited Love seemed like a breath of fresh air that the world needed.
    This is not the theme to the core Panos Emporio range, which continues, but a brand-new swimwear line. The idea is simple enough: love is the strongest weapon humankind has. It remains a constant regardless of race or creed. It transcends the artificial boundaries imposed by man; it is unrestricted. Most importantly, it is at once expressed by everyone and belongs to everyone.
    Inside the swimwear is a poem written by the designer himself. It refers to Sappho (c. 630 BC), one of the earliest writers of female homosexuality, and Aphrodite,
In countries like Sweden, where homo­sexuality and cross-dressing are not as visible in the mass media, Engfors expresses more of the limitless­ness that Panos intended
the goddess of fertility and love, embracing all nature. These evidently play on Panos’s Greek heritage, but the range goes far further.
    As we drank coffee, Panos relayed that this was about something deeper and internal within all of us—something that was inexplicable. But the opposite could easily be identified: xenophobia and homophobia as its obvious antithesis, but more subtly, the groupthink that emerges in society as governments tell people what is good and what is bad, and the fear of taking a stand on issues close to one’s heart.
    But more than all that, Unlimited Love has a central message of individual empowerment for the global good. If individuals realize that they can love, then they possess a power that is boundless. They then have the capacity to do anything, including changing the world for the better. It is a credo that Panos himself has learned—and he is clearly upset when people do not live their full potential. He sees some of that in his everyday life and in the years that I have known him, he has attempted, often succeeded, in chipping away at the institutions that tell us we are limited.
   ‘The question of why someone loves is never to be asked, because it can not be answered,’ he explained.
    So how does one express Unlimited Love in a campaign? Last Thursday, Panos Emporio shocked Scandinavia by announcing that Rickard Engfors, Sweden’s best known cross-dresser, would be its signature model. Engfors follows a line of beauties: Victoria Silvstedt, Traci Bingham, Janina Frostell—so his selection came as a surprise. The phones went hot in the region—all while illustrating that Panos himself had no limits about his choice.
    But the message has far wider implications, including global, personal ones. The negativity that Panos spoke of is institutionalized in so many countries: governments seeking power, telling people how limited they are without them. They create dependence; they create doubts in their citizenry. It is a foolish process: what nation could possibly survive when its citizens do not live to the greatest of their abilities?
    The choice of Rickard Engfors then becomes vitally clear, more so than MAC Cosmetics’ choice of Ru Paul several years ago. In countries like Sweden, where homosexuality and cross-dressing are not as visible in the mass media—and when the former is seen, it is often in more stereo­typically camp situations (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, known in Sweden as Fab Five, was a recent hit)—Engfors expresses more of the limitless­ness that Panos intended.
   ‘When I get the question of why I have chosen Rickard for this project,’ said Panos, ‘I cannot answer that question, since this collection is based on true feelings. There is no answer to be told.’
    Effectively, Rickard Engfors, who has been limited by narrow-minded elements in society, has been “freed” by national—indeed, inter­national—exposure. So far, that strategy seems to be working: a full page in Aftonbladet on Friday and plenty of radio coverage. And if Rickard can be free and limitless, if he can dress in a range of fetching swimwear, then what excuse have we not to aim for the stars and accomplish our greatest dreams?
   ‘I wish that this message [of] Unlimited Love will be a “milestone”. [It is an] important issue that mankind has struggled with for thousands and thousands of years, love. Let everyone experience love in their own way.’
    In an exclusive to Lucire, Panos told us, ‘It’s nice today that men are used like women in advertise­ments. Now it’s time for men to be free!
   ‘They [the public] start to see things now in many different ways and that was my goal.’ Lucire hopes that he has accomplished it—the world needs an end to those worthless societal prejudices. •

Jack Yan is founding publisher of Lucire.

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