LGBTQ Life

Barney's 2014 Spring High-Fashion campaign features a transgender line-up

Katie Hill and Arin Andrews
Photo by Bruce Weber 

By Brody Levesque | NEW YORK -- Barneys New York, an American retail chain of luxury department stores headquartered in New York City, with additional stores in Beverly Hills and Chicago, has partnered with the National Center for Transgender Equality and the New York LGBT Community Center (The Center) for its 2014 Spring Advertising Campaign.
The campaign- "Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters"  features the lives and stories of seventeen diverse transgender models and their family members.

The campaign launched today on the Barney's 'The Window' corporate web-page, and was shot on location in New York City by iconic American fashion photographer Bruce Weber, widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, Revlon, and Gianni Versace, as well as his work for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone magazines.
The first couple featured (pictured) are fellow Oklahomans Katie Hill and Arin Andrews. Katie was the first transgender student to graduate from her Oklahoma high school in 2012, and the former couple—they remain close friends—first got together when they met at a transgender support group. 

Each model was interviewed by journalist, and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, Patricia Bosworth, who along with Weber's photography highlights both the struggles and triumphs a trans person may face in relation to their gender identity. The first-person interviews address a range of issues from bullying, discrimination and abandonment to empowerment, self-confidence and unconditional love.

"Barneys New York is bringing the wholeness and internal beauty of transgender people to the public. Bruce Weber, Patricia Bosworth and Barneys New York have made transgender lives real and have given these models the chance to tell their own touching and inspiring stories in their own voices," said National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling. 

She added, "'Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters' is a powerful reminder of how far we have come culturally as transgender people, and it will help push us further."

The retail chain also announced that NCTE, along with the LGBT Center of New York, will receive half of 10% of all sales from Barneys' 11 flagship stores nationwide and Barneys.com on February 11th.