Cape Town - New York Bagels Cape Town has launched a T-shirt fund-raising campaign with the revered images of iconic queer District Six figure, “Kewpie”, in aid of the District Six Museum.
The launch was at the AKJP Studio in Kloof Street, Gardens, on Thursday.
Dancer, socialite and drag queen Eugene Fritz, better known as Kewpie, was born in 1941 and died in 2012. Kewpie grew up at Osborne Street in District Six, and was known to have contributed to the vibrant social scene and nightlife.
With a keen interest in hairdressing, Kewpie opened Salon Kewpie in Kensington.
The artwork for the T-shirt draws from the personal photographic collection a the GALA Queer Archive in Johannesburg. The collection includes more than 700 images of Kewpie and friends taken between the 1950s and 1980s.
Within the GALA archives, the collection had proved unique in that it was a photographic collection from the apartheid era, depicting a queer, working-class, coloured community.
New York Bagels owner Nina Milner said all funds raised from the purchase of the limited edition Kewpie legacy T-shirts would go to the museum.
“What the District Six Museum stands for is deeply relevant to young people, but I saw that there was a gap in the way that young people are able to tap into that material. I love street-wear so I just thought that young kids wear their hearts on their sleeves these days, and so I just thought about making street-wear to see If we can start threading this content through generations and how we communicate with each other.”
Kewpie's niece Elwyn Hansby-Consul said: “As Kewpie's family, we are blown away and eternally grateful to Nina and the contributors for pioneering this initiative for the benefit of the District Six Museum in honour of Kewpie's legacy.
“Together with the overwhelming success of the 2018 exhibition, this project will positively impact the LGBTQIA+ community and the District Six Museum by using Kewpie's groundbreaking life as a beacon of hope to many and continue to raise awareness.”
Drag artist, Ina Propriette, modelling the T-shirts, said, “Drag has become such a mainstream art form, that we forget the roots of it all, and Kewpie stood for queerness before her being a drag queen, and that is why it is important because drag is is beyond what you see on TV. It’s culture, and an art form and should be treated as such.”
