Wool from gay sheep debuts in fashion designer’s collection

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Wool garments from a flock of gay sheep made their debut in a designer’s fashion line at a recent show in New York.

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Artist and designer Michael Schmidt’s new collection “I Wool Survive” features 36 hand-crafted frocks made entirely from fabric sourced from Rainbow Wool, a German farm that rescues gay sheep, which teamed up with gay dating app Grindr to help put the collection in the spotlight.

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Studies have shows than one in 12 rams is gay, a statistic that led shepherd Michael Stucke to found his nonprofit after learning that traditional farms end up slaughtering the non-mating animals.

“This collaboration with Grindr proves that being gay is part of nature itself,” Stucke said.

“The wool from these rams isn’t just material — it’s a message spun from animals who live freely and are loved.”

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How Grindr got involved

Tristan Pineiro, the senior vice-president for brand marketing and communications at Grindr, was on the hunt “for a gay designer to put on a gay show” and was eventually connected with Schmidt, who told the New York Times that he “really wanted to lean into the gay.”

The Grindr exec’s vision for the brand and Stucke’s gay sheep felt like fate.

“The sheep are a kind of metaphor for all of us,” Pineiro said.

“Because they’re gay, they get discarded. They get thrown aside because they don’t conform to what they’re supposed to.”

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Fashion for a good cause

The knitwear features everything from traditional polos and miniskirts to “leather daddy harnesses,” “sailor crops” and “firefighter suspenders,” according to Grindr.

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Schmidt said that while the “light-hearted collection … reimagines gay identity,” he added that it also addresses another very serious topic.

“The mistreatment of animals that exhibit same-sex attraction is a painful reminder of the prejudice that continues to affect LGBT communities worldwide,” the designer said, per Out magazine.

“Hopefully, by illustrating that homosexuality exists throughout the animal kingdom, we can help put to bed the false and damaging notion that being gay is a choice.”

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‘Selling an idea’

Schmidt said as much to the Times, adding that he considered it more of an art project than a fashion line.

“It’s selling an idea more than a collection of clothing,” he said. “The idea it’s selling is that homosexuality is not only part of the human condition, but of the animal world.”

Pineiro added, “You can’t say the sheep were corrupted by woke culture.”

Items sold will be auctioned to benefit LGBTQ+ causes.

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