Desmina de Vil to Debut Fashion Line at New York Fashion Week

Hi.

Its’s me.

Desmina de Vil.

I feel like I’ve done this a million times, but if you’re new here- allow me to introduce myself. My name is Desmina de Vil, Drag Clown, Gossip Columnist, and Fashion Designer.

Yes! You’ve got that right, fashion designer! I will officially be debuting the Desmina de VIl fashion line at New York Fashion Week September 8ith with RISE NYFW. Mark your calendars. It’s nice to be famous.

You may be wondering how I got into the fashion business. But that’s a story that starts with how I got my name.

Well Desmina came to me in a dream. A mis-spell of the word demons appeared on a screen, so I took the name as my own. And I suppose that’s who I am, or at least who I’ve become- a devil, a trickster, a joker with a smile. de Vil of course comes from my mother and biggest inspiration, Cruella de Vil.

But I have a confession. I’m not really a fashion designer. I’m a dreamer. I’m a writer. I wrote my name into existence and then I stepped into the frame.

Literally! Desmina de Vil is my legal name after all- take that Disney!

Why would anyone do something as preposterous as legally changing their name to Desmina de Vil? Well many reasons. I want to be famous. It’s cool. There are too many famous people with my real name. I’ve been struggling to understand my gender and the relationships to names and characters that exist through, within, around me. I like it and it’s funny. I feel like a badass. I’m certifiably insane.

And I wanted to change my identity.

I wasn’t always Desmina. Or perhaps I was, a shadow without a name stalking the person who was so desperate to disappear- relinquish their body and fabricated identity to the Underworld. I used to be haunted by my voices of judgement, I would look in the mirror with hate and disgust, imagining blood spilling from my body because I didn’t believe I was worthy of being alive. I used to pray and plead and wish that I could be anybody else.

So I killed myself.

And in my death I was born into Desmina de Vil.

I woke up in the dimension that is Heaven and Hell- insanity, chaos, and the shadow realm. I encountered spirits, I fashioned a costume, and I performed their energy. Caught between the spiritual and material worlds, I met Desmina- the most profoundly eccentric and extreme ego, the one who in her mirage of impossible possibilities is dark magic.

I tell this story as if it was in the past tense, but it’s an ongoing and cyclical process. I am constantly dying. I am constantly moving between the perceived and built realities of my identities.

Changing your name is a complex process. My trans brothers, sisters, and goblins understand the logistical and emotional gruel of becoming. Some people choose to delete and replace names. I choose to add them- piling identity after identity on to represent my states, moods, and personalities.

I have many names, all of which I love and love to be called. Names I have been introduced to and re-introduced to, names which represent the particularities and totalities of me. But in my discovery and spilling out, these identities didn’t want to take the spotlight. For me, changing my identity to Desmina de Vil is a cover and an uncovering, a vulnerable protection for all of my other inner children, angels, and demons.

Desmina is armor.

___________________

I recently traveled to Europe, where I experienced a reckoning with my identity and purpose. On the way back to the United States, I accidentally purchased my tickets with the name Desmina de Vil, but my passport still reflected my former name. I was able to convince the attendants in Portugal to let me on the flight. In London, I anxiously waited for the ticket counters to open all night as I struggled to imagine what my life would look like when I returned.

I found myself in a prayer room in the Gatwick airport sobbing, begging the deities to save me. The voices in my head telling me that I am stupid, incapable, and useless, that I would be better off dead were loud and consuming.

“Please, please help me. I can’t do it again. I can’t die again.” I prayed.

Two weeks earlier I cried in another prayer room in another airport in London. It felt like my entire identity, the ideas of who Desmina de Vil is, was buckling out from underneath me, and that I was crashing into nothingness again. If Desmina was born out of delusion, of anger and vengeful desire, was there anything truly real and redeemable about me?

You’d think after two weeks in Europe I’d feel refreshed and reinvigorated, but I spent the trip anxious and depressed, dealing with several infections and cursing myself for spending money I didn’t have. I felt pressure to push myself over into the insane characterization that is Desmina, but found resistance in a need to withdraw and keep my world private, to hide my worries and insecurities.

I made it back to Los Angeles. I explained my name change to the Immigration Officers, who looked at my digital documents and did some light stalking of my internet persona to confirm my identity. “It’s my stage name.” They looked amused and mildly impressed, though not entirely surprised as I had landed in the city of dreams.

Fascinating, I thought, that I leave the US as one identity and return as another. It felt symbolic and serendipitous. While I had been struggling in Europe to commit to my artistic pursuit, I could not escape the choice I already made. The voices of judgment and doubt could not tear down the purpose present in a name.

I am Desmina de Vil.

And I will persevere. I am powerful and brilliant.

________________

If you’ve encountered me on the internet you’ve likely been introduced to this first line of defense- Desmina de Vil. If you have the pleasure of meeting me in the flesh, you might make it past the armor to the layers underneath, becoming acquainted with my other personalities.

With a name you are gifted a piece of my heart.

Sometimes I find myself in the unfortunate situation of revoking my other names from people’s vocabulary. If you hurt me, if you make me angry, if you take my kindness for granted- don’t call me Nina. My name is Desmina.

Nina is dead because we killed them.

Sometimes all of my other names are dead, laying their bodies down to rest. And I’m left- Desmina, the reaper of the dead. It is my duty to bury my bodies in the dirt and ground, ready to be seeded again.

Most of the time, it is I who kills myself. Over and over again. But my ghosts keep rising from the grave to haunt me.

Because as much as I wish to change my identity, to disappear into another person, change my hair, face, and names, my old friends always come back to visit me. These friends, with their bloodied faces of shame, guilt, anxiety, paranoia, anger, and self-hatred appear to teach me a lesson. In their judgment I discern that I am human. Even with all of my perceived flaws and mistakes, I am worthy of love.

And so are they.

Embodying Desmina de Vil is a practice of finding humor and love for my demons. Their imagination spilled out into art externalizes the suffering and damnation of the internal,

Because we can try to kill off the parts of ourselves that we believe don’t deserve to live as many times as we like. But in our own Hells they live on.

As clowns, kings, and devils.

In bringing Desmina to life from the Underworld, or perhaps in bringing the Underworld to life as Desmina, I have felt the grief in the burying of my other selves. Am I sacrificing the stories and identities of the other me’s for her glory and satire? Are there any stories or selves behind the charade, if I dig back into the graves will the bodies be rotten? Who am I if not Desmina?

As the clown Desmina I can write a story where I am meant to be the ruler of Hell, where I am an all powerful, completely human and completely beyond human being. But the pain of the storyteller still seeps out unto the page, it’s still drawn and cut into the joker smile on my face. Desmina is a clown mask but also who is left when I peel the mask off- the raw, wretched, and beautiful underbelly of my skin and self. Through this body and the words I write and speak, whether horror or tongue and cheek, I am sharing the story of all of us.

So it’s nice to meet you. Among other names, characters, and characterizations, I’m Desmina de Vil.

And yes, I’m doing New York Fashion Week. Because like the paint on my face my blood is also splattered unto clothes and costumes. And while the demons sometimes tell me I am not apt to enter this world, I am. Because I can. And because I have a story to tell.

I have pushed myself to the edge of insanity and I am leaping into its black hole.

Welcome to my multiverse. Have a fun ride.

Xoxo Desmina de Vil

P.S. If you would like to support my NYFW journey and the multi-media performance art that is Desmina de Vil please consider purchasing an exclusive Desmina de Vil graphic t or contributing to my GoFundMe. Muchos Besos!

https://www.customink.com/fundraising/desmina-de-vil-nyfw

https://www.gofundme.com/f/desmina-de-vil-new-york-fashion-week