Episode 48: Contra* Fashion and Performance with Sky Cubacub

The podcast introductory segment is composed to evoke friction. It begins with the sound of an elevator crunching as it goes up. A robotic voice says “floor two.” Then music with a mysterious tone comes on. A series of voices define Contra. Layered voices say:

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Contra is friction… Contra is texture… Contra is questions…Nuanced…Collaborative…Contra* is world-changing…Contra is innovation, messy, solidarity, interdependence…Contra is thinking about design critically. Contra is a podcast.

 

Throughout, there are sounds of typing, texting and Zoom being opened. 

Then an electric guitar bass note fades into the sound of a digital call ringing and starting. The intro ends with the sound of a Facetime call ringing and then picked up.

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Sky Cubacub:

I just want to be able to make clothing for all of my friends that celebrated us as whole beings instead of just like parts of us

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[Bright pops. Strings ripple under Aimi’s voice.]

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Aimi Hamraie: 

Welcome back to the Contra* podcast. I’m your host, Aimi Hamraie. On this season of Contra* we’re drawing on the Remote Access Archive, a free online archive that documents how disabled people and communities have used technology for remote participation both before and during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s episode features an interview with Sky Cubacub, founder of Rebirth Garments. It was recorded by Kelsie Acton on January 11th, 2023 via Zoom. Sky and Kelsie talk about adaptive and gender affirming fashion, newsletters and social media. 

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Sky Cubacub:

I'm Sky Cubacub, and I use they/them, and xey/xem/xyr pronouns, and I live in Chicago, Illinois, and the land of the Meskwaki folks and in my, my childhood home. I’ve lived here my whole life never moved so that's that’s where I am coming to you from.

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I'm Filipinx, American, or like mixed Philippine. Sometimes I say I’m Hapa, um, yeah Filipinx on my dad's side and a bunch of white mush on the other side, on my mom's side. I am non-binary. I also identify as Xenogender, which is like kind of thinking completely…Outside of human terms of gender, just like thinking more in alien terms or like color, or shape or texture. So yeah, it's, it's an identity that a lot of like neurodivergent folks who are non-binary kind of resonate with. I've been basically talking about this since I was 18. But didn't have the language for it until last year.

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Kelsie Acton

Amazing. And this feels particularly important because this is you. Could you give us a brief image description?

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Sky Cubacub:

Of course. I am a small Filipinx person. I have a scalemaille headpiece in pink, purple, aqua and yellow. It looks like a cool dragon on my head. I wear it for both like calming weighted blanket benefits, and also like stimming with my fingers, with the… there's like the little little dangling bits that go next to my ears. So they jangle against my many earrings and give me like a soothing feel. I'm wearing makeup that looks like spiky triangles under one eye. I tend to do asymmetrical looks always, and dark blue shiny lipstick, and then I'm wearing a disco jumpsuit with bell bottoms. But you can’t really see it, and it features fabric of my late father's paintings, which have a lot of like golden ratio spirals along with like kind of genderless figures in in the back, and like lots of jewel tone type, rainbow color palette and that's color blocked with some shiny holographic blues, and pinks and purples, with a black and white checkerboard trim. It opens from one shoulder. And then, I’m wearing a fleece lined crop top that I made to go with it underneath in holographic blues and pinks. I actually, I made this outfit for my, one of my Filipino cousin's weddings to wear, but it was outdoors in Vermont in October. So I was trying to come up with something that was me, but very warm, so I like fleece lined everything. Oh! And the Disco jumpsuit has tails and a heart in the back!

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Kelsie Acton:

That’s incredible!

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Sky Cubacub:

I love to put hearts in all of my outfits that I wear to weddings.

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Kelsie Acton

Awww. That's so cool. I'll say it's Kelsie. I'm a white woman in late thirties, wearing clear glasses and a grey…My words are failing me a little bit, but grey sweatshirt, is the word, and in the background is the very drab, like horrifying magnolia yellow of my flat in London. 

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[Upbeat jazzy chords]

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Do you identify as a disabled person or a person with a disability?

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Sky Cubacub:

Yes, I do. So I've always been like neurodivergent/mad my whole life, ever since I can remember. I had like panic disorder, anxiety disorder, and depression. Then I got PCOS when I hit puberty. I didn't know about it for a couple of years until I was 17, but now I'm like, dang. I think that this has been the main thing for most of my life. The main cause of pain. So yeah, then, when I was 21, I kind of started identifying more with, like more physical type of disabilities. When I had an undiagnosed stomach disorder. Yeah, I gained a new disability. So I, my stomach no longer like processed food. But now, just as of this year, I think it had everything to do with my polycystic ovarian syndrome. I got my one ovary that always had cysts taken out, and I’ve been feeling a lot better. So I'm like, wow, I could have been spared 10 years of stomach pain, if the doctors just listened to me when I first had an ovarian cyst rupture and told them to take out my ovary, and they were like no. In the end of 2019…I got mono, so then it turned into like the post viral illness, chronic fatigue syndrome or ME and that's like, yeah, what's been most affecting me these days.

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Kelsie Acton:

And do you consider yourself to be part of disability community or disability culture?

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Sky Cubacub:

Yes, definitely. And I think I always kind of, was in my childhood. My cousin, who is closest in age to me, had a lot of physical disabilities, and there's a lot of disability on my mom's side of the family. I'm sure there is too on my dad's side. But just people don't talk about it. It's like very hard for Filipinos…But now, hopefully, seems like my generation is changing that a bit. But yeah, so I was always around her. And then I also went to a grade school that had a Deaf population where my mom was like the main substitute teacher because she was the only substitute teacher who knew sign language. So yeah, always around disability culture and stuff. But then, like, you know, in school you kind of don't really have a lot of autonomy. So it wasn't until I finally graduated college, when I got to actually like seek out people who I wanted to be around that I like really found the disability community that I vibe with, rather than like being mostly around the like you know, the moms…Who are like, “I'm a special needs mom.” 

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Oh, and I forgot to say but I also have CPTSD. I’m learning more and more and more about it all the time, I've had it for a long time, but now I'm like, oh, maybe I've had that my whole life actually.

Kelsie Acton:

Yeah, can you tell us about how you create disability culture. 

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Sky Cubacub:

So because of my like main favorite thing to do is is like making bodily adornment. My whole journey with making bodily adornment, starting with chainmaille when I was 13, and it was just the first medium that really clicked with me that I was, this is all I want to do. It's all I can think of. I want to do it 24/7. Now I know that it was like just needing to constantly stim and fidget, and like for self soothing and stuff. My start in bodily adornment is all like because of my madness or neurodivergency. And then I was making chainmaille clothing in high school and my teachers were amazing and super supportive, but they were like, you have to come up with something to go underneath the chainmaille clothing, cause it's a little see-through, and this is high school. You can be as naked as you want in college, but right now we are getting in trouble. So please figure out something to go underneath, and I was just like really unhappy with the options of like unitards and stuff that were available, they're just very ugly. 

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My best friend, slash like first girlfriend, her mom taught me how to sew a unitard and how to sew on the serger. That kind of opened up things. And then in college I got more and more into sewing with the serger, and like a little bit less. And then, when I was 21, and I gained this stomach disability, which, yeah, which might have just been a complication with the PCOS, I stopped being able to wear all the clothing that I had previously worn, because I wore all these like super tight jeans, like the tight, tight Tripp pants. And yeah, it was really sad, because I loved them. They're all patterned and like punk and fun. But yeah, I could not wear them anymore. It hurt so bad. So I had to make all this like soft, comfy, stretchy clothes.

So yeah, that kind of really got me into making like, yeah, clothing for specific to my body because of disability. But also wanting to make it show off my gender expression, I guess, a little earlier. In high school. I really wanted a chest binder and packing underwear. So these like gender affirming under garments, and I didn't have access to them as a person under 18 without access to like digital money. I'm 31 right now, and everybody thinks I'm 16 now. So when I was actually 16, I just had, like no hope of going into one of those shops in order to just get a chest binder. So, just wanted to combine all of my interests, and all these things that celebrated my identities. 

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And I figured that other people who are probably like me… I mean, I yeah, I had lots of disabled friends growing up or like disabled folks that I was around, but I didn't necessarily like know folks who, I mean, most of the people I knew weren't really out as queer until like later in high school or college. So you know, it just took a lot. Some people it took a lot to get there. But I just wanted to be able to make clothing for all of my friends. That celebrated like us as whole beings, instead of just like parts of us.

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Kelsie Acton:

Have you ever taken part in disability culture at a distance? So in online spaces, or, we also talk a lot about like, letter writing. Can you tell me about some of those experiences?

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Sky Cubacub:

Yeah, as I really started Rebirth Garments, I really started getting more into Instagram and finding community there. Actually, I think, I was mostly finding models and people who are interested in it first on Facebook, but now I feel like Facebook is kind of just deteriorated, but yeah, I would put my first calls for models on Facebook. And had all these people from all like times of my life, like I had folks from my grade school, from my high school, from college, from like just like people that I had met on the CTA…I used to like, meet a lot of friends on the CTA because of the way I dressed. So I've always dressed in this radically visible way, which is like what I based my manifesto on like queer, crip dress reform movement on. Because I would dress really kind of out there to people, and then it would be a way for me to make friends. So it's my way of never having to start a conversation ever. So I can be in a conversation when somebody else starts it, I just can't start it.

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Then I started to have a newsletter, through email on my website. Oh, yeah, for my clothing line. But it got shut down like pretty fast, because there were these like white supremacist trolls…They like found me on Youtube, which is why I never post on Youtube ever anymore, and yeah, I made it so that they couldn't comment on Youtube, so then they found me on like on my newsletter, and on my Instagram, and things like that, and they just like, reported me a bazillion times. I almost lost my Instagram, and for a while I wasn't able to post anything on Instagram cause it just all immediately got reported. I was posting only super clothed people at that time, and it was all getting reported. And my, I did like a, my newsletter was a tiny letter like through Mailchat. They were able to get it totally turned off. And then, when I tried to yell at tiny letter about it, they were like, “Oh, your account never existed, we don't see it here.”  And I'm like it totally did! In 2019, I started like snail mail newsletter and I was sending that out monthly or every other month for a while.

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I was sending it to like a 120 people just like a little trifold thing that was inspired by my my friend Billy who used to work at this amazing shop called Uncle Funs, and when he moved he started sending a trifold newsletter every single month, cause he was in like Zine World.

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Kelsie Acton:

Oh! That sounds so difficult to have to start to build community online and then to sort of have your online spaces shut down.

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Sky Cubacub:

Yeah.

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Kelsie Acton: 

Did the inspiration to pivot back to snail mail come from zine communities?

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Sky Cubacub:

Definitely, I've always loved zines so much. And I was like, well, they can get rid of my online presence. But they can't stop me from sending mail. But then, but then, like you know, then USPS was being like under attack, and I was like Nooo! Like let the mail carriers be.

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Kelsie Acton

So you're sending out this newsletter, what kind of things do you talk about in the newsletter?

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Sky Cubacub:

The newsletter, the snail mail one, is a lot more personal than my email one. The email one it was like mostly business stuff, and I've used Facebook and Instagram, mostly as business stuff for, I don’t know, since I was like 16, cause I started making and working for artists like when I was 16. But yeah, the snail mail one, I'll talk about more personal things and just like what's going on. It also started because I just, there's so I had so many friends in high school that I was still really close to but hardly talked to. It's like, you know, when they'd be in town we'd reconnect, and it'd be great but I just like a lot of them don’t like the phone, or don't even like texting. So, but like I would miss them very greatly, so I was trying to come up with ways to yeah, stay more in touch.

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Kelsie Acton:

I love that. So did COVID change how you were engaging with online spaces or through the mail at all? Or was everything still pretty much the same?

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Sky Cubacub:

I guess pretty the same. But I mean I'm definitely only on those spaces now, and pretty pretty much not seeing anybody in like person in real life. So, but yeah, I had already had the newsletter going. I guess I used, I mean, yeah, on and off I've used my Instagram more for, like sharing mutual aid stuff. But then, because more people were also getting into that then, it's like easier to share more information.

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Kelsie Acton:

Yeah. 

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[Upbeat, jazzy chords]

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So why are these ways of connecting remotely important to you?

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Sky Cubacub:

I mean, yeah, just especially now that I'm pretty isolated physically, since I'm very immunocompromised. And then, like I had really severe allergic reactions to the past vaccines. I just have to be really careful. So, even though people will say like, oh, maybe COVID will get a little bit better. I'm like. I don't, I don't think it will. I mean, maybe for some people, but I don't think that it will, and I don't think my body will, will be able to handle it.

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So, yeah, just having all these different modes of connection is so important for yeah, keeping community, feeling less alone. Although, yeah, I feel like my mental health is a lot better in the past year than it has been for maybe my whole life, but maybe it's also like not having an angry ovary all the time.

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Kelsie Acton:

Yeah. So you're really in online spaces and I feel like deeply connected to disability culture. Do you see any interesting ways that disabled people are using remote participation or remote access?

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Sky Cubacub:

I love the remote access dance parties, I'm super into that. I also, I’ve just been taking some fun classes every once in a while. I mean, yeah, I don't know if I mean I think my one friend identifies as neurodivergent, but they've been teaching a mime class for this whole time. I had wanted to take their classes for forever. But it wasn't until, like, yeah, they lost all their other job income sources that then they were like, “Oh, I'll do it online.” I'm just like, you know, so glad to get to take those classes. And it's nice, because I can do, for a while I was like skipping some a lot because my body wasn't letting me, but then I just started doing it from bed, and it was also like totally fine and great. And I've taken like a small like burlesque class online. Just getting to take more classes and then hear fun friends give more lectures. Like I used to sometimes give online lectures before, but now it's like I can do it all the time. Then I also get to hear friends give lectures and workshops all the time.

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Kelsie Acton:

Yeah, that's really lovely. Do you have anything else you want to tell me about? Like remote access in your life?

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Sky Cubacub:

I guess I, oh, I was able to do so, so I haven't done that many fashion performances since COVID. I used to do like 12 to 14 a year, which is way too much. Yeah, sometimes I'd have like 3 in one month, and it was… wild. Yeah, I used to travel so much and just like constantly be flying. I mean, I know, that's like, because of the amount of intense overwork that I've done my entire life that definitely set me up for the mono just like really taking me out. But yeah, the first show that I was able to do was with, it was with CHAT, Center for Heritage Arts and Textiles in Hong Kong. So I conducted interviews with all of the models over zoom and then I made all the outfits, and then I sent them all of the outfits, and then they did a fashion performance. 

I thought that was a cool way, like I hadn't…I hadn’t done that before where I like fully wasn't there in real life, and I just sent everything. That was really fun and worked out really well. 

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Kelsie Acton:

I feel like there's something radical about the kind of trust that that situation required of you. I'm wondering if you can say like, say more about what it felt like to know you were just putting things in the mail and trusting?

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Sky Cubacub:

Yeah, I mean, I guess you know, I've kind of made the Rebirth Garments shows pretty formulaic, so that anybody can do it. It's like everybody gets their outfits. There's like a music mix made. And then each person goes out and dances, or like struts or poses however they want and they have their own little like solo time, or they can have a friend with them. And they stay on stage, and next person comes on, and then it just like builds and builds, and then everybody's there, and then everybody dances together, and then usually this would happen, but with COVID it's like less. Before it's like you'd have the whole audience join in if they wanted to come and dance. Since I've done it so many times, I kind of have simplified my process in my interviews so that I can just kind of always repeat that. 

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But yeah, I did have to like talk a good amount with the people running it. But luckily I mean they were all really cool and super rad, and like amazing at planning and finding models, and like they, I mean, they hand selected some people to have to then have them apply. But they were like, oh, this person is like, they could be any age…past sixty. But I'm kind of thinking, maybe on the older side. But they do drag and stuff. So it was just so cute. They'd be like, oh, I think we want this person. And then they applied, and then I was like, yes, 100% want that person.

This other model who's like, queer and like a fat model who's like that's, you know their thing. It was just like super great, awesome people. So we had a couple of workshops for the models beforehand, which usually I don't really do. But because of it being, yeah, so distance, we did that.

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And there was two people, Harry and Harmony and they did like a Voguing workshop. There's some times when they maybe kind of fall into, like, you know, they know what Vogue is, and they want to do it exactly like that. I was trying to make things more open, I think they wanted to have a little Voguing contest or something before or after. They were showing me what the categories were, and one of them was like body or something. But I was like, oh, can we change it to like body/mind like to be like disability? And there's a little bit of lost in translation, like they're like, I don't understand what this means, and I was just trying to talk about it in like the disability justice sense. 

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But it also turned out amazing, and everybody had a great time. And I like, yeah, it. It was actually nice, because sometimes with the models, I don't get to talk that much with them like, I'll give people an email with my interview questions. I used to always interview everybody in person and stuff, but then, when I started to do shows that were not in Chicago, I was like, okay, I have to start doing it sometimes over email. So sometimes I don't get to talk to people as much as before. But I like got to fully interview each of them. Also cause it was easier, because then they could have a Cantonese translator. Most of them knew a lot of English. But still, just for clarification of, because, yeah, I'm also talking about these terms that maybe are… that haven't made it over there yet.

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Kelsie Acton: 

Yeah, that's really cool. How did they set up the Voguing workshops? Cause you're on Zoom, I'm presuming. Was there any sort of like…

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Sky Cubacub:

It was just a giant projection of me!

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Kelsie Acton:

Oh, my God!

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Sky Cubacub:

For that and during the performance, too, like I just watched the performance and it's just like a giant head.

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Kelsie Acton: 

I love that. That's actually like kind of amazing that you were like so present in the work at that moment, even at a distance.

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Sky Cubacub:

They all like took a picture in front of me, like posing in front of my huge head.

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Kelsie Acton:

Oh, I love it!

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Sky Cubacub:

They love that show so much, and right now there's a gallery show with like all of the models got to keep the garments, and they all got like you know, beauty portraits and stuff. But the gallery, show they have portraits and then they were able to borrow back some of the outfits, and then they made mannequins specific to the people's bodies. So there's like a wheelchair-user mannequin. There’s like different sized mannequins, although they're all like a lot taller than… them. It's like it's the correct shape, but they’re just so tall. People just love the tall mannequins, but I'm like, okay.

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[Upbeat jazzy chords]

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Kelsie Acton:

Have you done any other sort of hybrid processes like that?

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Sky Cubacub:

Um. Yeah I guess, I’ve done… I’m trying to think about… Well, okay, the other shows that I’ve done, I’ve done 3 or 4 shows besides that and they were all outdoors. But yeah, three out of the other four performances that I've done since Covid started have been with youth and teens and showing their work. So that's kind of what I'm pivoting towards now, more so. Oh, wait! No, I did a fifth show. I did a show at University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. That was the only indoor show that I've done since. But yeah, pretty much everybody wore masks, and there was a lot of room, and the people who didn't want to mask sat far in the back.

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Kelsie Acton:

Yeah, so for those shows, are you doing the prep process online with everyone and then day-of you sort of, meet everyone?

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Sky Cubacub:

Right, yeah, that's kind of how I usually did it before COVID. Mostly prep process online. And then well, with the kids, I'm actually doing one on one private lessons with them to come up with stuff. So they're actually the main people I've been seeing this last year, but it's like all folks with a very clear understanding of how immuno-compromised I am. We always wear a N-95 masks. And if anybody feels sick at all, or ever is in contact with anybody like that, we have so much transparency and so much trust. Yeah, that's been really interesting trying, to, I mean, especially because it's like, you know, kids can be germ magnets. So, but like how each of the kids, especially the one like they would already, only maybe see one friend without a mask, like their best friend. They were like, I always wear my mask around even my best friend now, like just cause I wanna protect you, Sky. So you know they're all very committed to me, which is very nice.

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Kelsie Acton:

It's really beautiful.

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Sky Cubacub:

Yeah. And now, yeah, my next big project, which I think maybe is what I will focus on more than the clothing line, because the clothing line itself is starting to really burn me out. And I just don't have the energy for it anymore. So I have pivoted more towards education, even though, like, like, yeah, the clothing line has always been educational. But now I just want to focus even more on it. Basically the whole time COVID has been happening I've been working with the Chicago Public Library on like DIY fashion curriculum for teens called Radical Fit. And that's mostly online. We have like 85 videos on how to do different types of bodily adornment. Now, sometimes they're having some in person classes, and I guess I'll be doing a couple of… for a little bit I'll be doing some in-person things so that I can have more teens from the library, and the like fashion shows where they're showing their own work. So I'll have to really work on how I'm gonna do that. 

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Right now, at least with the kids, I feel very, very safe and taken care of. Now I'm working on this kid’s online show. That's my next main thing. And yeah, it's like a lot, not not a very big cast, like it's we're really trying to only have a couple of people at a time around each other. And everybody takes tests beforehand. And, we're also all still wearing masks during the whole thing. Because, I think it's important for there to be shows where people are wearing masks, and especially a kids show. I feel like it's important.

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And then I'll be including some like kind of remote access stuff in that.So there's like a couple of friends that I want to have segments in the show, but who don't live in Chicago so, we’ll kind of send them some little instructions on how to film. Like, mostly like leaving space for an ASL bubble. Then, we'll smush it all together into the show.

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Kelsie Acton:

Amazing. Is there anything else you want to tell me about remote connection? Or remote access?

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Sky Cubacub:

Hmm. I mean I've gotten to participate in some of the remote access dance parties, and that's been really great. I just love all of the care and intention behind everything in those parties. I, just want them to keep on happening. I kind of want to put a segment in one of the episodes about remote access dance parties. I think that that would be cute.

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Kelsie Acton:

So wait, when you talk about episodes, is this for the library, or is this a whole other project?

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Sky Cubacub:

This is the whole other project. It's, yeah, this like kids online show. So it's like a TV show, but just, I'm just gonna put it on my Vimeo and on the… I'm an editor at this queer fashion and literary magazine called Just Femme and Dandy. So it’ll live on that website as well. But it's gonna be created with intention towards 6 to 11 year olds. But I think it'll be enjoyable for everybody, and I'm not going to be like, you know, I'm, yeah, I'm not gonna shy away from things because of folks being young. I'm gonna talk about everything, and then just explain more words if needed. 

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[Upbeat jazzy chords]

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I’m going to show you my teaser video for the kid’s show. This is just like a teaser video I put together with a bunch of video of my stuff I already have.

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Video:

[clapping beat underneath]

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It's Sky. Say, hi. Let's spread our wings and fly. 

Let's rock. Let's roll, you ready here we go! 

It's Sky and the rebirth warriors our adventures will be glorious. 

Sky and the rebirth warriors, our fashion is notorious. 

There's a place in me that's just like you, because I got love, and you got love, too.

There's a place in you that's just like me, because we both have L-O-V-E.

Sky and the rebirth warriors, our adventures will be glorious. 

Sky and the rebirth warriors, our fashion is notorious. 

It’s Sky. Say, hi! Let's spread our wings and fly. 

Let’s rock, let's roll, and strike your favorite pose.

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[rippling music and rhythmic pops underneath]

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Aimi Hamraie:

You’ve been listening to Contra*, a podcast about disability, design justice and the lifeworld. Contra* is a production of the Critical Design Lab. This season’s episodes draw on our recent project the Remote Access Archive, created by a team of disabled researchers collaborating remotely. Learn more about our projects, including the Remote Access Archive at www.criticaldesignlab.com. 

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Spotify. Rate and leave a review. 

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This season of Contra* is edited by Ilana Nevins. Kelsie Acton and Aimi Hamraie developed the episodes.

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The Contra* podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, share alike international 3.0 license. That means you can remix, repost or recycle any of the content as long as you cite the original source, you aren’t making money, you don’t change the credits and you share it under the same license.

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[Music fades out]

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