Yamuna Forzani: An Ode To Femme Queens

Celebrate International Women's Day with Yamuna Forzani

Yamuna Forzani is a multidisciplinary artist and queer activist whose practice revolves around a deep desire to build a queer utopia—one that centers and celebrates her community, making them both the inspiration and an integral part of her creative work. Get to know Yamuna Forzani and read about her ode to femme queens, also known as trans women.

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Meet Yamuna

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Forzani, winner of the 2022 Dutch Design Awards, describes her entire artistic practice as a love letter to her community and to anyone who resonates with these utopian ideals. Through her work, she explores identity, the body, and femininity, intertwining these themes with a bold, playful, psychedelic, and sensual visual language. Her primary medium is intricate jacquard knits, which she combines and transforms through an eclectic mix of fashion, photography, performance, installation, and design.

Yamuna Forzani

Angel Delight

In 2023, together with Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, she organised the event Angel Delight: Talking Threads. At this event, her latest fashion collection was presented in an immersive art installation, worn by models from The Kiki House of Angels.

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Models from The Kiki House of Angels at the Angel Delight event. Credits: Alexander Santos Lima

Through her artistic practice, Forzani shares stories of diversity, acceptance, radical celebration, and the normalization and empowerment of all bodies. A particularly special wedding dress designed by Forzani is a powerful symbol of the empowerment of trans women.

Trans women are women. Period.

Yamuna Forzani

An Ode to Femme Queens

In conversation with Yamuna she expressed that the story behind this dress is deeply personal. Forzani created it with a dear friend in mind—a femme queen, also known as a trans woman. She was inspired by the fashion collections of the 1990s, where runway shows would traditionally end with a wedding dress. She loved it for being camp, extravagant, and theatrical. But what captivated her the most was that the bride always stood alone. She didn’t need a groom or another bride beside her—she was enough on her own.

The 2019 spring/summer collection fashion show

Self-love and radical joy

Forzani embraced this concept, designing a traditional wedding dress meant to stand completely alone in, without the presence of a partner. She made this dress the finale of her Spring/Summer 2019 fashion show as a tribute to femme queens and as a statement about the tradition of marriage itself.

Forzani: ‘’Many femme queens in the community long for that tradition, yet in society, trans people are often fetishized or ostracized’’. With this dress, Forzani sought to celebrate and elevate that longing—to place it on a pedestal and turn it into a moment of empowerment.

For her, this dress is more than just a garment—it is a symbol of self-love, visibility, and radical joy.

Photo credits: Aad Hoogendoorn

Q: Yamuna, if you were to translate your wedding dress into a broader message for International Women's Day, which values or goals for change would you want to highlight?

''As women we should remember our power, we are worthy regardless of our relationship status. Trans women are women. Period. And you don’t need to be getting married to wear a wedding dress. Come to the exhibition ‘Say Yes’ and try on some dresses!''

The wedding dress designed by artist Yamuna Forzani is on display at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam's Say Yes exhibition until 26 October 2025.