New York Fashion Week is, ultimately, a tale of two cities: Of the Ralph Laurens and the Tory Burchs and their large-scale shows, their supermodels and celebrities; and of designers like Gogo Graham, the artist and founder of her eponymous label, whose return to the runway this season had its fair share of personalities in attendance—except that they were not your average mainstream names, but the kinds of people who give New York both its gravitas and myth.

Gogo returned to the runway this season after spending the last few years dedicating time to her fine arts practice, primarily sculpture and painting, “but I’ve been selling more clothes in stores again lately, so I figured it was time to go back,” she said. There was also a sense of urgency to her return: “Based on the way things are going in this country, I don’t know the next time it will be possible,” she said, alluding to the political landscape and the pointed attacks against trans people in the U.S. “It might become illegal.”

Graham said that ahead of this show she’d been rewatching a series of films that helped inform her concept for the collection. “I’ve been watching movies that have depictions of, I want to say trans women, even if sometimes they’re not explicitly called trans,” she said. “It’s implied, or there is subtext.”

The crux of this exercise had been to pinpoint the ways in which transness has been depicted in film: “It’s one of two things, it’s either the whole twist at the end of a comedy that she is trans, or that she is trans and she is a psycho killer,” Graham said. The latter might sound familiar: It’s the subtext in the Silence of the Lambs. “I mean, you even have Hannibal Lecter telling Clarice Starling that Buffalo Bill is not a trans woman, that he just thinks he is,” she explained, “and it’s not even the language, it’s understanding the nuances.” What Graham is getting at here is that films from the 20th century into this one have perpetuated a stereotype of transness, “of a person who has been denied gender affirming care,” Graham said. “These are fictitious characters created by men who are inspired by men who are killers; they have nothing to do with us.”

Her spring 2026 show, titled He Covets, was a “reappropriation of some aesthetics that are projected onto us,” she explained, “and present people trying to force themselves into a conventionally defined feminine.” Other movies Graham mentioned include Dressed to Kill, The Tenant, Soapdish, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, with the caveat that she would only recommend some of these, even if they all helped inform the dialogue in her collection.

To have her collection come to life, Graham cast all trans women, most of whom are visual artists and performers. “I always cast girls that inspire me, but this season most of them are in the performance space,” she said, “I wanted people the audience could connect with.” Scroll through to take a look at Graham’s casting board.