Welcome back to Style Dossier, Gabrielle Royal’s column that profiles stylish queers across the country. For her last edition of Style Dossier for 2015, Gabrielle is celebrating the style of Millz Serrano. Originally hailing from Philadelphia, new Brooklynite Millz is a freelance androgynous model and actress. After resigning from a full time technical support career this past June, Millz moved to take a bite of the Big Apple pursing her modeling full time on a larger scale as well as acting in various TV roles such as a reoccurring inmate on Orange is the New Black (Season 4). She has been featured in the “New Yorker” for a print ad; has worked alongside artist Uncle Meg starring in her latest music video “For a Second,” and recently walked the runway in the largest queer New York Fashion Week show at Brooklyn Museum. Millz is known for her edgy, different look, but also upbeat and spunky personality that can refresh and diversify any set.
dapperQ: Tell our readership about your favorite outfit combinations.
Millz: I don’t necessarily have a favorite outfit, but rather a favorite feel. I mostly shop at H&M and Forever 21 and enjoy it because of how nicely the tailoring of their clothes fits my figure. I like to switch it up depending on where I’m going and the mood I’m in. I love dressing up some slacks or chinos with a nice button up shirt and vest with either a tie or bow-tie. However, I feel most sexy in something dark and more on the eclectic urban side. I call it my “bad boy” look: some black jeans with a cool T-shirt paired with either a flannel or denim vest, top it off with a snap back, chain around the neck, fresh pair of kicks and you can’t tell me nothin’!
Photo by Kimberlee Jackson
dapperQ: Who is your biggest fashion icon and why?
Millz: Well, I wouldn’t say I have a fashion icon per se. I find inspiration all around me, from celebrities to everyday people. I pull from others from time to time, and make it my own. All in all, what inspires me is comfort. I feel most empowered when I am wearing my own style and making statements in my own fashion.
dapperQ: How much of your personal style is influenced by your identity?
Millz: My identity influences my personal style 100%. As I said, feeling comfortable, identifying as me is my style.
dapperQ: Why is queer visibility important and how does fashion help create space for members of our community?
Queer visibility is important because I want to be myself and break gender roles and by being visible. I am showing others that they can be sexy and confident and queer. Fashion is an outlet that creates a space where we can openly express ourselves as individuals without saying a word; a form of expression that people can see and take in– in seconds. Within those seconds of people seeing your fashion, they’re forced to acknowledge our world and culture and bridge gaps, as well as enlighten people of the progression of queer visibility and identity.
Photo by Harts Ortiz
dapperQ: Tell us about your biggest fashion fail.
Millz: Ah! My worst fashion fail was actually about a three year long event. It began my sophomore year in high school until my freshman year in college. I owned a pair of blue jeans that I wore virtually every day, with everything. I loved them a little too much to the point where the bottom of the cuff began to tear and look tattered and I thought I was a skilled tailor cutting them and rolling them up with safety pins, ha! Of course the tears got worse and worse and I “tailored” them more and more until they got shorter and more uneven and became socially unacceptable. Needless to say, I’ve come a long way!
Photo by Harts Ortiz
dapperQ: What advice would you give our readership? What advice can you offer to people who fit outside of society’s understanding of traditionally masculine and feminine styles?
Millz: The best advice I can give anyone is to not care about others and what they think. As cliché as that sounds, it’s the truest thing in life. There is no better feeling than being comfortable in your own skin, whether people like and accept you or not, because at the end of the day, you’re the only person staring back at yourself in the mirror that has to actually love what you see.
Tell us something unique about you!
The most unique thing about myself is the fact that I am unapologetically myself and don’t compromise who I am or who I appear to be for anyone at any time. I give who I am 100%. Even when I worked in corporate settings, I never changed my style.
How did you hear about dapperQ? Why were you interested in a feature?
I heard about dapperQ when I saw a post on Instagram that led to a model casting call for their VERGE Queer Fashion, which I had the pleasure of walking in this past September. I was interested in a feature with dapperQ because I see it as a social platform to not only expand other people’s worlds when they see me, but a way for me to see myself. Exposure of course helps my career but also shows others how large our world is and where they intersect.
Modeling Jag & Co. at VERGE. Photo by Oscar Diaz.
Check out more looks on www.iammillz.com and stay connected on:
Instagram- @iam.millz
Facebook- www.facebook.com/ModelMillz
Twitter- @_IamMillz
Photography Credit:
Harts Ortiz: IG @hartsortiz_photographer
Kimberlee Jackson Photography: IG @pink_rangerr