Storytelling and Fashion with Clara Pluton

Fashion can tell a story.

We wanted to create a platform for some of those stories at the opening of A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes May 10, so we reached out to Seattle storytelling collective she is FIERCE.

One of the performers sharing their story that evening is Clara Pluton. Clara is a Seattle-based comedian and radio personality and is currently the co-host of 104.9 FM KHUH’S radio show/podcast Hot Takes with Hot Dykes.

When describing their performance style, Seattle Weekly said Clara “fills the stage with their own strange universe and speaks with a rhythm of language that is all their own.”

Learn a little more about Clara in our interview below, and join us at the opening party for A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes May 10.

Mother Earth section of A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes

Interview with Clara Pluton

What attracts you to storytelling as a medium?

When you come from a marginalized group, storytelling is one of the only ways to reclaim your personal narrative and make it yours. I love storytelling and stand-up comedy because it's taught me how to best be myself. 

What artists are inspiring your work currently?

Every poncho that Carrie wears in Sex and The City, teen drag queens, and Britney Spears. 

Explorer section of A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes

A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes is themed around six archetypes: Thespian, Mother Earth, Explorer, Enchantress, Sage, and Heroine. Which archetype do you most identify with and why?

I'm a Sagittarius so Explorer obviously. There's no existential qualm that a brisk walk and a bus ride can't fix. 

The exhibition tells the story of these archetypes through fashion. What’s one thing you feel fashion does well? How would you like to see fashion evolve in the future?

Fashion can be anything we need it to be. Fashion is an extension of how see ourselves and how we wish to see ourselves. We can manifest through its limitless opportunities. What fashion does well is [also] what it represents in its most exalted form: community through aesthetics, transcending vanity into expression, a future made by the individual. 

I want to see fashion to continue to evolve back into the hands of the true trendsetters: QTPOC. No more appropriation!

Thanks to Clara for speaking with us. You can see them perform at the opening party for A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes May 10.