Marquis Neal boogies into frame to a foot-tapping mashup of Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?” laid over Britney Spears’s “I’m a Slave 4 U.” They’re shirtless, wearing a pair of pink-and-white checked pants (save for one cobalt blue square), and a pair of sheer black socks. They take the audience through the minutiae of getting ready, donning a pink sheer long-sleeve, hot pink shorts and matching over shirt, a navy puffy vest, a black crossbody purse painted with mushrooms, a handful of silver rings, a baseball cap, and white slides, dancing every step of the way.
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While getting dressed in the morning can sometimes feel monotonous, Neal—who uses they/he pronouns—has adopted a philosophy of positivity, emphasizing the joy in picking out clothing every day—as evidenced by a grid full of dancing “Get Ready With Me” videos, which he shares on his growing TikTok platform. As a queer, nonbinary, plus-sized person, they are deeply entrenched in an industry that is not always willing to make space for them. Yet Neal is undeterred, building a presence off of his unadulterated love for fashion, and his equally pure approach to style. “I’ve always wanted fashion to seem approachable,” he says. “Getting dressed is your opportunity to decide what it is that you would like to place forth into the world for other people to see.”
Neal grew up in Vancouver, Washington and ascribed to the late-aughts fashion du jour: mall prep. “It was Hollister polo, jeans, the whole thing,” they say of their early approach to style. Much of their inspiration came from the internet. “I had a friend who used Tumblr, and they were always on it, and I was so interested in it. I found out that there was something called the plus-size community on the internet.” Neal was primarily interested in accessible, affordable fashion for all body types, rather than what they saw in high fashion: “I’d never studied runway, I knew nothing about luxury fashion, and I couldn’t access it because I didn’t have the money to do it.”
But for Neal, discovering their queerness is what really opened the fashion floodgates. “Finding out that I was queer, my mind suddenly opened up an entire passageway for fashion, so I used that as a catalyst to explore as much as I possibly could,” they say. After this revelation, he began experimenting with style, wearing dresses, skirts, makeup, and mixing menswear and womenswear. To this day, their personal style is still malleable, a hodgepodge of colors, textures, and shapes that Neal uses as a billboard to express who they are, a philosophy which they describe as “Same girl, different day.” They count Chopova Lowena, Tanner Fletcher, and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy among their current favorite labels. “That’s the most empowering thing about being queer. We all look and express ourselves so differently,” he says. “There’s a way that it’s expressed that is so different and beautiful.”
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Now, they’ve shared that philosophy with their audience, even creating a new styling series on their TikTok where they attempt to teach people how to shop their own closet and breathe new life into old clothes. Neal regularly pairs incongruous items together in this series, challenging viewers to think outside the box. On some days, it’ll be a more cheeky look, like a Tanner Fletcher “twink” graphic tee with a Jean Paul Gaultier kilt, an MM6 dress as an outer layer with a plaid Ganni collar and Tabis; On other days he’ll model how to spice up even the simplest of all-black fits with Marc Jacobs sweat shorts, Marine Serre tights, a Dion Lee cutout tee, and Gucci mules. “A lot of people are like, I literally didn’t even think about cocktailing those two things together,” Neal says. “I get a lot of comments from people that are telling that tell me that they appreciate my value and being able to rewear clothing over and over and over and over again, because that’s not something we really do promote as creators.”
Neal finds it particularly important to show their body in a nonchalant, nonsexual way online. “I understand the value of being able to see someone’s body. I’d like to think I’ve tried to make it in a wholesome, welcoming, the door is open way.” Neal has always possessed a high level of self-confidence. “Existing in this body and having this body—I accepted it very early on,” they say. But they’re happy to serve as a beacon of inspiration for others struggling with body image, and hope to serve as a model of self-acceptance. “For me, particularly, I just wanted people to be able to see bodies that I don’t see a lot on social media,” he says.
Even if people only see Neal once as they scroll through an endless, algorithmically influenced feed, they can at least bring them a fleeting moment of joy. “Clothing is a cosplay for a lot of people, and it’s cosplay for survival sometimes. Sometimes it’s cosplay for confidence,” they say. “But for me, finding your joy within those things is the most important piece, because joy is something that’s hard to come by.”
So, for anybody stuck in a rut when standing before their closet, perhaps consider the Marquis Neal Method of Dressing. “It doesn t hurt anyone to to put on a song that brings you joy, take the fashion out of it, and just put on what makes you happy.”
