Palomo and Tom of Finland Foundation Celebrate Queer Community at WorldPride Amsterdam

Spanish designer Alejandro Gómez Palomo, creative director of Palomo, has launched a collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation, celebrated during WorldPride Amsterdam with a commemorative lunch and pop-up. The partnership, which was delayed by the pandemic, was revived after Palomo designed a custom Tom of Finland-inspired look for actor Luke Evans at the Met Gala. The collaboration includes an editorial photographed by Kees de Klein, which reimagines the cruising culture depicted in Tom of Finland's drawings with tenderness and black-and-white romanticism, inspired by James Bidgood. Palomo's work, known for recasting queer desire through theatricality and challenging traditional masculinity, aligns with the foundation's mission to preserve the legacy of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, whose hypermasculine illustrations from a time when homosexuality was criminalized remain a defining visual language of queer culture. Palomo emphasizes community over sex in Laaksonen's work, noting the importance of gathering spaces like parks for queer people. The Tom of Finland Foundation is also hosting two exhibits for WorldPride, an event founded in 2000 to unite global queer communities.