Qween Jean on Winning a Tony for Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Making History for Trans Artists Everywhere

“I really feel like this is like a moment of rebirth,” says Qween Jean, recalling how she felt before she had even arrived at the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 7. The costume designer and activist had been nominated for her work on Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the hit reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats set in the world of ballroom culture and running through January 2027 at the Broadhurst Theatre. The moment of rebirth in question arrived when she was making her gown for the Tonys with the team at Arel Studio, a design workshop in New York. The dress, with its rose palette, intricate folds and ruffles, and sculptural shoulders, came together in just three days. She wore beaded filament flowers in her hair, a salute to trans pioneer Marsha P. Johnson.

“There were moments throughout the entire process where I was like, this is what Cinderella felt like, this is what Mulan must have felt like—all these storybook characters and femmes that had to go through a rigorous process to achieve a moment of crystallization of self-actualization,” she tells W. “For me, the process was intricate because it showed and revealed that I was becoming closer to the woman that I knew I would become, and it was glorious.”

The glory continued that night as Qween Jean won Best Costume Design of a Musical, making her the first openly transgender person to earn a Tony in the ceremony’s 79-year history. She saw it happening, in her own way. “When the announcements came out, I said, ‘It's gonna happen,’ and you know, the ancestors were whispering in my ear, ‘go further,’ and I said, ‘Well, let's go further,’” she says.

“I felt like I was a flower that had fully bloomed and was now standing in the light. [I was] honored to be standing in front of thousands of people, and now millions more across a global TV stage and platform, to share my truth,” she says. “The truth was that I wouldn't be here without the legacy of queer people, without the legacy of Black trans women, brown trans women, Latina trans leaders that cultivated sanctuaries for themselves and for each other.”

Qween Jean had already come so far—an MFA in Design from NYU; the founding of Black Trans Liberation Kitchen, “whose mission is to end homelessness and food insecurity within the trans population;” an artist residency at MoMA PS1; countless costume design credits under her belt, including another Tony nomination this year for her work on the play Liberation; and innumerable other achievements in activism and design. She didn’t need a Tony Award to be legendary.

Qween Jean’s costumes contribute to the celebration and remembrance of heritage, making Cats: The Jellicle Ball one of the most joyful, thoughtful musicals currently on Broadway. And not just because she created 500 looks for the show. The costumes are unapologetically visible, enrobing their characters in neons and furs, rhinestones and beads, fringe, feathers, and sequins. They make seen not just the kaleidoscopic cast of cats on stage, but the queer communities of color that birthed ballroom as a whole, communities that were, and still often are, deeply marginalized. It was important to Qween Jean that her costumes do this.

“It's rare that we get to see Black folks and their stories through the lens of joy and celebration, through community building, through empowerment. Oftentimes, it's stories of horror, of pain,” she says. “While these things are often awfully very compelling, I don't think that they speak to who we are. We're not a circumstance; we can offer an experience, but we are human. That to me is more compelling as an artist to share, to describe, and to explore: the expanse of someone's journey, their gender identity, or their relationships, and how they've come to be, how they've arrived.”

She’s crafted Black queer history into the garments, too. It’s in the salute to streetwear pioneer Willi Smith and his legendary WilliWear line, crafted in denim and rhinestones for Rumpleteazer, played by Dava Huesca; or in the suit of historical trans figures like Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, worn by Ken Ard’s DJ Griddlebone; or the ornate headdress worn by Robert “Silk” Mason’s Magical Mister Mistoffelees that’s not unlike those worn by Josephine Baker. Theater legend André De Shields wears a corseted pastel lavender gown with pants inspired by the likes of Hector Xtravaganza, lauded father and then grandfather of the House of Xtravaganza. “It was just glorious to be able to honor the legacy of Hector Xtravaganza,” she says, “who broke gender norms and boundaries of fashion—proving that clothes are tools to enhance, improve, protect, and survive in this world, so why not do it our way?”

In some ways, Qween Jean’s work has always been about the future. It’s deeply informed by the past, yes, but with the premise of making space for a new experience, a new life, a new character, a new mode of thinking about how to live, and a new mode of considering freedom. “I feel like I'm deeply seated in my purpose as an artist, as a costume designer, using clothing as a form of armor to support characters and performers through their work on stage,” she says. “I have found deliverance in being able to support a performer, to be contributing to a production, to a text that is rooted in exploring community, and exploring what liberation means.”