The ocean accepts your body: An interview with multidisciplinary artist Bex McCharen

In the spring of 2023, a group gathered on the shoreline of North Beach—a stretch of the barrier island of Miami Beach—to make floral offerings to the sea and read the poetry of Lucille Clifton. The occasion was the Climate Optimism Ritual, a tenderhearted ceremony and part of the Third World Feminist School curriculum, co-led by the scholar and author Marina Magloire and Chromat founder and multidisciplinary artist Bex McCharen. McCharen was taking a hiatus from the brand, and considering a pivot. After thirteen years at the helm of the beloved size-and-gender-inclusive, environmentally sustainable label, they were turning their attention toward their personal art practice—photography, cyanotypes, collages, and their primary medium, quilts, all awash in Atlantic Ocean-blue—and the sea itself.

McCharen lives on Miami Beach, part of Miami-Dade County, one of the country’s most climate-vulnerable regions. In the wake of a divorce and changes wrought by the pandemic, they were spending more time at the ocean, feeling protected by the water and at once both hopeful and nervous about the future. Originally from Virginia, they’d first come to Miami from New York in 2018 for Swim Week, fell in love with the sea, and never left. They’d also just begun to transition from cis woman to transmasc non-binary, and realized they were no longer sure how to design for themselves.

Recently, just months before the April 17 release of Chromat’s S/S 2025 collection—what would’ve been its final collection—McCharen had a change of heart. They didn’t want to dissolve the brand forever. Instead, they needed to take an intentional pause and give themselves time to nurture both their swiftly developing art practice and evolving gender identity, which they explore in an essay released with the collection. It is a reunion with their friend and longtime collaborator Tourmaline, the filmmaker and artist with whom they launched Collective Opulence Celebrating Kindred, or COCK, a legacy collection for “trans girls who don’t tuck.” For this collection—which features pieces in black, white, and a violet-blue the color of the waterline where the Atlantic meets the horizon—McCharen photographed Tourmaline across the state of Florida, joyous in the waves and among the palms. 

Florida is a long-running testing lab for fascistic policies; gender-affirming care is at risk, the “Don’t Say Gay” law is still in effect, and rampant climate gentrification is threatening to erase Miami’s history. Still, for McCharen it’s home. And as McCharen continues growing their art practice while considering the future, the water remains their muse.

Your art practice is beautifully influenced by the ocean. Tell me about your relationship to the water.
The ocean is my religion; it’s my God. When I meditate, I picture myself sitting there. It’s where I connect with the next realm. The ocean is such an absorbent medium; it’s accepting. I feel so much reassurance knowing that no matter what, the waves continue.

There’s an affinity between your love of the ocean and Chromat’s reputation as a swimwear brand. It’s always been about connecting people to the water.
Chromat actually began as structural experiments for the body: scaffolding, architectural corsetry. I started adding fabric and exploring lingerie, swimwear, accessories, women’s wear, fashion technology, footwear. But swimwear was the category that really took off commercially. Ever since the beginning, I’ve designed plus-size clothes for myself and my friends; different bodies, shapes, sizes, genders, and presentations were always part of Chromat. Swimwear is a vulnerable genre of garment that a lot of people feel uncomfortable in, and people knew we were an inclusive and body-diverse space where they could feel comfortable and respected through the act of design.

For folks who don’t know, when did Chromat officially begin?
I always say Chromat started in 2010, when I moved to New York, but it really started when I was sewing in my bedroom in Virginia and hosting DIY runway shows with my friends. I’d gone to architecture school and worked in urban planning. A coworker introduced me to his daughter, Virginia Craddock, who went to FIT. I would visit college friends in New York and show her the garments I was designing. She suggested I put some of them into a pop-up shop she was starting with friends on the Lower East Side. I shipped up a couple pieces that sold out; I sold her more and those sold out, too. I decided to quit my job, move to New York, and see what happened. I thought I’d keep working in architecture, but I kept getting orders from the store, and then orders from a store in LA. Three months later, I never ended up getting another job. It was hard the first year, but I made it work.

You were already broadly emphasizing inclusivity when the industry started to capitalize on that. I’m curious about your experience.

In the beginning I was very naïve. I thought that diversity and inclusion meant simply that different bodies, races, ethnicities, and genders were visible and celebrated. I thought no matter who did it, it was always a good thing, because it’s going against the status quo. I assumed “all progress is good progress.”

What hit me was hearing from the models tasked with being these diverse faces—their stories of tokenization, of being mistreated on set. It can really hurt the people you bring in to represent their entire community when they don’t have any support on set or with decision-makers in the company. Being hired by larger companies for collaborations was sometimes a nightmare. Some would refuse to hire a Black model or a woman photographer. It was only about optics.

I do love seeing continued changes, like the Target boycott. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to be more inclusive or to have different people making decisions. My hope is that once the Pandora’s box has been opened, once people have seen the beautiful futures they have been offered, you can’t put anything back. 

You considered stepping away from the industry entirely after some of these experiences, but now you’re just taking a pause while you focus on your art practice. 

Things have been moving slower for some time, and after this collection, I’m intentionally taking a sabbatical. Everything changed with the pandemic. I took a lot of political education classes and learned about capitalism and its pitfalls and other economic systems. I started dreaming of what living outside this oppressive system might look like. I was feeling disillusioned with participating in the fashion industry.

I also got a divorce, which was a big life-changing shift that changed how I saw my own gender outside of the construct we’d kind of set up in our marriage. All these structures in my life fell away. And I was renewed by my relationship with the ocean—listening, understanding the bigger picture, things that are bigger than me. I also drew a lot of inspiration from connecting to a new art medium. That rejuvenated my creativity. 

How did quilting become your primary medium?

I made my first quilt when I was 18; my mom and I made a T-shirt quilt with all my high school soccer jerseys. Later on, I was inspired by the Miami designer Pangea Kali Virga, who does a lot of textile art and upcycling. 

My art practice really began with taking photos of my friends in the ocean, though I didn’t know I was making art yet. When everything was crashing down around me—my marriage, capitalism, the pandemic—I would go to the beach with friends. My whole life became liquefied during that era, like when the caterpillar temporarily liquifies itself in the cocoon. I was in the ocean, trying to make sense of it all, snapping pictures of my community. From there, I printed those photos onto fabric using cyanotype techniques. Once I had these photos on fabric, I got the idea to make a quilt that was as big as the ocean. That quilt is called Queer Atlantics (2024)—all my friends floating in the water. I felt a quilt was the right medium for a visual archive about being held and comforted by the natural world.

Queer Atlantics is such an optimistic project. Our ecosystems and our queer communities in Florida are vulnerable, but they’re also thriving.

Whether it’s a birthday party or a mango party or a Trans Day of Remembrance event, there are so many gatherings at the ocean that are specifically for queer and trans people. This is our church. It’s a public space where everyone’s welcome. It’s free. The ocean is accepting of your body, and it is a very beautiful, spiritually connected, rejuvenating space for everyone. It’s a place where we draw power in community.

Florida’s swamps and beaches feel inherently queer; they’re ecotones that defy neat categorization.
I love that. I think in a lot of trans experiences, there comes a point where you don’t feel comfortable in your own body. Being in the ocean is comforting. It feels physically good. 

The climate-vulnerability of the city isn’t lost on you. You’ve already witnessed the fashion industry’s role in the climate crisis; now you’re living on Miami Beach. What I love about your work is that it’s hopeful.

It hit me as soon as I got here in 2018. Climate disaster was no longer an abstract concept: flooding on sunny days, buildings collapsing, the red tides, the algae blooms, the bleaching of the coral. Witnessing it, knowing there’s not much being done to improve things on a legislative level—and understanding how much Miami operates on real estate tax—you realize they’re basically trying to deny that these things are happening so they can continue making money.

Getting to the root of that denial led me to start hosting the Climate Optimism Rituals, part of the Third World Feminist School. There were two gatherings at the ocean to tap into climate grief. We’d sit in the grief and talk about the challenges, and read poetry by Lucille Clifton, which was curated by my collaborator, Marina. We’d end on an optimistic note, asking each other, what do you envision for the future of Miami? People wanted to envision ways to live with the water, not against it—building more hurricane-proof structures, not paving over the entire city. Community and being together is what’s going to get us through this.

You’re planning to eventually revisit Chromat. What might that look like?

I recently turned a corner and identified that one of the reasons I’d stopped connecting with Chromat is because, as I explore my masculinity, a lot of the swimsuits feel too girly for me. Now I’m exploring transmasculinity and enjoying that, and it’s only been a couple years. I want to take time to live that life. I want to continue getting to understand the needs and desires of my transmasc, non-binary, and masculine friends for how they present themselves through garments. Chromat has always reflected me and my friends and my community.

Has dating changed for you as you explore your gender?

It’s literally night and day. Since starting testosterone, the sex drive has been absolute insanity. So that took a while to just figure out and manage and be a normal person. I’ve been calling testosterone “delulu juice” because it makes you feel so confident. It’s like mansplaining is a hormonal imbalance! 

I’ve been a lesbian for two decades now. I think what I love about queer relationships is that there are no set gender role expectations. You can do both and. As I become more masculine, I've noticed that some people have some gender role expectations regarding the way I look or act. I have to fight against what people project onto me as far as gender roles, which I don’t want or connect to or agree with. Dating now, as more transmac and non-binary, is about finding people who still see me as me and not a man. I don’t want to be a man and I don't want to be treated like a man.

But after getting the divorce and hitting the dating scene super hard, I’m at the point where I don't want to give out my energy anymore. I want to reserve that for my art, myself, [and] my friends.

Both you and Chromat are on a hiatus.

I’m on a hiatus. Everything is in flux. But hey—maybe one day I’ll find someone who’s really creative and passionate and optimistic and can match my freak.