It seems like there’s this urge to “apologize” for Lucio being tacky, or scale him back, or explain why his fashion choices/style are actually very good-
Here’s the thing, in the nicest possible way: “tacky = bad” is a very heteronormative take.
Like Viv said, tacky is camp. Camp is, by definition, ostentatious, over-the-top, theatrical, effeminate, excessive, frivolous, and so on - it’s a mockery of the “sophistication” of high fashion, the “artistic” pretentiousness of the upper class. Camp is also, by definition, very very queer. Camp was born in drag queens’ basements on home sewing machines, at punk lesbian house shows, in gender-non-conforming folks fighting the post-50s crackdown of gender roles cobbling together outfits from estate sales and thrift stores. Camp has historically been upsetting to the mainstream art and fashion worlds because it “breaks the rules” in the loudest possible way - it doesn’t care about gender, it doesn’t care about body type, it doesn’t care about skin color, and most of all, it won’t let itself be shoved under the rug.
And it’s still a huge part of being LGBT+ today. Non-binary mullet culture? floral shirts? spiked butch haircuts? shaving notches into your eyebrows? Trans guys and our terrible, terrible facial hair? it’s all camp. We don’t do what a cis-hetero-normative society wants us to do, so why would we dress the way it wants us to dress? Tacky and loud is tacky and proud.
Lucio is queer as hell (all the LIs are), and making up his own rules is kind of his entire schtick, so why shouldn’t his style reflect that? There’s no reason to apologize for it, or try to justify it - he’s a loud, flamboyant, bisexual man in heels and eyeshadow - the fact that his style doesn’t fit “proper” ideas of what’s sophisticated and attractive isn’t a misstep on his part, it’s an expression of that. ☕
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