Out of the closet: gay style icons - in pictures

Susan Sontag: The themes of Sontag’s wardrobe changed little from youth to old age (turtleneck sweaters, men’s shirts, oversized necklaces), showing through dressing the power of constancy and precision: it’s a strictness that can be found today at Céline. Photograph: Getty Images

Freja Beha Erichsen: Front-of-camera, the 24-year-old model is the face of Chanel, among many others. Off-duty, she dresses like many women her own age: leather jackets, vests, jeans or leggings. Freja is as nonchalant in her clothes as she is about her sexuality, a common trait in women of her increasingly enlightened generation. Photograph: Getty Images/Corbis

Jonathan Pierce of the Drums: Dapper young singer/songwriter for the Drums, much photographed in T-shirts and jeans by YSL’s new creative director Hedi Slimane. Pierce is open about his sexuality, but he symbolises a generation of young gay men who no longer see outing themselves as an issue. Photograph: Getty Images

Christopher Biggins: Thank heaven for Christopher Biggins, who has stoically stuck to the garish patterned shirt no matter how inadvisable this may have been. But, as we embark on the summer of the loud patterned shirt for men (Prada, Burberry, Marni et al), Biggins finally gets his dues as a messiah of style and a role model for all. Photograph: Catwalking.com/XclusivePix.com

Anna Friel: A rare case of a gay soap character with resonance. For young lesbians at the time of Brookside storyline, it wasn’t just what she was doing, it was what she looked like while she was doing it, with her high-waisted jeans, chunky sweaters and Pony Club hair. Photograph: Public Domain

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The suit can be an important tool for artists (see also Gilbert & George). For Basquiat, the stature of the suit provided a counter to the chaos he let live on his canvases. His example shows that tailoring can be for something other than the office, as seen at Kim Jones’ debut collection at Louis Vuitton. It can be the uniform for life lived bare. Photograph: Getty Images

Steven Patrick Morrissey: A lesson in defiant awkwardness for successive generations of gay men and women, taking from both the Smiths era (loose jeans, elaborate oversized shirt, sweater) and his solo life (slick quiff, tailoring). Morrissey’s amused silence about his own sexuality only heightens the effect of his otherness. Photograph: Alamy

The Golden Girls: Jewel colours. Strong shoulders. Draping. Silks. All motifs of Haider Ackermann, the lauded designer du jour for strong-minded women (as favoured by Tilda Swinton). Statuesque? Undoubtedly. Seen it somewhere before? Obviously. On the backs of Blanche, Rose, Sophia and Dorothy, the Miami roommates who were the essence of eternal chic. Photograph: Getty Images/Allstar

Syd Tha Kyd: The new face of radical gay Americans (she hates the word “lesbian”), her buzz-cut mohawk a declared expression of her freedom. Nineteen-year-old Syd Tha Kyd is the only female in LA’s Odd Future collective, her recent taunting of closeted female singers making her as noticed off stage as on. Photograph: Corbis Outline

Christopher Isherwood: Young gay men have long tried to emulate Isherwood’s life, as told in his 1930s Berlin stories. Nowadays, they are also trying to dress like him: chinos, shirts, blazers, etc (if they’ve got the money, they’re doing it in E Tautz). Isherwood’s influence is clear: although the clothes may be an exercise in niceness, the experiences had in them can be anything but. Photograph: Getty Images/the Estate of Christopher Isherwood