The first time Louis Dorantes ended up at Bushwick’s deceptively named nightlife venue Market Hotel, which neither market nor hotel, he was mesmerized. “Seeing the subway go by behind the DJ was just very…” He pauses, his words trailing off. “It’s just the vibe I’ve always loved about New York.”
The founder and lead designer of the Brooklyn-based “lingerie workshop” Leak NYC holds many New York City spaces close to his heart. “But that one, in particular, just felt barebones,” he says. “Everything in it on the nights that I enjoyed the most was curated by people that I admire: the lights, the DJs, the host, whoever was there. It was just a lot of fun.”
So when it came time to stage his brand’s first official ready-to-wear collection, Dorantes knew exactly where it had to be: in this “urban and dirty, dark and heavy” performance space known for its sweaty raves and Club Mate drink specials. Although the presentation, titled EFEMMERIS (a play on “ephemeris”), traded the venue’s typical late-night darkness for the “vulnerability” of early afternoon daylight, the brand’s SS24 exhibition still tapped into Market’s trademark spirit. As envisioned by Sebastian Hernandez, an LA-based performance artist whom Dorantes hired as Leak’s creative director in residence, the 30-minute, 18-look show was a brilliant display for the brand’s two largest touchstones: nightlife culture and unabashed queer sexuality.
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Three days after the show, Dorantes and Hernandez are feeling emotional. Sitting inside Leak’s colorful Bushwick studio, where the refrigerator is stocked with three different flavors of LaCroix and (because this is Bushwick) White Claw, the creative partners are still trying to wrap their heads around their recent feat. The entire process, explains Dorantes, has been “a journey,” starting with their decision to work together in the first place.
The pair are longtime friends, but the seeds of their professional partnership were first planted a couple years ago, right before the pandemic, when Dorantes traveled to L.A. to shoot a “DIY campaign” for the brand. The concept called for models to pose outside of a hotel, but as the designer recalls, “Sebastian thought to shoot us interacting, very voyeuristically, from another side of the building into our hotel room, through the glass.” He immediately saw the vision. “That was a really special moment for the brand. It kind of kickstarted the whole vibe, and really just locked in our ability to work together and bounce really strong ideas off of each other.”
The collaborators share a taste for queer-affirming nightlife. Self-admitted “party girl” Hernandez, who produces parties in L.A. and DJs under the stage-name brownskinhazel, has been clubbing since age 16. She even credits queer club culture as central to her art praxis.
Dorantes, meanwhile, discovered the power of the dance floor later in life, after leaving his Midwest suburban hometown (“a lovely place, if not that diverse”) to study fiber arts and textiles at Parsons. Once in New York, he quickly found a community among the regulars at queer, POC-centered parties like Dick Appointment, Papi Juice, and Bubble_T. The Catholic-raised queer Guatemalan found the free-wheeling sex positivity quite transformative. “I just experienced the huge culture shock that anyone basically coming from farm fields does,” he says. But as invigorating as these environments could be, they could sometimes be intimidating — though, not in the way you’d think. “Everyone just put so much effort into the space and attendees put in the same amount of energy with their looks, with their attitudes,” he says. “I felt like I couldn’t just buy things off the rack at Mystique Boutique. I needed to step it up.”
So like any good club kid with a formal background in textile design, Dorantes started creating his own pieces in 2018. “When I first started, I was just running this out of my apartment. I would just make things in my free time. I still had other jobs and stuff,” he recalls. Inspired by the slinky, body-revealing outfits of many dancefloor denizens, Dorantes made handcrafted lingerie for all genders and body types, hoping to “redefine lingerie as clubwear.” “I mean, some of the stuff looked crazy bad,” he jokes. “But some of the stuff really worked.”
In the beginning, the brand was christened “Leak Your Sextape” — a name Dorantes attributes to his partner, SYRO co-founder Shaobo Han, who thought it was “fun, retro, and clickbaity.” The designer resonated with the recommendation. “I was feeling super hypersexual and more liberated than I ever had at the time,” he explains of the name now. “I was looking at the stories of Kim K. and Paris Hilton, and how they could just take their sexuality and harness that energy to take what they want from the world and not really care what other people thought. They drove the narrative. They just took it and ran with it.”
It took “a lot of unlearning” for Dorantes to be comfortable with his own queer sexuality, and Leak, for him, was always a way to help other LGBTQ+ people find that same inner solace. “It’s always been in our brand DNA to try to kick slut-shaming in the face, to tell people that it’s okay to be erotic and sensual, that it’s okay to have these thoughts and that it doesn’t necessarily need to be exclusive to your bedroom,” he says. “As long as there’s respect, consent, and love going around, those feelings and acts can be in more places than I was taught they should be.”
For a while, Leak NYC operated as commission-only. Dorantes loved this style of working. “When you’re doing made-to-measure clothes, it’s so special to be able to interact with somebody and accentuate all the features that they want highlighted, to have an intimate relationship with them on that level,” he explains. Alas, such couture-like conditions were never conducive for a small brand trying to expand. So as orders started to pour in and Leak began to “scale and scale,” — especially among the queer Brooklyn set, who jumped on the chance to adorn themselves in webby bodysuits — Dorantes shifted to the strategy he still employs today: building out a direct-to-consumer online shop and releasing new products in occasional drops.
Still, for years, the designer could tell that the Leak customer was “waiting to see more worldbuilding.” They wanted a show, something that “wasn’t just one pair of underwear a month.” For some time, he was held back by financial restraints. “It took, I want to say, three years to save up to be able to do the show,” Dorantes says. Then, there was his commitment to working exclusively with his chosen family. Building a network, he explains, was always paramount. “Just [getting] big enough to finally feel like I knew all the right people to help put it together. And then, having the confidence and the reassurance from everybody that they could do it, that it’s totally manageable, that it’s something we should do.”
Anyone in attendance at the brand’s inventive show in October can attest to the fact that it was indeed the right set of circumstances. In lieu of a traditional runway, Hernandez staged something closer to an art piece: a semi-interactive 30-minute performance built on sensual dancing, suggestive fruit-eating, and plenty of passionate kissing. Part of this set-up was practical: given his distaste for “filler looks in collections,” Dorantes knew he’d never present 50 in one season, and thus “the whole presentation needed to slow down.” (“We were slowing down New York, which is always going so fast,” he adds.) But it was also conceptual. As Hernandez sees it, “I wanted people in the space to be present and acknowledging these BIQTPOC bodies and how they have survived. How we are still here, how trans people are still here. I wanted people to soak that in.”
It was a fitting showcase for the clothes, where the spotlight was, naturally, on the brand’s signature bodysuits, shown in sexy insect-patterned lace and elastic that popped in bright magenta and mossy green ombré. But for the brand’s first official foray into the world of “ready-to-wear,” Dorantes wanted to display a more comprehensive vision of Leak’s aesthetic. “Historically, we’ve just made everything sheer, everything barely there,” the designer shares. “But [lately], I’ve been like, ‘Oh, I kinda wanna wear stuff to work, or to lunch or something.’”
Hence, the inclusion of a few pieces more suitable for everyday wear, like a chocolate cropped puffer jacket with slightly detached sleeves or a pleated miniskirt held up by a grommet-covered belt that can be clipped away or left hanging to the side. (Hernandez wants a skirt for herself.) At his studio, as he walks me through a rack full of samples, Dorantes is particularly excited to show off the show’s standout handbag, which he encourages me to try on as he boasts of the intricate craftsmanship that went into the strap: freshwater pearls hand-woven together with crystals. “We’re very intentional about every single product that we make, starting with whatever mineral we use, or from the hardware or the fibers that need to get spun first,” he explains.
This dedication to craft extends all the way down to Leak’s new “cozy” line of casual daywear basics, like giant tees in heavyweight cotton and oversized hoodies in plush French terry cloth. “This summer, I was feeling not-so-well and kind of lazy, so that’s why I made all these hoodies,” Dorantes admits. “I’m very moody and [my designs are] definitely reflective of that.” Still, Leak NYC adds small details, like playful keyholes or unexpected color patterns, that elevate these pieces beyond mere comfort. “Everything is going to be a little more head-to-toe. Not just underwear and bodysuits going forward,” he teases.
Which doesn’t mean they’re abandoning their roots. Leak is still committed to revolutionizing how we see lingerie, and for his next endeavor, Dorantes is excited to start offering “bodysuit components as separates,” allowing customers to individually buy sleeves, socks, underwear, and bralettes to mix and match as they please. “Let’s say, like Skims,” he says.
He’s joking, but the comparison isn’t far off. Leak might not be valued at four-billion dollars, but much like Kim Kardashian’s shapewear behemoth, the Brooklyn brand has proven adept at harnessing the power of social media. Speaking to his business strategy, Dorantes points to Instagram as one of Leak’s key tools for organic growth and gaining recognition in the industry. He even uses the Meta app to “test” the response to new designs. “If we get a strong [online] reaction to [a piece], that design actually cuts the queue when we’re scheduling things to get produced,” he explains. “That’s influenced by our community, our really cult following.”
And Dorantes is honest about how integral that community has been for Leak’s success up until this point. The designer is quick to thank the people who have made this possible, especially Han, his live-in partner, whose experience building SYRO has been formative for Dorantes’ own understanding of how the industry works, particularly for a QPOC-owned independent brand. “It’s a great privilege,” he says of their relationship. “I’ve been under their very careful tutelage when it comes to how to intelligently and ethically and organically grow a brand.”
Of course, growth is only possible when people buy into your unique vision, and Leak NYC is lucky to have boarded the “underwear-as-outerwear” train right before it fully took off from the station. Now, with casual lingerie experiencing a resurgence in greater fashion circles, the brand has established itself as one of the market’s key players.
“I don’t want to toot my horn that much, but I will say that I think Leak recontextualized knit lace to be clubwear, and now all the designer brands are doing it,” Dorantes says bashfully when I point this out.
Hernandez, laughing, chimes in, “Trendsetter!”
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