One year after Valentina Sampaio made headlines as Sports Illustrated’s first out transgender swimsuit model, the Brazilian-born beauty is back in the news this week with a new project that combines fashion, non-fungible tokens, digital art and the return of “the forbidden dance.”
On Monday, Sampaio made a stunning entrance at the MET gala in New York City wearing a crimson-hued Iris van Herpen dress with elongated sleeves. Looking as if she bore angel’s wings, the trailblazing Victoria’s Secret model waved them in the air for the eager paparazzi. The stunning photos wound-up plastered across hundreds of websites covering fashion’s biggest night.
Transgender representation at the iconic event was at an all-time high. Sampaio was joined by actors Elliot Page, Indya Moore and Emmy-nominee Michaela Jae Rodriguez. YouTube sensation Nikkie Tutorials, pop singer Kim Petras and model/activist Hunter Schafer were also among the famous names serving looks.
The gala is also where Sampaio launched an NFT and a new music video aimed at raising awareness of trans lives, trans murders and advocate organizations working on behalf of the LGBTQ community: GLAAD, Pride Live and the Ali Forney Center.
“Transgender young people face the horrors of homelessness at staggering rates. The Ali Forney Center is so grateful to be one of the beneficiaries for this important and powerful video," said Zachary Cohen, Director of Development at The Ali Forney Center, in a statement. "Thank you to Valentina for expressing the beauty and power of trans people and for providing the critical funds to house, support and celebrate these incredible and deserving young people.”
The historic aspect of this project benefiting those three LGBTQ organizations is the auction of a computer-generated dress, designed by Gia Djahaia, aka NERI, which Sampaio “wears” in the video. As of press time, the bidding had reached one quarter of a million dollars.
The CGI dress doesn’t actually appear until near the end of the music video, and when it does, it’s an arresting image: “A blossoming dress of blood—to show the cost of the struggle, a cost that continues and continues, that is being paid even now,” according to the website for this project.
There have been at least 36 murders of trans Americans in the U.S. so far in 2021; last year, the toll was at least 44. But that pales in comparison to Brazil, where data records at least 175 murders of trans individuals in 2020, a dramatic 41% increase over 2019. The vast majority of the murder victims there and in the U.S. were Black women.
Sampaio’s video not only deals with the epidemic of deadly violence against trans people worldwide, particularly trans women of color, as she names the victims one by one; It’s also a celebration of trans joy.
“The blockchain and fashion communities brought this project to life with a shared goal of using the transformative power of art to uplift,” Sampaio told Forbes.com in an exclusive statement. “We have opened a portal into an alternate reality where everyone can ask what it truly means to be an American and where the beautiful diversity of trans lives is rightfully celebrated. Trans women in the U.S. and in Brazil are not victims, we are beautiful. Our continued visibility will create a better world for everyone.”
Sampaio joined forces with the Lions Management and with blockchain company Lukso for this project, conceived by Christiana Tran, Branislav Jankic, Jesse Ball and Lusko co-founder Marjorie Hernandez de Vogelsteller. Jankic and Ball wrote and directed the video, titled Lambada Dyed Red White Blue. It features Lambada, the hit song from 1989 by French-Brazilian band Kaoma, which caused quite a stir in the 1990s.
In the video, Sampaio sings and dances with more than a dozen young trans Instagram influencers on Rockaway Beach in New York City. Then the scene shifts from that beachside celebration to the surf, and the mood gets serious. In keeping with the MET gala theme of American Independence, the supermodel asks, “What does it mean to be an American if you are trans?”
“Lambada Dyed Red White Blue represents a cultural moment and a convergence of creative technologies, blockchain, the creative power of the authors, and the true spirit of our time,” Hernandez de Vogelsteller said in a statement. “A truly collaborative effort, in which some of the best talents of our time have come together to share a powerful and meaningful message of what it means to be still today one of us, who don’t fall inside the conservative conforms of society.”
The online auction runs through Friday, Sept. 17. Prior NFT art auctions have fetched far in excess of the current top bid of $250K. In June, 18-year-old Victor Langlois, aka FEWOCiOUS, sold both physical and digital art chronicling his gender transition that netted the young trans man $2.16 million at Christie’s. The NFT high water mark, however, remains Beepie’s Everydays, which sold in March for $69 million.
