This article was updated at 4:20 p.m. EST on Feb. 26.
Abraham David Levy, a longtime creative force in New York City’s ballroom culture and an imaginative fashion designer, has died.
A standout dancer in the ballroom community and a longtime member of the House of Xtravaganza, he was also known as an inventive creator. Levy’s work was featured on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and during New York Fashion Week. He also helped to execute an elaborate custom Zaldy design that Irina Shayk modeled in the 2024 Victoria’s Secret runway show. Paris Hilton, and drag performers like Candy Darling, Nikkie ExotiKa, Jimbo the Drag Clown, and Kandy Muse were among the fans of Levy’s designs.
Related Articles
An internment service is being planned for his adoptive and biological families, according to his adoptive mother Lucy Aponte. In addition, a tribute is being organized that will also include the LGBTQ community, childhood friends and members of the fashion industry.
You May Also Like
Levy’s age and cause of death were not immediately known. Levy was found in his bed with his cell phone beside him in his New York City apartment Monday afternoon following a wellness check, according to his friend Nikki Exotika. Friends became concerned after Levy did not show up to meet on Sunday and Monday, as they had planned on, and he had not responded to calls or texts.
After a 911 call for the wellness check was placed, officers from the New York City Police Department reported to Levy’s East 14th Street apartment and found the 54-year-old unconscious and unresponsive, according to a NYPD spokesperson. EMS then were called to the scene and pronounced Levy deceased. New York City’s office of the chief medical examiner will determine the cause of death, the NYPD spokesperson said Wednesday.
Having met Levy in the 1980s club scene and reconnected five years ago, Susanne Bartsch said, “He was such a good friend, and such a kind, beautiful person. He was a very passionate, proud person, who gave his all. It didn’t matter who you were.”
As a tribute to Levy, Bartsch hopes to organize a runway show of Levy’s designs that his drag performer friends will model at a later date. The pair had been in contact Saturday about meeting to finalize plans for Bartsch’s upcoming exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich, which will include many of Levy’s designs. The show will open in mid-June in the design and visual communications museum in Switzerland. Bartsch said she and Levy had agreed to meet on Monday to “sort out a few things, fix some feathers, put some paint on a few things, and zhuzh things up.” She became worried after he hadn’t been in touch on Sunday, had not responded to her call on Monday, nor had shown up at her apartment. Bartsch said, “He was really excited about the exhibition, because it was going to be not just a really nice tribute to me, but also to the arts. I thought it was strange, because he was always good with deadlines.
Bartsch said, “I loved his work. It made you feel like a ‘Power Woman, a warrior — don’t mess with me.’ It was very superhero, and comfortable as well. It made you feel like a million dollars.”
The designer joined the House of Xtravaganza in the mid-1980s and “quickly became an asset to the family” and earned a reputation in the ballroom scene for his “sleek, model-like frame and avant-garde fashion. A mash-up of couture-inspired designs, unmatchable dancing and runway strutting, participants in balls can compete for such categories as designer realness, couture or runway.” Nikki Exotika said Levy also considered the house to be his family.
Levy was featured in the 1990 landmark documentary “Paris Is Burning” that chronicled the ball culture in New York City and the Black, Latino gay and transgender communities that thrive within it. In the Jennie Livingston-directed film, Levy competed in the Punk Rock category, which was a precursor to what is now known as the Bizarre category in New York City drag balls. (The film is on HBO and the Criterion Channel.) The ballroom scene is an interracial underground LGBTQIA+ subculture that dates back to the drag balls of the mid-19th century in the U.S. such as those once hosted by William Dorsey Swann in Washington, D.C.
Levy was also once omnipresent in the club-kid scene in the high-flying 1980s and helped to introduce vogueing and ballroom culture to a wider audience. Levy was also featured on a slew of nightclub flyers that promoters posted outdoors or handed out to passers-by to attract patrons. In its post, the House of Xtravaganza credited Levy for being among the first to host vogueing competitions outside of traditional ballrooms, helping to expand the movement’s reach. Levy’s elaborate and often futuristic creations were showcased on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and at a New York Fashion Week event. For a fall 2023 presentation, Levy showed a few looks on the catwalk as part of the Runway 7 show, including a metallic gold bodice that was adorned with festooning feathers at the chest and hips.
A one-man operation, Levy would work tirelessly in his apartment — cutting the patterns, ordering the fabrics and sewing all of his designs. Levy was raised in the Bronx by his adopted parents. He studied fashion design and fashion illustration at a New York City school on scholarship, according to Tabu Xtravaganza, who met Levy in 1986. “We used to all hang out in the [West] Village near the piers. That’s where all the ballroom members would come for a safe haven for everyone to meet up, have fun, to dance, sing, talk and lounge around until the wee hours of the morning. That was before the [West Side] piers were built up and the rich started to buy the buildings near the water,” he said.
After working as a bartender and doing drag performances in Florida for a while, Levy returned to New York City in 2015 and started designing visors and chokers made with molded metal that was upcycled from athletic room lockers. To try to get his name out there, he contacted contestants on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and gave them his designs for free. That led to Levy designing for the show on a regular basis, and selling his creations on Instagram.
In recent days, Levy posted videos of other creations like an iridescent teal and holographic silver corset with superhero-worthy wings that he was selling in “a flash sale.” Levy also did work for the 2024 Victoria’s Secret fashion show, spending four weeks figuring out how to sew a custom Zaldy star-covered cape for the runway model Irina Shayk. Levy once wrote about how “very proud” he was of the piece and that working alongside Shayk, “a true professional with a true heart of gold,” was “a dream come true.” Levy’s creations were also once featured in an Oil of Olay commercial — another example of how his talents were introduced on a wider scale.
As a sign of his ingenuity, Levy repurposed the blue feathers that Tabu Xtravaganza’s depressed Macaw parrot had plucked from itself and used them for a dramatic feathery corset. “Even though my bird ‘Max’ was in a depressed state, Abraham was able to create art,” he said. “He was mega-talented. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he didn’t get the break that he was searching for. That may be due to the directions that we go in, the connections and that opportunities are not consistently given to the LGBTQ community.”
Despite “always suggesting” Levy to start his own line instead of focusing on custom designs, Tabu Xtravaganza said, “His heart was in designing for the LGBTQ community, and he stuck to that. Abraham loved making clothing for drag queens and the ballroom scene and watching the shows to see how they would incorporate his costume into the performance.”
In addition to Aponte, Levy is survived by his siblings Kim Cruz, Amy-Kris Hernandez, and Daniel Aponte, as well as his biological sibllings Leslie Levy, Felix Burgos, Yenny Burgos and Victor Levy.