WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP is the text-based practice and publishing imprint through which independent and collaborative work by Willie Norris is written, produced, and shared.

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Since 2016, WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP has released work across formats including texts, clothing and accessories, printed matter, artworks, objects, experiences, and other projects. Described by The New York Times in their 2021 standalone profile as “a master of bringing together,” Willie’s work collectively embodies a direct, poetic, and communal voice grounded in a queer and definitively DIY spirit.

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Text is the primary material and organizing principle of WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP. Words appear as objects, instructions, declarations, conversations, and invitations. Sometimes they attach themselves to physical forms. Sometimes they stand alone. Language functions as both medium and method.

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Often presented without background, explanation, named voice, or known authority, Willie’s texts circulate as shared tools for orientation and reflection. Across forms and contexts, they offer everyday ways of way-finding and provisional clarity through sustained engagement with themes of queerness, play, responsibility, yearning, dread, and intimacy.

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References and eternal inspiration for the work include Gran Fury, ACT UP, Pippa Gardner, David Robilliard, QZAP, STH, Jenny Holzer, Queer Happened Here, Mark Pauline and RE/Search, Thierry Mugler, Leigh Bowery, Wild Things by Jack Halberstam, Miguel Andover, CAConrad, and termites.

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Over the years, Willie has worked with a wide and varied roster of collaborators across ready-to-wear fashion, sports, beauty, cultural institutions, nightlife and performance contexts, and mutual aid initiatives.

A non-exhaustive list of collaborators includes Away, Dieux, Helmut Lang, Gotham FC, Performance Space New York, Brooklyn Liberation, Planned Parenthood, Animal Cycling, Doll Invasion, LEAK, and MoMA PS1. Across these contexts, language remains central — shaping campaigns, products, institutional programs, performances, and community initiatives through voice, narrative, and conceptual framing.

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Since 2018, projects developed through WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP have raised and redirected over $100K to a variety of causes — whether through local mutual aid efforts, such as a fundraiser T-shirt created in collaboration with Legends of Drag that generated over $5K for medical care for drag icon Joan Jett Blakk, or through partner initiatives, including Dieux donating over $40K from the sales of the Dieux × WNWS Eyes Marks to G.L.I.T.S., and AWAY donating 100% of the purchase price from its collaboration with WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP to the IGLTA Foundation. A charitable or redistributive component is a consistent condition of projects developed through WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP.

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Willie’s work through WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP is included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

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WORKSHOP CREATIVE is the creative direction function of WILLIE NORRIS WORKSHOP, focused on language-driven concept development, visual strategy, talent curation, and creative leadership for client and collaborator projects. Clients have included tomboyx, QUEER|ART, Outlier, Performance Space New York, Dieux and a roster of private clients.