This story originally appeared on Them.
In a new interview with the Substack Beauty Papers, nonbinary actor and Out100 honoree Emma D’Arcy divulged some of their own personal views about gender while donning a variety of clothes and accessories from Acne Studios’ Fall/Winter 2026 campaign.
In snippets from the campaign video, D’Arcy shifts between masculine and feminine “characters” throughout, changing their movements, facial expressions, and appearance.
D’Arcy, who tends to present in a more masculine-leaning way outside of their acting career, told the publication that “the freedom afforded by different personas is the drug at the heart of [their] work.” They also opened up about the pressure they felt to “confirm” their nonbinary identity through their clothing choices.
“As a masc-leaning nonbinary person, I used to experience a real fragility when it came to the clothes I wore — as if my clothing were a certificate that confirmed and proved my gender,” they said. “I’m delighted to say that I don’t feel that way anymore. I am what I am regardless of the dressing! And so it was fun for me to put on a mix of masculine and feminine characters during this shoot, and to let the clothes and styling inform me of these people’s nature and personality.”
D’Arcy also discussed the limits of language to describe our self-expression. “I think there’s an ongoing tension between the enfranchisement created by being able to give words to one’s experience, and the limitation and oversimplification caused by the very human desire to categorize,” they said. “I suppose for me, it’s important to remember that language is a tool, and it’s super useful until it’s not. Language is supposed to work for us and not the other way around!”
When Beauty Pages asked about the concept of beauty in relation to their own gender, the House of the Dragon star admitted that “beauty” isn’t a word they would use in relation to themself, referring to conventional beauty standards as a “mechanism of patriarchal control.”
“The more barriers you create to a person leaving the house,” they said, “the more a person feels they have to change or perfect about their appearance in order to participate in the world — the easier you make for those free of that standard to be the first in line for positions of power.”
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