LED Queens Is Evolving Into a New Era

For eight years, LED Queens has been the home of queer strength, bold storytelling, and the kind of apparel that made queer people–our people–feel powerful in their bodies. Together, we created tights, singlets, prints, books, and art that celebrated identity in ways the fitness and fashion industries rarely allow. What started in my apartment in Chicago grew into a global micro-brand that reached thousands of people who wanted gear—and a message of diversity, inclusion and body autonomy,

LED Queens has never been just retail. It has always been a creative engine, a world-building project, and a community built around transformation. And now, that transformation is arriving for the brand itself.

We Are Winding Down All Product Sales

This season, right before Black Friday, LED Queens will retire all apparel and physical product SKUs. After eight years of running a niche retail brand through every imaginable economic cycle, the realities of e-commerce in 2025 have made it clear: the old model no longer supports the creative and community-driven work that makes LED Queens what it is.

The impact that customers are facing as the United States economy is shrinking can't be ignored or understated. Layoffs in multiple sectors of our economy are continuing to sideline individuals and families. Additionally, employers are not hiring at a pace that can provide work for a lot of folks. At the same time, consumers are watching their spending habits more closely. That thriftiness has affected many sectors, including, e-com, retail and micro-brands that make fitness products. Many retailers are going into debt or going out of business. In our case, we are shifting away from our product catalog and evolving into a services-based firm.

What LED Queens Becomes Next

Over the past year, LED Queens has quietly grown into something bigger than apparel: a studio for product strategy, content strategy, marketing design, and queer-centered life coaching.

This shift didn’t come out of nowhere. It came directly from the DNA of the brand.

• My own skill set as an entrepreneur and executive is centered on making brands scale. I helped startups like Ars Technica and Wirecutter scale in the 2010's. And in the 2020's I helped Ford Motor Company scale their B2B marketing channels through my work as a consultant.
  
• Every LED Queens product launch taught me how to build systems, analyze data, and craft strategy.
• Every customer story taught me that what people really want is guidance, clarity, and transformation, not just gear.
• Every year of this brand taught me how to help others turn their creativity into something real, structured, and powerful.

Today, LED Queens is becoming the home for that work.

Services Now Offered Through LED Queens

• Product Strategy: helping small brands build physical or digital products with intention.
• Content Strategy: long-form thinking, storytelling, and building a presence without relying on burned-out social platforms.
• Marketing & Design Services: brand identity, creative direction, pattern design, launch strategy.
• Life Coaching: queer strength coaching for creators, entrepreneurs, and anyone navigating reinvention.

Whether you’re building a brand, launching a project, or redesigning your life, this new direction lets me work with you more directly and more meaningfully.

What Stays the Same

• The site stays live.
• The blog continues.
• The brand voice and ethos stay rooted in queer creative freedom.
• You can still contact me for sparking new conversations.
• I will continue to write, design, and build new work here.
• Your history with LED Queens is still part of this next chapter.

The store becomes quieter, yes. But the work becomes deeper.

Thank You for Eight Years of Fierce Support

If you ever bought a pair of tights, a singlet, a piece of art, or a book: thank you.
If you wore LED Queens to the gym, to a Pride run, or alone in your bedroom mirror: thank you.
If you shared this brand with someone who needed to feel strong: thank you.

You helped build a world where queer strength could be seen and celebrated.
Now we get to build the next world together.

LED Queens is entering a new era.
And I can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.

Cesar Torres
Founder