June is LGBTQ+ Pride  Month. Throughout this month, Broadway Stages is excited to celebrate and recognize a few of our many LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors. We encourage you to join the celebrations throughout the city this month and to patronize the LGBTQ+ businesses in your neighborhood year-round! This week we bring you The Phluid Project, a gender-free apparel and accessories brand launched in NYC, available online, and in retailers worldwide!

Founded in 2018, The Phluid Project is a gender-free fashion brand grounded in activism, community, and education. When he began The Phluid Project, Rob Smith, the CEO and Founder, brought 30 years of fashion, leading multi-billion dollar brands from Macy’s, Levi’s, Nike, and Victoria’s Secret to the table. But what makes his creation unique are his decades of work fighting for human rights and social equality. The result is not only a brand, but also a dissolution of “artificial boundaries of gender, skin color, and status, we and they.”

Phluid is an apparel and accessories brand.  They offer creations from the hottest new designers available at retailers like Nordstrom, Men’s Warehouse, Target, and Urban Outfitters, to name a few. And, of course, you can find exclusive deals on their site, including free shipping worldwide on orders over $50.   The Phluid Project is much more than an amazing gender-free fashion brand and store.  What they do is based on a set of core values that drives their mission…

ACCEPTANCE  ∞  BALANCE  ∞ INTEGRITY  ∞  INTENTION  ∞  OPENNESS

and is part of who they are including a social code that requires assumptions be checked at the door, and that care is at the forefront of listening and communicating. 

But The Phluid Project also includes an Education and Training vehicle, GET Phluid. This aspect of Phluid helps to facilitate learning about the new generation and the non-binary mindset through gender-expansive training. This effort is essential because 25% of LGBTQ+ employees report experiencing discrimination in the past year. In addition, several corporations have taken advantage of the guidance offered by Get Phluid. Among them are Nike, American Express, Macy’s, and HBO.

Get Phluid helps its corporate partners through four ‘activation paths.’ First is Education. Get Phluid offers an extensive array of off-the-shelf and customized opportunities. The second is Advising. This path is targeted to C-suite, brand, HR/DEI, marketing, and product teams. The process includes SWOT analyses, executive coaching, marketing and product plans, policy reviews, and more. Third is The Collective, a year-long activation of benefits, including training, advising, and access to a consortium of corporations collaborating to advance business and social justice goals. And the final activation path is Community. The Phluid Phoundation has committed over $500,000 to 20+ LGBTQIA+ NGO partners. In addition, GET Phluid supports its clients’ philanthropic strategies and efforts to fuel the frontline.

This new paradigm took real work and introspection from Rob Smith. “By creating The Phluid Project, I’ve immersed myself in an adventure of creating and exploring unchartered territories. I’ve chosen to unlearn in order to relearn. I went off into this wilderness with curiosity, parked both judgment and ego, and rooted myself in honest connection, social justice, and a deep interest in the desires of our youth.”

The Phluid Project is focused on the future, and as they say, “The Phuture is now!” Follow them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to be at the forefront of what is happening next. Broadway Stages proudly embraces diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. We are encouraged by companies like the Phluid Project, that is helping to make the future brighter and more accessible for all.