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On a quiet Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, there isn’t much visibly “Disco Daddy” about Vincent Braccia. Instead, the artist behind some of fashion and queer nightlife’s most extravagant wearable art sits calmly in a quaint kitchen with sheer orange curtains blowing in the breeze behind him. He wears a black cutoff shirt with a small Disco Daddy logo printed on the front where a pocket would normally be. I compliment his choice of curtains.

“Thank you,” he replies with a smile. “I have quite the colorful house.”

He begins by telling me of his usual workday soundtrack: 80s and 90s club music, DJ sets, and classical musicals playing in the background as he hand-places crystals for hours at a time.

“I’m a big musical theatre faggot. I watch ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ on a monthly basis,” he says. “Mindless is better for me.”

It all seems so calm for someone whose work is known for such spectacle.

Vincent, better known as The Disco Daddy, is known for creating one-of-a-kind art pieces meticulously covered in crystals that refract every ray of light. He’s worked with celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, and Doja Cat, as well as drag queens such as Violet Chachki, Gottmik, and Aquaria. His creations are detail-oriented and labor-intensive, with his larger pieces reaching upwards of 500,000 stones. 

“Honestly, most of it is not glamorous,” he explains. “Most things that have a glamorous end result are completely unglamorous in the process of making it.”

Behind every glittering piece is hours of repetitive labor, chemical adhesives, last-minute tweaks, and pre-show panic. He notes that celebrity work, specifically, often comes with tough time constraints and vision changes.

“It’ll be backstage, seconds before an opening night, and I’m still working,” he says. “Then I get to run into the audience and have a big sigh of relief because it’s done and it’s the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen and no one would ever know that the glue is still wet.”

In a recent project for a Las Vegas Residency, he created a crystal-covered floor-length wrap gown with a long, elaborate train, only to arrive at the theatre and watch it be cut apart before the show even began.

“They took the dress, and I walked into the theater and saw them on stage cutting the whole train off because it was too heavy,” he recalls.

What remained was a mini dress, and a dramatically different outcome than Vincent had spent months living with in his head and creating. For him, flexibility in his craft has become a necessity.

“It’s sort of heartbreaking, obviously,” he says. “But the end result, I’m like, ‘This is so much better and made so much more sense.’ You can’t fall in love with what you think the product’s going to be, because it’s not ever gonna be that.”

Growing up, Vincent was always creative. Before fashion became his main focus, he worked as a professional dancer, touring and performing in live productions.

“I’ve always loved the audience reacting to what you’re doing, but those were always limited to the venue that I was in,” he explains. “What I do now feels like it can be enjoyed by a massive amount of people.”

His transition into fashion happened almost accidentally.

“The fashion thing kind of fell into my lap a little bit,” he says. “It was something I was dipping a toe in, and then I fully got submerged in it and really spent the last five years focused on that.”

Despite the spectacle of his work and nightlife persona, Vincent still values his quiet time away. He gestures toward his black cutoff shirt.

“This is sort of the uniform of what I’m wearing anytime I’m not wearing something extravagant,” he tells me. “I’m hiding until I’m ready to come out and make a scene and then go back into hiding.”

However, despite the external differences between Vincent and The Disco Daddy, he assures me that there’s not as much separation internally as people might think.

“Prior to dressing up and making outfits for myself, I was still out in the club, extremely extroverted, up all night, and dancing,” he says. “The energy of The Disco Daddy has always been there, [sometimes] he’s just a little less sparkly.”

The Disco Daddy exists as a multitude of different things: a performer, a nightlife persona, a fashion designer, a crystal artist. In his own words, “a growing amoeba of everything I’ve ever done.” He draws inspiration from his experience in dance, music, design, and nightlife. Much of that inspiration, he tells me, also comes from queer history, specifically the gay nightlife scene. 

He is especially knowledgeable about the gay nightlife scene during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. “Everything felt fueled by individualism and them expressing themselves with no boundaries,” he notes. 

Growing up, many of the references and interests he had felt taboo until they were filtered to the average person through an artistic medium.

“Even disco music, almost every song is blatantly about sex. And my parents, who are quite conservative, chill people, would be blasting the music through my house,” he laughs. “As an adult, I’m like, ‘This is literally about having sex.’”

For Vincent, the sexual liberation of artists like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, and Prince softened the edges of queerness and gender expression, allowing it to enter the mainstream through their medium and their stories. 

“That was sort of the driving focus of Disco Daddy,” he says. “Not that I’m saving the world, I’m making fucking rhinestoned dildos, but I want to sort of bridge the gap of ‘this doesn’t have to be uncomfortable’ and ‘this doesn’t have to be not accepted.’”

“In this guise of it being sparkly and beautiful and eye-catching,” he continues, “it is a little more palatable, and you can’t ignore it. It’s gonna be here no matter what, so you might as well enjoy it.”

Today, Vincent aims to expand beyond fashion and clothing and explore another avenue of what Disco Daddy could look like. He mentions fine art, home decor, performances, events, and collaborations, including an upcoming project with the sex toy brand Womanizer. 100% of all proceeds from this collaboration will be donated to the non-profit Trans Lifeline.

More than anything else, Vincent hopes to create a legacy for younger queer people who are still figuring themselves out.

“I have no goals to be the most famous or the most popular, but I would like to be influential to someone who is looking for who they are and how to express themselves,” he tells me.

“There are no rules,” he says with a smile. “This is all made up. You can look however you want, and you can do whatever you want.”

And his closing statement?

“Literally throw glitter on it, it fixes all the problems.”