“I once asked Vivienne Westwood what women have contributed to fashion,” said Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “And she answered, ‘Probably not as much as gay men.’ ” Whether or not this assertion stands up to scrutiny, “A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk” — a pioneering show curated by Ms. Steele and her colleague, Fred Dennis — makes a cogent case for a more balanced view of fashion history, one that, given the widely held perception that gay men dominate fashion, has curiously tended to skew heterosexual and male.