Drag Queens In Fashion
Drag queens have long since been a force to reckon with in fashion. Originally known for figuring out how to create their own unique visions because of their diverse body ranges, drag queens have found a home with different designers alike who want to appeal to both the drag community and the queer community.
Although this is a huge progression from drag queen culture and fashion that once survived on sewability and longevity for a runway or show, some specific setbacks to the new fashion culture of drag are repeat looks lacking creativity and the budget gap between queens.
It’s no secret that drag queens have found more and more influence with popular fashion designers over the years. While fashion and drag have always been closely intertwined, it is in the most recent years of drag that fashion designers have really branched out in both collaboration and representation as they have shown a need for more diverse symbols in fashion.
Ru Paul’s Drag Race has been a platform for these queens to catapult their own brands into the industry, as well as make drag queen culture more mainstream in general. In season 13 alone, we saw several Alexander Mcqueen-inspired looks as well as outfits from Theirry Mugler himself.
More specifically, queens Utica, Gottmik, and winner of season 13, Symone was consistently serving looks either heavily inspired by or made by huge names in the fashion industry. In an article from Paper, Evan Ross Katz discusses this.
“While some queens conceptualize and in some cases sew their own clothes, others hire designers to craft intricate custom garments,” Katz said.
However, it wasn’t always like this. In order to understand where the drag community is now and their role in fashion, it is important to analyze where they were and how far they’ve come.
“RuPaul's Drag Race wasn't always a fashion lover's favorite show. There were memorable moments (Shannel! Yara! Raja! Detox!), but the runway used to be far more ‘anything goes’ than it is today,” Katz noted.
And while each season had its fair share of runway serves, most notably it began to change with the coming of Violet Chachki, and the rest of the season 7 girls who proved that their run on the show would be nothing short of gorgeous regardless of the outcome.
According to an article from 2019 in Fashionista, Katz details the reality of how many designers the drag queens tend to circulate between.
“[Brad] Callahan is another go-to for the Ru girls including Milk, Pearl, Violet, Aja, Aquaria, Kim Chi, Katya, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja and The Vixen — just to name ten,” Katz wrote.
Drag wasn’t always about fashion, it was more so how to make something glamorous with what you had and how to make that work with your own body shape and brand. However, the duality of brands that have always specialized intending to drag queens and their needs has always been consistent.
“A larger issue is that design teams can take away from the scrappy craftiness that was once fundamental to drag,” Katz said.
Although this is a huge progression from drag queen culture and fashion that once survived on sewability and longevity for a runway or show, some specific setbacks to the new fashion culture of drag are repeat looks lacking creativity and the budget gap between queens.
In a Vice article, Rachel Miller detailed the excessive spending on Ru Paul’s Drag Race and how it can affect both the contestants and the overall outcome of the show.
“College tuition money. House buying money. The-bank-owns-my-butthole money. All from their own pocket, because the show doesn’t provide them with any sort of budget,” Miller wrote.
Despite this, Ru Paul himself is a firm believer in any kind of look having the potential to be considered drag queen fashion depending on how it's utilized.
“Ru is the one that will say, ‘It doesn't have to be expensive, but you've got to make it drag.’” said Tom Fitzgerald in the Vice article with Miller.
Regardless of the budget or the designer, it's becoming more and more clear that with time the drag queen comradery has found a way to continually influence and transform the fashion landscape for everyone, a feat that any community would be proud of.
