I don’t know where the fuck I am half the time. I woke up here one day thinking I was in London. I’m coming from Australia and went to Paris for literally forty-eight hours just to change clothes. So this is where my confusion is now; do I take everything I may need for my next trip, or do I get to come back home before going away again? When you’re cross-dressing, what does one take?

I take the basic things that I wear everyday when I’m not working: T-shirts, jeans, a couple of cardigans and a good few pairs of shoes. I take more shoes than I should – sometimes I travel with ten to fifteen pairs. Mostly men’s shoes, and a few women’s shoes with a heel just in case I need them for TV. I always carry a black suit: I can dress it up or down. If I’m travelling between New York and Paris, I don’t take underwear and T-shirts because I keep doubles in both places, but sometimes I get really upset and freak out that I don’t have the shoes I need for an outfit.

My on- and off-duty persona is a combination of many things; it depends on what the duty is. If I’m doing TV, it depends on what my spirit is work-wise. For the 2016 Oscars, my outfit consisted of one-two-three different designers. I had a beaded bag that said ‘Queen of Fucking Everything,’ which was given to me. I wore a jacket from 1994 that I cut short and wore over a shirt from 2007, and a tulle and ostrich feather skirt over black sequin sweatpants. I just threw it all together. The skirt and the pants were from one designer, the shoes were Marc Jacobs, the jacket was from Mr Kim, a tailor in Korea, and the shirt was from another tailor in Thailand: I had it made when I was working there. And to another more recent event in Savannah with Carolina Herrera, I wore an old Marc Jacobs jacket, and I made this diaper skirt, like a harem pant, in satin chiffon. The fabric came from the donation closet at the Savannah College of Art and Design; designers often donate to them so when I’m there I’ll just go see what they have. Whatever they’re not using, I’ll just pull a few yards from. I wore the outfit with wing tipped, lace-up and suede Marc Jacobs shoes that I’ve worn twice before. Once for my boyfriend’s sister’s wedding, and then again for a fashion week event. I also wore a Tom Ford YSL clutch, and a scarf I made out of scraps of fabric. I had my hair in cornrows, so I just brushed it out. Everyone thought I was wearing a wig, but it was all my hair. This is the look. It’s an androgynous moment in hot-ass Savannah.

Marc Jacobs has been ever so generous with me over the past ten years. I’ve known him nearly all my life, and Robert Duffy who was the ex-CEO of the company too. So whenever I needed anything, and even when I didn’t need anything, they’d send me things. They told me that I’m the only person that they know that sends things back, but I don’t want to be greedy so if I’m not going to wear something I give it back. Good clothing should never be thrown away: you can always cut it apart and make something new with it.

I taught myself how to sew because when I was much younger, I couldn’t afford to buy designer clothes. I grew up in New York City, in the Bronx. I’m number seven of ten kids so I’d get my brothers’ hand-me-down clothes. There was Ronald, Stephen, Stanley and myself. We all went to the same school, and I didn’t want kids to make fun of me so I’d create something different. I would make the pants shorter, fringe the jeans, cut holes into a peace sign, take the collars off the shirts and make them short sleeved. Once a girl called Jennifer Brown showed me how to make a men’s suit with a pattern, but apart from that I taught myself by trial and error.

When I was twenty-three, I was working at Bergdorf Goodman in the city and some girls took me to Studio 54 for the first time. I realised that they only let people in who were dressed outrageous. So I did the same: I wore a crazy outfit, and they’d let me in. I would make a skirt out of tulle and wear it over a pair of tights and cowboy boots before I graduated to heels and then a T-shirt made with a ruffle collar. I’d do something crazy with my hair, and that was this outrageousness. As it got into the late Eighties and Nineties I discovered a shoe store on 14th Street and another on 35th Street called Tall Girls that made shoes for tall women. I’d get my heels from that store. I didn’t think about whether they were used to men coming in the store; it wasn’t important. I just went to get what I needed. ‘Do you have these in a size 13? Thank you, I’ll buy them, done.’

The rest of the week, I would wear no make-up and no heels. But I still made my own clothes. I would make duster coats, almost like bathrobes. I was very heavily influenced by the Japanese: big shapes, a coat that flowed at the bottom and was belted at the waist. I would make a tank top and a pair of loose pants to go with. It’s really funny, I just looked at something that I made back in 1984 and thought, ‘Oh my god, I should redo that outfit.’ Oh yes, people looked at me then, but I never thought I was being provocative. I was just wearing a maxi coat, loose pants and a tank top. For me, provocative would have been the high heels – during the daytime that is – and being in make-up and drag.

I had a friend called Michael Stein. Michael Stein was like the black Divine. He was 300 lbs, with alopecia so no hair anywhere. He would borrow clothing from the stores, hide the price tags and then take them back after he’d worn them. I was creating the clothes at home and eventually I started going to clubs in full drag. I was looking at magazines, trying to re-create whole looks from the catwalk or from ad campaigns. When I went out on the weekends, which was usually on Fridays and Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays, we would get dressed up together because I got into the clubs for free and I would be able to bring in a friend for free. I’d come to the city from the Bronx with all my stuff, my garment bag, my make-up bag, and get ready in a friend’s dormitory and then go with them to the club. After the club I’d go back to my friend’s place, get out of drag and get a train back to the Bronx at four or five o’clock in the morning. Then I became more daring. In the wintertime I would put half of my drag clothes on under a long winter coat and carry the other part in a garment bag. I’d take the bus from Castle Avenue in the projects to the subway. I’d put make-up on on the train. I would get off the train at 125th Street and get the express train, next stop was 86th Street, then 59th Street. I would get off there, get a taxi and do a quick change in the back of the cab so I would get out in front of Studio 54, like, ‘I just arrived – in a taxi!’

Sometimes I would get harassed by a bunch of boys from under the tunnel or over the bridge, you know, ‘That’s a guy, that’s a dude!’ and I’d be like, ‘Oh fuck off’ and keep on walking. I am 6ft4 or 6ft7 in heels, and I’d walk down the street with elegance, such elegance walking down that street darling, feeling fabulous. I never got tapped, never, ever, ever, no one came at me because I was ready and I was up in their face. Or you’d get men who was attracted to it.

My sister saw me for the first time doing the catwalk in a club; I was a bride I believe. She was like, ‘Oh.’ But my brother and sisters and mother all had their own lives. To them I was just their crazy-ass brother. If they went with me, they’d get into clubs that they could never get in to otherwise, you see. I would get there and people would open up like the Red Sea. I was just going right in saying, ‘They’re with me.’ And I’d sashay on in, hang up my coat and have my ball gown on.

I was looking at magazines, at Women’s Wear Daily, at Elsa Klensch. Elsa Klensch was like The Bible. I would look at all those small pictures in the catwalk reports of the models walking the runway in their outfits and I’d try to create that silhouette. It was just insane. I started imitating the make-up. The more I got into it, the more the make-up changed, the outrageous became more pretty, more feminine, more soft. It became more drag than outrageous. I would get inspired by looking at the models in the magazines and want to do that make-up or that look like, ‘Oh my god did you see that Oscar de la Renta ball gown? Did you see that Saint Laurent look? Did you see Mounia? Did you see Katoucha? She looked fierce!’ I would imitate those looks and the make-up, using my grandmother’s sewing machine to create the looks.

Then I decided I wanted to be more like a socialite woman who goes to the Met Gala, wearing ball gowns from Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Valentino. I wanted to have that ball gown on, I wanted to be fierce, I wanted to be fabulous. Like, ‘Girl, this is so-and-so from Park Avenue.’ I loved the luxury of it. The luxe. Those women would get out of their limousines and go up that staircase to the Met. When I finally started going to the Met, to the after party, me and my woman Glenda would go together. I’d make my gown, make her gown and we’d go. She was a real girl and I wasn’t but I made myself look like one. You could buy tickets to the party then. This was before Anna Wintour took over and decided, ‘You can’t come, you can come, but you can’t come.’ You could buy two tickets to the after-party for $125 dollars I think.

The first time I went up that staircase I thought I was one of those women. I wore an outfit by David Lee: he made me this black satin opera coat, big, huge sleeves, to the floor. There was this fitted dress underneath it, with a trumpeted bottom. He made me stand while he painted a design on it. So I stood there with my arms out, losing blood as he was painting on it. Then he applied all the stones, and made a big huge bow and matching gloves. I remember I showed up with big pink fuschia frosted lips and black and silver smoked winged eyes, my hair done in a French twist with a big bow. I showed up and I thought I was… it was all about me at that point. It was winter and the wind was blowing in my eyes, it was so cold. But feeling that wind blowing me up the steps – whoosh! – holding me up. Fantabulous honey, fantastic, just fabulous.

The people, they would just look at me, just look at me. And I would look back at the people I’d seen in the magazines. I saw this really handsome guy – I’d seen him in pictures and thought he was so sexy – and I remember seeing him leave the dinner with Diana Ross. I would show up at the museum and I was standing at the entrance of the main hall of the Met watching people coming out of the dinner and either going out of the building to another party or going to the after party. That was my catwalk. I would walk down that long, long, long corridor with the mummies, and people looked at me, thinking I was crazy. All the snobbish Upper East Side women with their designer ball gowns and their diamonds and their jewellery. Watching the celebrities come out of the dinner was fantastic to me, and we’d go dance and have a wonderful time and I’d think I was a rich white woman.

A few years later, I moved to Japan for what was meant to be two months but became almost three years. I hung around with the Elite modelling agency, they’d host parties and I’d be invited to go. I would get dressed up and go thinking I was one of the models they were booking: Iman, all these girls. My style of dressing changed: I became more fashionable. The girls were wearing jersey leggings, flat shoes or ankle boots and an Azzadine Alaïa jacket or a big overcoat to castings, and I would make my own version of that. I would get a piece of wool, cut it the shape that I wanted, put elastic into the waist to get a peplum waist and make a dolman sleeve. I made this big leather bag and wore it with a black turtleneck and a black scarf at my neck and these cheap $50 black suede pussy boots that I got from 40th Street. That was my look. I would imitate those girls. People would say, ‘You’re so androgynous,’ and I’d say, ‘Yes I know,’ with my hair out, blowing in the wind, feeling that moment.

At one point I did feel like an outsider because I wanted to be a part of that group but I couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t go to Biarritz, I couldn’t go to Gstaad, I couldn’t go to St. Barts or to the places where rich people go to have fabulous luncheons and dinners, but I could afford to buy some cheap taffeta and make a ball gown and go to the clubs where those people went, and walk into them like I owned them.

On a Saturday, sometimes even on a Thursday because the stores opened late, I would walk up and down Madison Avenue looking in the windows feeling like, ‘I wish I had on a black wool crepe dress, with high heels, a clutch, big hat and glasses and pearls.’ I would go into a store called Belloccio Uomo. It was owned by one black guy and one blonde guy, they were lovers. I would go into that store and talk to them for hours. We talked about fashion and clothes and what they were going to make me wear. They’d let me try on the clothes and say, ‘You look great in this’ and I’d be like, ‘I can’t afford it.’ But I’d try it all on, get inspired and go and try to copy the shapes.

Even today, when I can afford whatever I want, I very rarely just think, ‘Oh I like that,’ and get it. Spending thousands of dollars on something is not for me. I buy what I need, not what I want. A friend gave me some taffeta recently, and I made a plissé skirt, all by hand. I haven’t worn it yet but I know it’ll look really great over a black suit, worn with a white shirt. I’ve kept it open at the back because I’m going to add pleated tulle that comes out the back. When it’s finished I’ll wear it to a red carpet or black tie event, or maybe a fashion event. I made a sash from the scraps so I can tie the waist and make it a look. Now I want to make velvet embroidered silk grosgrain slippers in the same colour to wear with it.

I went to a charity event with my friend who’s the CEO of Kiehl’s some time ago. They travelled across the country with motorcycles to raise money for Aids. They gave people bandanas and I took all the leftover bandanas and made a kilt from them. It’s got little snaps to keep it on, and it’s pleated. It took me about four hours to make it, while I was watching ‘Le Petit Journal’ on TV. I made flowers from the bandana scraps to fasten to my shirt, and I’ll wear a bandana on my head too. I’ve already got my outfit figured out: I’m going to do a white man’s button-up shirt, low V, wear it low, pop the collar, roll up the sleeves, very casual, tuck it in and that’s it. I’ll wear white tennis shoes or a white lace-up shoe and there you have it. I’ll wear it to a little summer party. It’s been two years since I made it and I haven’t worn it because I’ve only seen my friends at winter events. I cannot wait to wear it so they can die.

A friend of mine made me a gown and I wore it to the Oscars in 2012. A man gown I call it. It was strapless, and I wore it with a man’s tuxedo shirt and a bow tie, over Marc Jacobs velvet tuxedo pants and velvet slippers. It’s funny, people keep asking, ‘Are you trans?’ Or they say, ‘Oh my god, Miss J is an inspiration to trans women all over the world!’ I keep going, ‘But I’m not actually trans,’ but they still think so.

I remember seeing a white man on TV fifteen years ago; he was wearing a skirt and arguing that men should be able to wear one, like, what’s the big deal? I was wearing skirts with full make-up and heels at the same time, but only at night, and I remember thinking, ‘You go!’ Men are still used to their suits and ties. A woman in a suit today is a power woman, but a man in a dress is a cross dresser, trans, a drag queen. Society still tells us pink is for girls, and blue for boys.

This interview was originally published in Vestoj ‘On Masculinities.’

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s Editor-in-Chief and Founder.

MAYBE IT WAS THE raw hem? My skirt is a patchwork of raw edges, intricately brought together in a cobweb of dark bleached denim (think Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirty’ era, but with a nod to modesty). High-waisted and curving, it is met by a pair of faux-snakeskin purple high-heeled boots – and the unnerved gaze of passerby unaware that such a wonderful combination could be achieved on a hairy, male shin. His reaction was visceral, violent – spitting. The spit was laced with fear and disgust. Maybe it was my raw hem, or was it was the lurid shade of green coating my nails, whose chips seemed to endanger his notion of masculinity?

Gender fluidity is no longer a fringe idea. It is used by multi-million-dollar companies like Calvin Klein to sell underwear (Young Thug said in their Fall 2016 Global Campaign video that ‘I feel like there is no such thing as gender’).¹  RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Emmy-winning reality show, has achieved unprecedented viewership for media documenting a queer subculture. Part of the global vernacular, it is referenced in countless memes. (I have had ‘Miss Vanjie’ crooned at me from some of the most unexpected sources.) It was sponsored by Absolut Vodka. When we can capitalise on our otherness, we know we’ve really made progress, right? Unfortunately not.

The drag of Drag Race often reminds me – a queer man who might be considered to blur the gender binary in my everyday dress – as much of being spat on the sidewalk, as of a post-gender future. In thirteen seasons, the show has reinforced the demarcations that are still so prevalent in the heteronormative world. When the queens are in drag they are a parodic ideal of a Western woman. They are hyper-feminine, and when they stray from the condoned framework, by ‘giving them boy,’ as it’s referred to by judges, they are punished, they lose challenges, and they do not receive the money that they crave.

A successful illusion of a biological woman, or to be ‘fishy,’ is revered among the contestants of Drag Race and its judges, who are often dismissive of forms of drag that aim to blur the gender binary. Contestants are expected to ‘tuck,’ ‘contour,’ ‘cinch their waists’ and ‘pad their bodies’ to show their dedication to the art of appearing as cartoonishly biologically female as possible. Outside the show, many drag performers – for instance, Christeene Vale, David Hoyle and Oozing Gloop – are destabilising the gender binary, and redefining drag. But within the Drag Race world, the riot grrrl, unrefined aesthetic of Adore Delano, for instance, is consistently ridiculed for her ‘hog body’ (an inadequately hourglass figure). In the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Adores leaves in an emotional voluntary exit, ‘embarrassed’ for presenting her version of drag. ‘To be told that I have to be put back into a bubble of cinching my waist… I feel like I don’t belong here.’

Milk, a ‘club kid’ queen who presents a subtle version of genderfuck drag, meanwhile, is ridiculed by a fellow participant in season six. ‘I’m upset that there are other cross dressers still in there that fucking came to a drag show dressed as boys,’ Gia Gunn, a classic ‘fishy’ queen, complained in the fifth episode. ‘I mean if you look up drag it means dressed up as girls, not enhance what you already are, a big fucking man.’ Gunn is implying that facial hair – Milk often wears a small goatee as a non-binary visual cue – delegitimises drag, as it does not signify an ‘authentic’ (cis) woman.

Drag’s history is full of misogynistic takes on ‘female impersonation,’ but at its best, the artform can destabilise socially-assigned gender roles. Paris is Burning, the seminal documentary about the 1980s ballroom scene in New York, depicts a group of people for whom drag is an escape from daily oppression and a means of articulating myriad identities across the gender spectrum: ‘butch queen’; ‘banjie girl’; ‘executive realness.’ What Drag Race unfortunately does is narrow the cultural understanding of drag, at the very pivotal moment which it also has made queer representation mainstream.

Why is it that this particular form of drag – often a heightened, unrealistic stereotype of femininity – has proved so easily digestible to a mainstream audience? A New York-based friend, Justin Bontha, routinely incorporates women’s clothing into his aesthetic, but resolutely views himself as a ‘sexy AF man’ – a combination he finds is ‘often met with a lot of confusion.’ He argues that the spectacular nature of Drag Race makes it palatable: Through placing something subversive on a screen, the show provides a barrier which enables the viewer to believe that its contents aren’t real, he said. It provides society with necessary distance.

The clothing that the queens wear to present ‘woman’ is performative. When the queens aren’t in drag, they wear men’s clothing, and although there may be residual physical cues that speak of their alter-egos (shaven eyebrows, fillers and accentuating implants), they are categorically men. The ever- present tagline – ‘Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win!’ – is a strict guideline for proceedings where the presence of transgender or cis women as contestants is categorically denied.

‘Somewhere in a small town that doesn’t have a pride or a gay bar, a conservative family or a young queer kid is watching shows like [Drag Race] and seeing that being openly gay and subverting fixed gender identities is normal and widely accepted, and that is an important first point of contact for a lot of people,’ according to Victoria Sin, an assigned female at birth non-binary artist who makes use of drag in their work. ‘The problem is that people stop there or stop being critical of it.’ Sin’s own performances dismantle the demarcations of gender as they go. One performance piece they are known for is buttering slice after slice of bread, completely deadpan – highlighting the labours that the female body undertakes that go invisible in the patriarchal world. ‘For a show that has so much visibility to set an example of exclusion for the LGBTQ communities’ least-visible people just perpetuates violent attitudes,’ says Sin.

In an interview with the Guardian, RuPaul called drag ‘a big F-U to male-dominated culture.’ Elsewhere, though, he made it resoundingly clear that on his show the same gender binary which upholds male-dominated culture is very much revered. Peppermint, a transgender contestant in the ninth season, along with Monica Beverly Hillz in season five, chose not to disclose their identity for fear of not making it through the audition process. ‘Peppermint didn’t get breast implants until after she left our show,’ RuPaul told the newspaper. ‘She was identifying as a woman, but she hadn’t really transitioned.’

With this, RuPaul swiftly trivialised the trans experience as something that is based purely on physical appearance. That a surgical procedure can be a barometer of exclusion from a competition that sells itself as ‘a big F-U to male-dominated culture’ is astounding. On the show, gender fluidity is reserved entirely for performance, a moment for contestants to access a different part of themselves, and to potentially make money. It is this comfortable distinction that allows the show’s success.² 

Drag Race queens are a commodity; they play a role that is useful to the wider population as a form of entertainment. RuPaul has described him/herself as a ‘motherfucking marketing genius,’³ believing that in order to succeed as an ‘other’ there has to be a degree of embracing the system that you are not a part of and using it for your own gain. In this sense, Drag Race often simultaneously embraces capitalism and activism at once. An unwieldy tightrope is walked between the activistic attempt to bring queer visibility and acceptance into the mainstream, while also arming the queens with the ability to make a living outside of the studio, and make use of their otherness for capitalistic gain. The queens are both encouraged to build their own brands (amid endless product placements that make up a huge chunk of the show), while also engaging with the ostracism and trauma they have faced from their families and wider society. A tragicomedy ensues, in which persecuted queer men are made to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with whatever bizarre task to promote their brand is in front of them. The ultimate goal is to win, and not only receive a vast sum of money and various prizes, but also be finally accepted by the society from which they have continually been rejected.

RuPaul’s belief that ‘all sins are forgiven once you start making a lot of money’⁴ is resounding throughout the show. It is money that separates the queens on the show and the queer men in pencil skirts on the city street. Money means you are succeeding in the most masculine of ways, although presenting as female to get it. And these contestants are making money, with their ‘fierce tucks’ and breast-plates and faultless ‘nude illusions’ of femininity. A man that makes money to the degree that these queens are able to, after leaving the show, is forgiven for his sins of queerness and homosexuality by society.

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to live a comfortable life. RuPaul has said that after finding himself broke at twenty-eight, while performing the genderfuck drag that he began with, he realised that in order to succeed he had ‘to glam the fuck out.’ He shaved his legs and chest: ‘went glamazon.’ He had to conform to the prescribed idea of commercial drag femininity to be embraced by the world – as he is now.⁵ And when out of drag? He wears a suit. Drag Race today neglects the queer activism at its heart (and at the heart of RuPaul), in favour of capitalist gain for the queens involved, appeasing the heteronormative world and keeping the viewing figures rising. The activism and punk nature of a man wearing women’s clothing has no sugar of capitalistic entertainment that Drag Race has when offering its societal medicine.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Though flawed, Drag Race offers alongside its sugary ‘activism’ a space in which the queer isn’t the other, and in which clothing offers an escape from the burden of gender. Both the boy on the street in a pair of heels and the queen in Drag Race are in a battle for their identities. ‘Gender,’ Judith Butler wrote, is ‘an imitation for which there is no original.’ Drag Race seems to forget that at the centre of drag, underneath all the costume and padding, there is no solid gender at all.  Everything we wear is temporary, every garment is a performance. It’s all costume, all paint, whether on TV or on our way to work. The performing queens should embrace this point, rather than dated stereotypes.  

Ethan Price is a writer and casting director living in London. He has been featured in i-D, Garage, Pylot, King Kong, Gut, The September Issues and Recens Paper, among others.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ymE6dUF98Y 4 ↩

2. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/03/rupaul-drag-race-big-f-you-to-male-dominated-culture ↩

3. https://theconversation.com/rupauls-drag-race-is-still-figuring-out-how-to-handle-gender-and- 5 race-96711 ↩

4. Quoted by Joslyn Pine in: Money and Wealth: A Book of Quotations, Courier Dover Publications, 6 2013 ↩

5. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/03/rupaul-drag-race-big-f-you-to-male- 7 dominated-culture ↩

RECENTLY, IT HAS BEEN brought to our attention the absolute necessity of survival kits for spur-of-the-moment disasters, as was the case with our S.F. (Shaken Fairy) friends.¹

So listen up drag queens!!

Here’s the list of essentials that should be kept in the trunk of your Monte Carlo at all times. If you don’t have a Monte Carlo, you could always use the lockers at your nearest bus station. Remember: without these essentials you could lose that emotional stability that drag queens are famous for.

To be prepared, you MUST have the following:

1. One complete set of matching floral vinyl luggage (monogrammed, of course, to avoid nasty drag queen mix-ups) complete with make-up kit and mirror.
2. Twelve economy size cans of Aqua Net or White Rain hairspray and a book of matches from Chasen’s.² Not only will the hairspray keep your big drag queen hair safe from falling debris, but it will also double as a lethal weapon when teamed with a lit match, and you may very well need to fend off kinky, horny husbands who can’t find their wives in the rubble. And best of all, the ashes from a burnt match work wonders as a glamorous and alluring eye shadow. Of course, the Chasen’s matchbook cover lets them know you’re a drag queen with class!
3. One Estée Lauder reddest red lipstick and one Yardley frosted snowflake lipstick. The combination possibilities are endless! The red can be also used for blush and the white to highlight the eyes and shade the bridge of your nose. These two items together take up very little room in your make-up kit, leaving plenty of room for your excess rhinestone jewelry.
4. A good base.
5. Liquid eyeliner and a syringe. (To make you feel beautiful from within.)
6. Rhinestone eyelashes that say ‘I do,’ just in case this happens on a Saturday night.
7. One can of FDS³ that says ‘I’ve done.’ (Better make that two cans).
8. Reserve one entire suitcase for toity tissue which you’ll use to give you those giant tits that drag queens are famous for. This will also come in handy if you should have to make stinky in a bush.
9. Four jumbo packs of Dentyne – don’t forget to chew at least three times a day!
10. Binaca⁴ in spray form, in case you pick up a truck driver (which you will).
11. No-nonsense queen-size panty hose (runproof).
12. Opera-length gloves (fuck doing your nails – that could be a disaster in itself when on shakey ground).
13. One glittery evening bag for night.
14. One black patent evening bag for day.
15. One feather headdress with office-to-evening appeal.
16. Twenty to twenty-five pair of sensible spike heels… no open-toe sandals!! Don’t worry too much about being able to walk through the debris, remember those big, butch cops and firemen are there to assist you.
17. One large bottle of appetite suppressants (you already knew that).
18. Anything else you’ll need, I guess you’ll have to steal.

As far as exactly what outfits you’ll be needing (skintight mini-skirts, peddle pushers, gowns, etc.) you’ll just have to decide for yourself – I’m sure you’ve already assembled dozens of stunning ensembles. Keep in mind that TV cameras will be constantly rolling and you’ll want to look dazzling at any cost.

This will be a time of need for others, so don’t just think of yourself. Suppose some shaken and disillusioned hunky college boy on acid should mistake you for a nurse. Be prepared… carry a thermometer in case he should suddenly drop his pants for you to take his temperature. Be prepared!

Sin Bros. was a Los Angeles-based gay culture zine published in the early 1990s. The following piece was originally published in Sin Bros. #3, in 1990. A digitized copy of the zine is accessible via the Queer Zine Archive Project.

1. In October 1989, the San Francisco Bay Area suffered a 6.9-magnitude earthquake. ↩

2. Chasen’s was a restaurant in West Los Angeles open from 1936 to 1995, famous for a celebrity clientele including Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, and Elizabeth Taylor. See: http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/vintage-los-angeles-the-hidden-remains-of-chasens-restaurant/ ↩

3. Feminine Deodorant Spray ↩

4. An aerosol breath freshener ↩

DESIRE. INTENTION. AMBITION. IF fashion has long been the crowning companion of the wealthy, it can also be a powerful accomplice to the disadvantaged through its sense of play and artifice. Assuming a persona can be empowering, and manipulating it adds to the irony. So what happens when the disaffected communities of New York take their dreams to the ballroom? In the cult documentary ‘Paris is Burning’, director Jennie Livingston offers an authentic and riveting exploration of queer subculture filmed in the mid to late 1980s in New York. As a precious chronicle of an underground flourishing with drag subcultures of New York’s gay and transgender African American and Latino minorities, ‘Paris is Burning’ reveals a motley crew of subjects in the scene, whose fiery personalities and imagination transcend the hardship and adversity (racism, homophobia, AIDS and poverty, to mention but a few) they face in everyday life. Personalities include voguing masters Willi Ninja, Venus Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey and Pepper LaBeija. Action takes place at the ballroom – where contestants deliver outlandish voguing performances. Vying for trophies, respect and recognition, the ball-goers often belong to ‘Houses’ or intentional communities, of which the House of Ninja and Xtravaganza are amongst the most famous, without forgetting the ironically named House of Chanel and Saint Laurent. Judged on the criteria of ‘realness,’ the characters evoked range from queer fantasies such as butch queens and transgender divas, to ironic representations mirroring the ‘rich white world’ – such as ‘Schoolboy/Schoolgirl Realness’, ‘Town and Country’, and ‘Executive Realness’. It’s a hefty mix of humour, melancholy and fantasy, as the balls offer a platform where clothes momentarily transport into another world, free from social norms and taboos. Outcasts from society, the story of these queens is about the quest for survival, defying reality with sass and a great deal of fur.

Sophie Pinchetti is an editor, writer and founder of the independant magazine The Third Eye.