Drag queens: fashion and creative freedom

The wonderful meeting point between fashion, beauty and drag culture.

Valentina, Bianca Del Rio, RuPaul, Trixie Mattel, Gottmike, Plastique Tiara or the legendary Divine are some of the Drag Queens who over time have filled pages of specialized press, viral content on Tik Tok or extensive reports on the magical drag world.

Today, we want to highlight its undeniable relationship with fashion. To do so, we will delve into points that cannot go unnoticed.

The beginning?

Before the term drag fills our imagination with color, happiness and total inspiration, it is worth remembering that the backgrounds are as relevant as they are different.

On the one hand, men portrayed as female characters in the theatre of yesteryear (the participation of women was prohibited) or even in the history of silent film.

On the other hand, towards the end of the 19th century and for some decades in the 20th century, clandestine dances took place where members of the LGBT community found a safer space to have fun and express themselves. For example, New York ballroom culture during the 1980s.

Impact on popular culture

The years passed and with them, a constantly evolving social, political and cultural change allowed the drag world to position itself more naturally.

Characters like RuPaul managed to reach the masses and with that, other representatives of drag positioned themselves in industries that included - above all - entertainment.

However, the pinnacle of fashion also opened the doors to this movement.

Union with fashion

At this point it goes without saying that the magic of combining garments, colors, silhouettes and textures in an intelligent “exaggeration” that allows for the creation of striking styles, the generation of challenging characters and a discourse of creative freedom, is part of the relationship between fashion and drag.

Some of the most iconic moments that marked a before and after in this wonderful relationship are the spring/summer 1992 fashion show under the brand Thierry Mugler. The designer invited the drag artist Lypsinka; her participation included a wonderful playback while revealing different outfits.

We can also mention Jean Paul Gaultier's constant celebration of queerness, from the addition of skirts to male models to his invitation to the character Tanel Bedrossiantz to his haute couture show in 1998 to wear a dress full of details.

Current inspiration

Covers of major fashion magazines, protagonists of experimental and commercial editorials, the faces of marketing strategies related to beauty products, documentaries and series on digital platforms, participation in haute couture fashion shows, urban lines and much more.

The drag world arrived, decades ago, to stay.