1. Clothes
Drag queens wear wildly eccentric clothes. Lady Purple explained to me that her mother sews her stage clothes. As for all the sequins and glitter, she sends her outfits to Thailand, because they are good at making those materials. According to her, the more extravagant the outfit, the more the audience appreciates it. An imposing outfit accentuates the idea of inaccessibility that drag queens have for themselves.
To gain even more height, Lady Purple perches 40 centimeters from the ground with heels that I defy anyone to wear. As for the hairstyle, wigs are also an integral part of the outfit. Bought straight, it is up to the artists to style them according to their tastes and color. For her part, Lady Purple has her wigs styled by a hairdresser friend.
2. Makeup
A big part of changing your identity is through makeup. There are two ways to transform your face. In the case of a drag queen, the goal of makeup is to give feminine features to the face while exaggerating them. Exuberant lips, doe eyes adorned with false eyelashes, prominent cheekbones and rosy as desired, the entire face is sublimated. This titanic work can take up to several hours before a show and gives birth to all sorts of creatures. Here is an example of makeup done by the famous drag queen Nicky Doll.
In the case of a drag show, the goal is to reproduce the features of another person that one will then embody on stage in front of an audience. One evening Whitney Houston, another Celine Dion, Lady Purple enter the skin of a character each evening of performance.
Makeup involves many steps, but the first is to make your eyebrows disappear with the famous glue, often purple. This is followed by a series of layers of makeup to get into the skin of a new character. The perfect example of a creature that comes to life thanks to makeup is Juno Birch. Through her purple foundation, Juno becomes one with the creature she herself imagined.
3. Acting
We put on a show, of course! Drag queen evenings are often punctuated by lip-sync shows. That is to say, the artists do lip-syncing. This allows them to concentrate on the dance. The whole art lies in the way of breathing, of making the number your own. With this imitation of a star comes a whole attitude of inaccessible diva that exudes a level of self-confidence and that feels great!
In the world of drag queen, there are traditions that are passed down. The first person who introduces you to drag practices is called your "mother". Families are formed in this way, such as the Deer family. Composed of 3 generations, the family is internationally recognized. Even if the art of drag is quite recent in history, being a man who dresses as a woman is not a new idea. As early as ancient theater, men played women's roles on stage, because women could not be actresses. The term drag comes from the trains of the dresses of actors playing women during the 18th century.
This art is highlighted in cabarets and all other performance venues. But it has had a larger audience since the 90s, when some drag queens like RuPaul began to make themselves known. For a few years now, RuPaul has been behind the reality TV show RuPaul's Drag Race, which gives a very realistic overview of the world of drag, the behaviors and customs of this environment. There is a whole distinction around the language used which is very specific. I advise you to do some research on this before you start watching a show because otherwise, you're going to struggle. (Psssst, watch this, it's a gift, it saves you from having to search!)
4. Values
My choice to highlight this community on this day is not based on the fact that most drag queens are homosexual and sometimes transgender, far from it (it would be an amalgamation). I wanted to highlight this universe, because it sends a message of tolerance. Everyone can do drag, everyone can invent a character, a creature, a personality. Inclusivity is a strong message from the community that practices drag. Their identity claims for more tolerance inspire us with a message of general acceptance of ourselves, but also of each of our facets, however conventional they may be.
Beyond being a vector of positive values, drag is a real art. A large part of my admiration is based on the self-taught aspect of the discipline. As Lady Purple explained to me, most drag queens learn by themselves, sew, do their makeup and do their hair by themselves. It is not only a technical performance, but also a visual one, because after the make-up comes the performance. Whether the activity is a hobby or a full-time job, the art of drag calls for reinventing yourself, accepting yourself and exaggerating the features you want to highlight. Whether your drag queen is an exaggeration of yourself or someone completely different, the goal is to sublimate it!
