By Savannah Maher
RuPaul’s Drag Race is an iconic fashion show that showcases the lifestyle and fashion of drag queens. The show documents RuPaul Charles in the search for “America’s next drag superstar”. The show is self-described as “entertaining a social savvy audience of gay trendsetters…” as well as attracting “a straight audience that wants to be ahead of the curve.”
Drag queens are by definition, a biological male presenting a female to the outside world. RuPaul states that “‘Drag queen’ emerges as a kind of third-gender category in a society that insists there are only two”. The show demonstrates this third-gender category by showing the behind the scenes as well as the final product of drag queens.
The application of wigs, makeup, dress, and heels is shown from beginning to end which brings awareness to the fluidity of fashion. Unlike fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker who seems to look to the world for clarification of her picture-perfect fashion backstory and lifestyle. In chapter 7 of “Fashioning of Celebrity: Class, Taste-making, and Cultural Intermediaries”, Helen Warner states “Parker must ‘sanitize’ her working-class roots in order to achieve respectability”.
The fashion on Rupaul’s drag race is anything but conformity to societal expectations. Fashion Icons such as Parker that make it their mission to fit a mold create a danger to the individualistic expression side of fashion. One’s style should celebrate personal creativity, not just reinforce class structures.
Warner recognizes “While both (Sarah Jessica Parker and Blake Lively) appear committed to the ‘fashion can be for everyone’ philosophy, their construction within extra-textual discourses proffers a middle-class mode of address”. Rupaul’s Drag Race in comparison emphasizes that ‘fashion can be for anyone’ through a celebration of the female body and extravagant unconventional styles.
Rupaul’s Drag Race has made a positive impact on men’s fashion. Drag Queen “Milk” in the images above for example had her own show with Marc Jacobs. In this era, it is more common than ever before to see men wearing skirts and heels. Fashion should be as free-flowing, entertaining, and groundbreaking as it is in Rupaul’s Drag Race than restricting and predictable as Sarah Jessica Parker.
Images without a labeled copyright are courtesy of https://rupaul.com/
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