![]() ![]() When you were doing your research, was there anything that sort of surprised you about the history of drag? But really, if you compare it with hard periods in history where it was so chaotic and so divisive, like now it seems a lot more bearable, you know, so I find history very reassuring. You know, these days it’s a bit of a purveying idea that we're living in this very challenging time. And I think like history is great because it's very reassuring because you read about all these terrible eras, and you start to think, oh, maybe it's not too bad now. I love history, so I was happy to go back as far as I could find stuff to write about. So I was prepared to go back as far as it took, and, you know, ancient Egypt, ancient China, we're talking many, many thousands of years B.C. SD: Well I love history, and the publisher, Lawrence King, wanted it to be a comprehensive historical overview. Was that something you knew you were going to do? Go back that far into history and talk about drag from the ancient world. From then on, it gets a lot easier because drag's written about.Īnother thing I wasn't expecting was that you would go back as far as you did. So I thought it made more sense to dedicate one chapter to the ancient world like Egypt, Rome, Greece, and the bring it forward into 18th-century France. Then it sort of starts again in the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. Like, there's lots going on in mythology and the ancient world, but then when you get to the Middle Ages, there's no documentation of what was going on. ![]() SD: Well initially, I tried to do the book chronologically, but it didn't make sense because it was very uneven chronologically. Did you go in knowing you would have the chapters separated like that, or did it happen organically as you started looking into what you were going to do? But you have it separated into different types of genres. To be honest, when I picked it up, I thought it would just be the history of drag in chronological order. One of the things I liked a lot about your book is that you divided it up into nine categories. So these were like the main reasons why I thought, Yeah, this is a great time to do a broad history of drag, ‘cause drag is really having a moment and people will be interested in it. There's this incredible meticulous artistry that you see with Violet Chachki, Ryan Burke, Sasha Velour that's such a new thing. Then, of course, there are new genres of drag emerging, like the Look Queens - there's no precedent for that. ![]() It's a time of rapid change in the area of gender and androgyny. You know, if you look at, obviously RuPaul’s Drag Race, but now we have a gender revolution that's affecting everything in the culture, and changing everything: pronouns, gender fluidity. SD: Well, I think it's a great time to examine the whole notion of drag because drag is having a very explosive and creative moment. I have to ask the question you probably get asked a thousand times, but what made you want to take on writing such an in-depth history of drag? You know, when we would have our weekly meeting at Barneys, people would often throw on a wig and just come to the meeting. It was the era of supermodel and that was also the time when RuPaul had his first big hit “Supermodel (You Better Work)". Especially in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, fashion became very dragtastic with the Glamazon. SD: Being in window display, you know, gives you an automatic connection to drag because there are boxes of wigs everywhere and everyone's experimenting with mannequins and dressing up mannequins. And so yeah.oh, and Halloween, my god! I had the time of my life when I lived in LA! Think about the ‘70s, and, you know, drag was everywhere.Īnd when you moved to New York (which safe to say is the epicenter of drag culture), did you take some of those drag influences you had been exposed to here on the West Coast and bring them to your career doing window dressing at Barneys? There was a fabulous place - I think it's still there on La Brea - called the Plaza, which had all these amazing Latina/Latinx drag queens who were just sensational. And so, you know, there was a tremendous amount of drag. ![]() I lived in West Hollywood from like the late ‘70s into the mid-‘80s. SD: Well I first moved to LA in the 1970s. Tell me a little about your exposure to drag culture here in the States? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |