![]() Unfortunately, the photoshoot was canceled because of COVID, but the experience helped in introducing Hytes, as well as other queens, to DiNoble’s work. The designer whipped up a custom look in a few days’ time. “They were doing a photoshoot and wanted to pull a look,” she says. A fan of the original show, DiNoble tuned in-and while watching the show’s first season during the pandemic, DiNoble got a call from Hytes’s stylist. “Now, it’s just off the charts: very fashion, very avant-garde.”įast-forward to RuPaul’s Drag Race coming to Canada in 2020 with its own northern franchise. “Back then, it was a little more pared-down,” she recalls. It was around that time she started working with drag artists as well. Her fascination led her to study costume design at Sheridan College in Toronto and eventually start Starkers Corsetry in 1992. Horst that really sparked her interest, and DiNoble began researching corsetry obsessively. It was the 1939 photo “Mainbocher Corset,” from photographer Horst P. You can build and make it dramatic.” It’s no surprise, then, that the corset expert has become a go-to among the Canadian drag community, and is consistently the choice for Brooke Lynn Hytes whenever she steps on the main stage as a Canada’s Drag Race co-host.ĭiNoble fell in love with the art of corsetry when she was a high school student in the ’80s, studying art history, but more taken with the costumes worn by the subjects of the work. “Of course, it’ll provide the waist, but it can also add boobs and hips. “They’re a really great base to a costume because there’s so much shape that can go into the corset,” she tells W. But the world changes and all of a sudden, you’re winning.” Dianna DiNobleĭesigner and corsetière Dianna DiNoble feels that corsets and drag are a match made in heaven. “It never felt like we were going to be truly let into that world. “When we started the show, there was never any Emmy consideration ever,” he says. Zaldy has been a part of drag’s push into the mainstream since he modeled in drag for Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Levi’s in the ’90s, but the Emmys recognition still felt like a big moment in the history of the art form. Of course, it’s his work with Ru, on Drag Race, that has gotten him three Emmys. “I really get off on doing all these different types of people,” he says. He also showed at fashion week for eight seasons, sending tailored pieces down the runway that show off his range as a designer. He’s worked with Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, and, these days, The Chicks. “That’s a Paris collection or two,” he says. Zaldy estimates that he creates around 80 looks for the queen every year. He has designed every dress one can imagine for RuPaul, from a slinky gold body-hugging number to the sparkly, day-glow zebra-print suit Ru wore to the Met Gala in 2019. The designer creates every single look RuPaul wears on the main stage of RuPaul’s Drag Race and all of its various iterations. Thirty years later, Ru and Zaldy are still working together. “But we loved Ru so much, we of course said yes.” “We were so focused on ourselves that taking ourselves out of it and being behind the scenes was something we had to consider,” he tells W over the phone. He’d interacted with the drag queen on occasion (once to call her out for wearing the same look two nights in a row), but in Japan, RuPaul approached Zaldy and Anderson with quite the offer-help with her new album, Supermodel of the World. Zaldy first met RuPaul in the ’80s, when he and his then-boyfriend, makeup artist Matthew Anderson, were traveling around the world throwing parties with Susanne Bartsch. Below, we’re highlighting the best in the game-from some Emmy-winning names you’ve likely heard before to an underground artist you need to familiarize yourself with soon. Take the designers behind some of drag’s best looks: they show during fashion week and dress celebrities of all kinds, but when linked with a queen, they can really let their imagination run wild. But while queens are often the face of the movement (the cheerleaders of Pride, as they are sometimes called), there are so many others working behind the scenes within the drag ecosystem. It seems like hardly a week goes by without an iteration of Drag Race airing somewhere in the world, while queens can often be seen attending fashion events, popping up onstage at concerts, gracing the cover of magazines, and generally receiving the recognition they deserve. Drag has been influencing pop culture and society at large for decades-and while queens remain unfairly under attack in our country and beyond, the art form has never been more powerful than it is at this moment. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |