Hello hello hello ladies and welcome back to the werkroom of Talian’s Drag Race! Last week we said goodbye to Lemonadé. So... time for a fantastic semi final!!!
You know, I am Italian. And that’s a read in itself. But what you may not know is that I had a very very extremely catholic upbringing and, you guessed it, I hated it. But I feel there’s something about religion that always caught my attention but I want it to be more fun. I want to have more fun with it, so much fun we could almost say we are THROWING A BALL! A religion ball to be more precise.
If you don’t know what a ball is, all I am asking for you this week is to present three look, each following a different theme. The themes are :
🙇🏾♀️ RELIGION REALNESS : I want each of you to create a look inspired to a given religion. You can take any aspect you want, just make sure we can really see the reference. Here is what I decided to give you :
- ✡️ Eden Gardens : Judaism
- ☸️ Pre-Madonna : Buddhism
- 🕉 Rita Bitch : Hinduism
- ♊️ Shanita : Wicca
- ☪️ Shimika Summers : Islam
🗣 WHAT I BELIEVE IN : The conceptual runway of the season. I want you to create a look that embodies what is the biggest belief of your life. Could be religious or not. Concept is important. So go wild. But keep fashionable.
💡 LIGHT BEING ELEGANZA EXTRAVANGAZA : Every religion has a light being that moves everything so I want you to create a sickening look with every single light-y thingy I could find in our warehouse.
- You need to create the dress completely from the pics I am giving you (link above). Not from something that resembles it on your look making platform.
- You can use one item. You can use all of them. You can repeat each item for how many times you wish.
- You can use your own wigs and shoes. No accessories.
- You can reshape and recolor objects.
- You can use only portions of an object.
- You can’t make the objects look completely unrecognizable.
- You don’t need to be realistic. I will judge on the overall aesthetic.
If you are not familiar with editing pictures, there are some amazing free apps for mobile like PicsArt and for pc like Gimp. But there are also many online sites that will allow you to edit them without installing or downloading anything.
THIS IS A CREATIVE CHALLENGE SO BE CREATIVE! A strong concept is more important than a tight execution. But of course both are better.
You have 48 hours.
Good luck ladies and don’t fuck it up.
But if you do, prepare to lipsync to sono starts that god is indeed a woman :
Now it is no secret that i am a queen of color and as a queen of color i fully believe in the black lives matter movement it is important that people of color have their voices heard.
I took inspiration from iconography of Judaism, combining beautiful golden Tallits adorned with Hebrew and paired that with a stunning and expensive upper bodice made of a golden dreidel and hamsa hands, i look like 24 carat gelt
What I believe in:
As you can maybe tell from so much of drag over the years, i believe in the power of nature, natural order, mother earth, Gaia, however you want to say it; i believe nature has hidden powers to keep itself moving and thriving. I have embodied that here with a gorgeous back-structure sun shining over the flourishing earth below
Light Being Eleganza:
For this i wanted to make a look that was a celebration of life, culture and history given that's what light often represents. I used the Chinese lanterns to construct a look representative of what someone might wear at a new year festival in China and in respecting their traditions, constructed this around a mythological animal- the Fenghuang (Chinese phoenix), the singular most powerful and iconic feminine entity, often paired with the masculine Chinese dragon. She represents celestial bodies and turns up only when people are blessed with prosperity, peace and happiness.
CF: The belief that shapes my worldview more than any other is my belief in equality. Inequality between genders, races, social classes, etc. are the things that need to be overcome if humanity is to have a bright future.
So upon searching up the religion Wicca I find that it’s all about the values of witchcraft. Witchcraft is the practice of magic, especially black magic; the use of spells. And so with this meaning of the religion I wanted to come down the runway giving you a dark/black magic look. It’s edgy, it’s unique and most importantly it’s witchcraft!
For my What I Believe In look, of course as a POC I wanted to make a statement supporting the Black Lives Matter movement because it is so incredibly important but I also wanted to show that I believe that women are the greatest beings to grace our planet! I could never think of going through pregnancy and over thousands of women go through that a day! It’s truly remarkable how so many go through that and some even multiple times. I wholeheartedly believe that black women are the worst treated in this world because they are discriminated against for being black and for being a woman. They deserve their respect which is what I wanted to show on the runway for this look. Thank you.
For my Light Being Eleganza Extravaganza I really wanted to switch up my silhouette once again for this look. I saw the red Chinese lights and they are so beautiful that I had to use them! I also used the top of the lamp to create white triangles which I used for my train and sleeves. I used pink lights for around the outfit to make it glow and pop! I used the lughbulbs and edited out a singular one and duplicated it to create lighting on my outfit. Finally I used the chandelier/lantern light thingy as an accessory!
For my Buddhism look, I was inspired by several key Buddhist fashion staples and modernized them into the look you see now. Be it from the color brown, which represents one of Buddhisms primary colors, to the shaved head, the make up, and the nature of what I am wearing: a leather coat that resembles the traditional Robes worn by Buddhists. I am a modern Buddhist fashion queen and here comes the zen, so namaste bitches!
In the past 15 months, 3 million people have lost their lives to COVID-19 and yet, the misinformation campaign about the vaccine validity and safety has contributed to a lot of delay in the process and hence more death. So I am walking the runway in black, mourning the lives of those who passed, but I also reminding everyone that in this house, we believe in science hun. We believe in the pursuit of facts and the scientific process. We believe in doing everything to save a life, and we believe that every life is precious.
A moment of silence for all the beautiful people who succumbed to this virus - for those we know and those we don't know.
I actually am proud of this runway. We are quick learner in this bitch and in 3 days I was editing and cutting and crafting and zooming so thank you mama T for pushing me outside of my comfort zone with this challenge! For this look, we maintained consistency with using the same light item or whatever its called for the skirt and the crop, but we sowed em together with a little light bulb explosion along the waist. I'm also living for this dark ages lantern earring, which I also used to make a cute hat, and a little twinkle twinkle above these boobs to finish it off because I'm golden.
