The Duality of Man.
Another strong season premier from the European Drag Race contingent – strong looks, lovely queens and plenty of talent to boot. Also posing, apparently.
Much like with España, I really want to cover the show because the queens are all an absolute delight but I do feel a little out of my depth doing a full on recap of a show so steeped in culture and references that I can’t fully appreciate – also, World Of Wonder’s subtitling is notoriously Not Great™ so I think I’ll stick once again to just recapping the queen’s looks as best I can, and they really all brought it for this first episode!
Making an Entrance
Reggy B
This is your perfectly expected style of entrance look – it’s clean and polished, doesn’t have a whole lot of personality and would certainly work well in any situation that the show feels like suddenly torturing you with – which they seem to be delaying until next episode for reasons I shall get to in a minute.
Ivy-Elyse
I really love it for not being too literal a Little Mermaid cosplay – there’s just enough to give it the vibe while keeping it fairly unique and interesting. I’d maybe like a little more going on around the bottom of the corset – or just some stoned tights might have brought it all together a little more BUT, I think her face is gorgeous
and when you’ve set up a drag house with Envy Peru and Abby OMG, it bloody well should be! I think she might be one of the prettiest queens to grace the show – I’m a little smitten.
Juicy Kutoure
She radiated the same energy as Gothy Kendoll at such an intense level that they might as well be the same person – and sure enough their Drag Race journeys pretty much panned out the same. I do really like the look though, it’s very Early 2000s Disney Star Inadvertently Finds Herself Trying To Survive An Apocalypse, Shenanigans Ensue. She could have roughed up the makeup and hair a little more to match the distressed jacket and shorts though, it’s a little disparate.
My Little Puny
Do I hate the name? Yes, absolutely. But my God if this isn’t one of my favourite outfits that a queen has worn, it’s such a well put together aesthetic and if I were a superhero (that’s exactly what a superhero pretending they aren’t a superhero would say) this would be my costume, complete with turkey leg frill wig
we can also file this wig away as one of my favourites to ever be on the show.
Vivaldi
I love everything about this look, from the stupidly long sleeves that she took every opportunity she possibly could to twirl
to the intense scene girl styling
how many notebooks do we think she’s filled with doodles of tiny little dinosaurs going “rawr x”?
Tabitha
This feels like a delightful throwback to the early seasons of Drag Race where the queens mostly just walked in wearing kind of ok outfits that they’d obviously all bought from the closest boutique to the hotel they were all staying in, and I think that suits Tabitha very well! I imagine she’ll have quite the awakening over the course of the show, between the Islamophobic Instagram posts of yore and the thinly veiled and dismissive transphobic comments made about Queen Vanessa van Cartier whomst I shall protect at all costs, she kind of needs it. But she did do a Showgirls gag and I have to appreciate that
A POX ON ALL THE QUEENS THAT DIDN’T GET IT!
Love Masisi
If you were wondering why they didn’t do the photoshoot mini challenge in this episode, it is absolutely because Love Masisi came into the room tethered to two inflatable aubergines – there really is no choice but to stan.
And beneath the Eggplant Eleganza was a very cute look
Even in Europe, we are not immune to the allure of the metallic purple corset it seems.
And, despite it being besides the point, I adore her confessional look
it’s intensely 90s Blue Peter presenter.
The Countess
If you’re not obsessed with her, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I just find her endlessly fascinating, it’s like one of ContraPoints’s characters has escaped into the wild, which is a terrifying thought in and of itself and I do a little bit look forward to her pulling some almighty flexes on the runway in the style of Willam except with the poise of a Victorian woman who doesn’t quite realise she’s being a little too gauche.
Similarly obsessed with her confessional look
it’s like Marilyn Monroe going undercover as a librarian and not doing it very successfully.
Vanessa van Cartier
I was always going to love a queen that walked into the Werk Room looking like a Batman villain called The Bumblebee – how couldst thou not? And she has the honour of being Drag Race Holland’s first transwoman so nothing but respect for My President
I will start an international incident if they dare eliminate her.
Keta Minaj
What I like most about this outfit is that somehow despite the fact it’s latex and she’s clearly going for kind of an ooky-spooky look, it does just read as a pirate to me, and I would gladly join her crew. I do also love that the sails of the windmill behind her could conceivably be part of the outfit and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at the idea, I’d have just been amazed she didn’t pull a full Cherry Valentine as she came through the door.
An Entrance Look Ranking
- My Little Puny, The Littlest Superhero
- Vivaldi’s Sentient MySpace Page
- Vanessa’s Comic Book Villain Origin Story
- Love Masisi’s Ode to the Aubergine
- The Countess’s Inexhaustible Wealth
- Ivy-Elyse Isn’t *Not* Ariel
- Keta Minaj’s Accidental Pirate
- Juicy Kutoure’s General Distress
- Reggy B’s Jan-lite
- Tabitha’s Mother At The Christmas Party
Queens of Clubs
The runway prompt for this episode, taking a break from the usual Hometown Looks, was for the queens to don their best nightlife attire, which is a fune talent with a lot of scope – naturally there was quite a lot of Club Kid because it’s the most fun but also butterflies were popular for some reason!
My Little Puny
This is great! The conical mohawk is kind of everyone’s go-to Club Kid look but with the added absurdity of the giant Worm On A String fingers, they aren’t exactly the focus of the look.
Reggy B
This didn’t work on the runway for a multitude of reasons, the biggest being the fact it just blends in with the background and the JJ Abrams level of lens flare doesn’t exactly help.
The look is a little basic and distinctly feels like something she had prior to Drag Race and to save a little cash was just going to make it work for whichever runway she could. I did like the makeup though
in a time where queens tend to not change up their makeup very much, the placement and shapes of the eyeshadow at least felt a little unique and different, it’s very Daryl Hannah as Pris in Blade Runner, which she deserves some merit for.
Vivaldi
Who knew that Lady Tottington on acid could be so beautiful? The colours work phenomenally with one another and the butterfly theme is prevalent but still subtle and tasteful. I might have liked the dress to be a little more art deco or to have a few more three dimensional sequins on it, just to give it some texture and life but really this was a knock-out despite it.
Juicy Kutoure
There’s a lot to like about this outfit – the neckline and the hemline are really interesting and echo the butterfly theme she was also going for – I don’t think she was as successful as Vivaldi but I do think this is still a well put together outfit and after a talent show performance which consisted mainly of flashing us the hole in her sleeve, her runway looks could have gone any way
and we of course have to thank her tights for their service in the line of duty
there’s a lawsuit in that sequined wound somewhere.
Ivy-Elyse
This is lowkey one of my favourite things to ever walk the runway purely for the batshittery of it all, and of course the fact she looks like the chicken equivalent of the cat from that Treehouse of Horrors episode
it’s a brave aesthetic to attempt and it did sadly pale into comparison against most of the other queens’ offerings.
You would think the most egregious part of it would be the fact she was dressed as a backfiring chicken but Fred took a particular hatred to the shoes and gave what might be my favourite critique
Ivy is certainly lucky that her talent show performance was at least moderately more interesting than Juicy Kutoure showing the world her armpits.
Tabitha
Why yes, that is a bunch of tit-grapes, why do you ask?
It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s delightfully campy, I really can’t complain about any part of it. Would a tit hat have been too much to ask for though? Or is that gilding the titty-lily?
Love Masisi
You have to love a Studio 54 look, I don’t make the rules I just follow them. And she really did look divine here, it perfectly captures the vibe she was going for and the wig was AMAZING, and then she revealed to an even better wig
she has the perfect bone structure for short hair and I am very excited to see her fashions on the show, especially because her performance outfit was also a lot of fun
How was she not in the top 3?
The Countess
This was a little disappointing, if you told me The Countess was going to do a Dominatrix look, I would imagine it’d be something with a certain degree of opulence and luxury to it – like she’d be EXPENSIVE and this sadly just feels a little half-baked, and maybe that’s purely because she entered the competition looking like she was about to win an Oscar and then went all out just to sit at the piano
and so her latex dom-devil didn’t really do it for me.
Vanessa van Cartier
This is BEAUTIFUL, I’m not sure it’s particularly Studio 54 so much as it is Taylor Swift as Bombalurina in Cats though
frequently cited as the only tolerable part of Cats (2019), so this isn’t technically a read.
Also, she just looked really pretty
the gold foiled eyebrows and the glitter lips? Ma’am, it’s a serve. And to think this was the same woman who looked like Moira Rose in The Crowening for her talent show performance
It’s been a strong year for Moira Rose references across the Drag Race franchise.
Keta Minaj
First of all, this might just straight up be one of my favourite Drag Race looks of all time, it’s stunningly well made and very interesting to look at – after her entrance look I was a little dubious about where Keta’s taste levels lay but after this, I’m pretty excited to see what she brought to the table!
A Nightlife Eleganza Runway Ranking
- Keta Minaj in Leopard and Latex
- Vanessa van Cartier’s Cats Cosplay
- Love Masisi’s Series of Good Wigs
- Vivaldi’s Butterfly Socialite
- Puny’s Worm on a String Eleganza
- Tabitha’s Jugs of Wrath
- Juicy Kutoure, The First Alternate Butterfly
- The Countess’s Dominat-miss
- Reggy B’s Swampy Daryl Hannah
- Ivy The Backfiring Chicken
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