If you’re not stanning Vanessa van Cartier, please consult your doctor.
It’s a design challenge and for once it looks like most of the queens might have actually taken at least a cursory sewing class!
Honey, It Was Camp
This week’s Maxi Challenge was the much dreaded design challenge in which the queens had to create their look out of camping and holiday supplies because I imagine they got everything on one hell of a clearance sale after a year in which not a soul could go on holiday unless you could rent a private island out for a long weekend… As ever the outfits varied wildly from a well tailored coat to merely wrapping a hacked up tent around your waist and calling it a day.
Ivy-Elyse Monroe
It is rather unfortunate for Ivy that she chose to make a sleeping bag dress so soon after the niche artform was perfected by Utica on season 13 and is largely regarded as one of the best results of a design challenge to date. I don’t think Ivy’s look is bad though, it is a little frumpy and lumpy (it is sleeping bags after all) but I like the mix of patterns and her makeup is GORGEOUS. I really don’t think she deserved to be in the bottom two because of this.
My Little Puny
This is a lot of fun, I don’t quite know why she’d dressed as an iced gem biscuit but I kind of love it? I think it was also really clever to carry the geometric shapes on the dress into her clown-like makeup
it’s a very cohesive look, the wig, while cool and interesting, does feel a little at odds with everything else though but I think I would have put her firmly in the top 3.
Tabitha
Is this absolutely just a big sheet of fabric with a hole in it? Yes, it’s a Drag Race Design Challenge staple! but at least she took the time to embellish it with all the buttons and try to create a sense of fashion with it and I think it’s very successfully done. And her wig was one of my favourites of the night
it’s not what I expected from Tabitha and I’ll be very interested to see the rest of her drag over the course of however long she manages to last.
Vivaldi
Other than the fact she looks like Evil Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie and the absolutely killer pair of heels, I hate this with a passion and I think it’s a textbook example of a queen getting a pass for being skinny and beautiful. There is not enough style or substance to that patchwork coat to warrant forgiveness for the rest of the outfit being a panicked pair of knickers and some pasties. AND FOR THIS TO BE IN THE TOP THREE? Shenanigans.
The Countess
This is ridiculously good. When I first saw her grabbing all of the fake leaves from the pile of camping junk I thought we were going to get a very cliché Garden of Eden look and boy did she prove me wrong? It looks like a costume from a 30s film, I adore it. My only nitpick is that I wish we got to see more of the coat she had made from the inflatable crocodile
it’s deliciously camp and I can’t believe that it’s not been done before and yet we’ve had two attempts at a dress made from wire wool sponges?
Also, God bless The Countess for her valiant at attempt at looking excited about the fact her prize for winning the episode was a sewing machine worth 1000 Euros after she walked in with a designer gown in the first episode <3
Vanessa van Cartier
Am I just a stan or should this have absolutely been in the top over Vivaldi? It just reads as incredibly fashionable to me – the monochrome palette, the layering? There’s a lot of interest to me and I’m quite frankly mad that she wasn’t in the top. Even just for the Moschino/Mosquito pun.
Keta Minaj
This to me feels like what Vivaldi was aiming for – AND THEN THIS WASN’T EVEN IN THE TOP 3. Don’t get me wrong, the fabric combinations are truly hideous but the fit and tailoring of the outfit is phenomenal and the styling of it is perfect, if bordering on looking a little bit like Chucky the murderous doll going through a Bowie phase.
Love Masisi
I don’t hate this, I think it’s biggest sin is that it’s a little incoherent and the reasoning behind it all is a little unclear. I love the use of the campervan as the skirt – it does need some sort of a hoop to really allow you to see it thought. I’m not quite sure why she used the string of Ood balls or the flamingos though, they just muddy up what would have been a perfectly adequate outfit. Phenomenal wig and, not to sound like a broken record, great shoes
as I would expect nothing less from Love Masisi.
I do think her top placement was more for her narrative storyline than anything else, and she has a very important story to tell and the racism and colourism that she’s faced not only in her drag career but her personal life and as the first black queen on Drag Race Holland, I think it’s brave and commendable of her to be so open about it. I have nothing but love for her and I hope she gets to flourish on the show.
Reggy B
The AUDACITY of the judges to rip this to pieces while Vivaldi stood next to her in an outfit that was only moderately more elevated! And she had to contend with the fact her heel broke on the runway, which did at least mean she got to change her boots into what would have been significantly better ones for the runway
consider me a connoisseur of Dutch drag shoes apparently.
A Glamping Couture Runway Ranking
- The Countess as Sally Bowles in the Garden of Eden
- Vanessa van Cartier’s Unsung Praises
- My Little Puny’s Iced Gem Cosplay
- Tabitha’s Buttoned Poncho
- Keta’s Glam Rock Chucky Doll
- Love Masisi’s Campervan of Chaos
- Ivy’s Attempted Sleeping Bag Wrangling
- Vivaldi’s Evil Jeannie
- Reggy B’s Belted Bed Sheets
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