What can I say? I love a Dilophosaurus Fashion Moment.
Another season, another group of queens apparently being surprised by there being 2 design challenges.
Star Wars
I loved that when the queens came back into the Werk Room post-blockening, everyone was gathered on the sofa like a consortium of Dollys
and I really can’t get over just how much fabric there is in Monet’s coat – and the fact it was all hand quilted is INSANE.
Obviously The Vivienne is simmering with polite British rage because she got blocked and thus did not win a star, but she’s pretty pleased with herself for getting to block Jinkx as “she has two stars and is a clear frontrunner” meanwhile Jaida sits quietly in the corner saying absolutely nothing as she plays the perfect social game. Monet thinks she’s playing Survivor and yet Jaida is out there playing The Mole.
And apparently Charity Stars are not going to be a regular thing? Which seems a weird decision but sure – especially given that Raja deserved one for their Werk Room outfit this week
they look like the one human character in a kid’s TV show populated by puppets.
The decision to suddenly nix the donation stars concept does feel a little bit like they just didn’t trust Yvie to win any stars, which is rude.
Serving Legendary Legend Lewks
This week’s Maxi Challenge was another design challenge, so there goes The Vivienne’s block. The theme this time was RuPaul herself as the queens had to reimagine one of RuPaul’s iconic looks into a look of their own, with the 8 looks on offering being displayed on a Pinterest Board that makes Pinterest look 5 times more user friendly than it actually is
the queens got to choose their looks one by one, with The Vivienne kicking off the proceedings by immediately going for the shiniest option: The DESPY Awards dress from Season 7 which is my all time favourite RuPaul look
and then she got to choose the next queen and so on and so on – the only real issue to arise from this was the fact Raja was hellbent on getting the Supermodel of the World look
but it seemed everyone could feel that desperation and were not going to hand her the look she wanted knowing she’s very good in a design challenge and so she was left until last and got the Born Naked look from season 7
which isn’t great because 90% of the time white is a bit of a nail in the coffin because it’s very hard to make anything that has a point of interest or, as Shea showcased in the last design challenge, to resist the urge to go bridal which doesn’t ever read brilliantly on the runway. And Raja knew this, which is why she spent so much time playing 3D Chess with Trinity
Raja did however manage to not go bridal and was very much drawing her inspiration from Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
which I do think was mostly because she needed to get her frustration out and ripping up fabric like a sulking cat was the best way to do that
and the final look just didn’t come across brilliantly on the runway, not helped at all by the fact she blended into the background because she was essentially wearing her Spiked look again – the way she strikes the same pose like she’s a model in a fashion dress up game from 2008
I think there just needed to be a lot more skin on show – perhaps the boots were, while in the same colour story, just not the right choice because they’re making her look a little short – which is quite something on RAJA of all people.
Yvie ended up getting the look Raja wanted and turned it into a really impressive outfit – the hakama pants she made moved INCREDIBLY on the runway
this was really beautifully done – the top wasn’t quite so well made and it did look a bit like a handkerchief top, which I can’t really knock too much because so much time went into making the pants and the tulle gloves, but I really liked her hair and makeup
the biggest improvement I’ve seen in Yvie since season 11 is definitely her styling.
Shea went for a very similar approach to Yvie in that she was inverting the volume of the look, hers being the leopard print dress Ru wore during Season 5’s Sugar Ball, and I can’t believe that they talked about The Sugar Ball so much and never once brought up Jinkx’s candy coated Reindeer corpse she made for that challenge
mercifully they weren’t making Shea make her dress out of hard candy and liquorice, but rather weirdly despite the entire dress being leopard print, they hadn’t actually given her any leopard print fabric, so she was forced to paint it on by hand
and despite the fact that chewed up a significant portion of her time, she ended up with a GREAT outfit
this was easily one of my favourites, I think it’s got a real point of view and story to it – I’m also partial to a vintage inspiration. The look does peter out at the bottom, and I think I might have preferred it if it was a pencil skirt in that black pleather, but she still managed to perfectly tailor a pair of pants! Although, it might not have been without the help of Fairy Godmother, Trinity The Toiler who was kicking the social game into high gear by renting out her services to just about every queen going
and once again, Trinity was flying through the challenge and I loved the moment where it cut to her with a just about fully finished gown and Raja was working on what looked a bit like an angel costume for a Nativity Play
and the final gown was just as impressively made as her slutty lobster gown from the last design challenge
it’s a little less interesting, and I’m not wild about the bow she put on her waist, I think it’s takes away from the shape of the gown but I LOVE the gloves and the massive skirt, which is all giving me Jaymes Mansfield at the Season 9 Reunion
whether that’s a compliment or not is entirely up for you to decide.
Fellow reigning champion of the design Challenge, Jaida chose Ru’s Diana Ross tribute look which mostly meant she ended up with a fuckton of sequins and some faux fur – a drag queen’s dream
and as glam and beautiful as the the large paillettes always look on the runway, I think she was somewhat hampered by the fabric in as far as she could really push a design concept
I like this look, I just don’t know if it really blows me away, especially after Jaida absolutely killed it in the last design challenge and I think her wig and makeup was doing a lot of heavy lifting here
which I can’t be too mad at because she looks gorgeous.
The Vivienne was also in gold with the aforementioned DESPY dress and she… well, kind of just remade the DESPY dress but made it look like she had got the skirt stuck in her knickers
I was really disappointed with this look, it just doesn’t really feel like any creativity went into reimagining the look and I HATE the shoes with the burning intensity of 1000 suns
they’re just so heavy and I don’t know why you’d wear them with this gown! But I did of course like her makeup and the I enjoyed the fact we got an insight into the cranial scaffolding that goes into making it all happen
she should be honoured by the Royal Institute of British Architects.
But perhaps Vivienne Pinay’s The Vivienne’s lack of inspiration was because she was too busy kicking herself for having blocked Jinkx for a design challenge. But Jinkx did seem to have more of a game face on for this challenge – imaginably because she knew that the next challenge would probably be something comedy based, so she was trying to make an outfit. And by “make” I do mean “hot glue things to a corset”
not that it went particularly well as Jinkx quite literally got caught with her corset around her knees
and from there it was just a slow but sure descent into madness
it’s pretty impressive that we got an outfit out of her at all, even if it is distinctly Season 5 Jinkx
it’s certainly not a good outfit and she weirdly looks like Meryl Streep doing a turn at the Moulin Rouge
slightly concerned about where her lips went, perhaps she lost them in the tulle prolapse.
And lastly we have Monet who was taking her inspiration from one of Ru’s more iconic looks – the Season 10 Facekini that gave us one of my favourite Drag Race moments of all time
I love the fact that Ru tried to sell it as “we often like to try out new things” when it was CLEARLY the result of Ru having a very bad head cold and coming out in cold sweats which meant they couldn’t put makeup on her.
I really liked what Monet did with the look by going in a very Leigh Bowery direction
I particularly love the fact she attached a pair of hoop earrings to the face mask
I thought she absolutely nailed this challenge and certainly had one of the more interesting looks on the runway.
A Legendary Ru-imagining
- Monet’s Itsy Bitsy Psychedelic Facekini
- Trinity by Tiffany’s
- Shea’s Corvette Driving Barbie
- Jaida’s Gilded Glamour
- Yvie’s Supermodel of the Underworld
- Raja’s Just Short of Thunderdome
- Vivienne Westwood Take 6
- Season 5 Jinkx Rides Again
I got the distinct feeling that they really wanted to give Raja a win for this design challenge as an apology for last time but there was really no way you could cut it that would put her above most of the other queens. I was fine with Trinity being in the top 2, I think she deserved to be rewarded for the amount of work she put it into the outfit, even if it wasn’t wildly exciting. I’m a little more confused about Jaida being in the top because I thought Monet absolutely deserved to be up there, or even Shea – but I do love the drama of Jaida rather unassumingly becoming the first queen with 3 stars and still not experiencing being blocked.
Lipsync
This week’s lipsync song was Jessie J’s “I Want Love” and Jessie J’s songs make for really good lipsyncs – she really over enunciates everything and frequently punctuates her choruses with a porpoise impression, which is always fun. And Jaida and Trinity were very much dressed to burn the dancefloor
which makes the fact they didn’t burn the dancefloor a little odd – Jaida had a weird running split, which I think was only weird because she kind of skidded out of the spotlight and into the darkened stage which made it look like she overshot her mark a little bit
which was a bit of a trend because Trinity ran herself face first into Jaida’s arse
and in that moment, I thought: Oh, so Jaida is the winner of this because it is a well known fact that…
granted it was apparently by accident, I thought it was still awkward enough to warrant her not winning, however Ru disagreed and Trinity got to hold the golden platinum plunger
and her choice of block was Yvie Oddly
weird choice given that the next challenge would obviously involve comedy and The Vivienne and Jinkx were RIGHT THERE, so I’m sure next week is going to lead us to another Jinkx vs The Vivienne showdown.
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