Ditch the Drag: How London Club Kids Dress for Everyday Life

Almost anyone with even a passing interest in fashion can relate to the feeling of putting on an outfit and experiencing something that feels like a Cinderella moment. The clothes we choose to wear have the ability to transform us into our interpretation of a princess, and even though our equivalent of the fairy godmothers' magic wand might be a makeup brush, and our carriage a sweaty place piled on the Victoria Line, the feeling that getting dressed evokes is just as special: that moment when you look in the mirror before going out and think I've never felt so good Me.

Few embody this unique transformation and its therapeutic power more than the drag queens, club kids and go-go dancers who make up the global queer community. For children in London and beyond, on Saturday evening, a little slaggy outfit and a crowded dance floor. serving not only as a place to let go, but also as a place of refuge: a place to drop their metaphorical corporate pony after a long week of crawling through the nine-to-five job.

But what about those, like the performers who sashay and dance in the club, or who get on stage and sing their hearts out, whose job it is to dress up? Is dressing up as important as getting ready for work? Here, Dazed talks to five queer nightlife workers about the difference between their day and night looks, their gender expression as a queer look-setter, party host, or club performer, and what the style means to them as individuals who use their appearance in a professional capacity. currency.

Dancer, speaker, choreographer, host and event producer, Taali is a proud, slaggy, queer, gender fluid and hyper femme fairy. Their nightlife and everyday looks tend to be increasingly less exaggerated versions of each other, because anything camp, flamboyant, extra, bougie, and slightly ridiculous, is what makes them feel most like themselves- same.

The outfits they wear on and off stage don't shy away from being extravagant and sparkly, all of which would be listed in a revised dictionary definition of cunty. Kwaten says one of their favorite things about their job is that they have a platform, both on stage and through social media, to inspire other people who look like them to wear what they wear. they want, when they want. Namely, black, curvy, queer. They aim to demonstrate that it's possible to ignore the pressures of the Eurocentric, Instagram-shaming beauty world we live in and truly wear what you feel best in.

It took a while [for me] to have the confidence to wear exactly what I want and I am forever grateful to my queer community and club scene for being the place that helps my confidence and style continually grow, says Kwaten, adding that their colleagues in the queer club scene are continued sources of inspiration in their journey of style and confidence.

Model, go-go dancer and creative director Danni describes the juxtaposition of their daily outfits and their nightlife creature's style as representing different elements of their personality. Their club attire usually features strings, dark colors, punky gelled hairstyles, and wearing as little clothing as possible. On a daily basis, their outfits are more concealed and incorporate more fanciful and colorful elements.

Danni describes this contrast as existing as an androgynous woman by night and a nerdy librarian by day, and this fluidity in style speaks to their journey as non-binary. For Danni, one of the best parts of being involved in queer nightlife is witnessing how we all perceive each other's authenticity and sense of beauty, which everyone interviewed mentioned d 'one way or another.

This is a refreshing take on what it means to be beautiful: being beautiful should be a sum of feeling authentic and being appreciated for your authenticity. Danni describes their dressing process as revolving around character creation. Whether during the day or at the club, clothes are said to truly bring me joy, a lot of my clothing choices are influenced by cartoons, being silly, the idea of ​​character concepts, colors or even furniture.

Danielle describes herself as London's first drag terrorist. She is a drag performer who is characterized on stage as brash, loud, rude, mischievous, cynical and above it all. While Danielle in real life is more intellectual, philosophical and reserved.

When it comes to the way she dresses, both cross-dressing and not, the difference between Danielle and The Doll Named Dan is clear. She describes her drag persona as embodying a character like Lily Savage or Catherine Tate's Nan on crack. With tight, bright clothes and colorful, eccentric makeup that literally pops out of the lines. In his daily life, his clothes tend to be practical and comfortable for writing.

Danielle describes her drag aesthetic as hyperbole of the aspects of femininity that make me uncomfortable. My goal is to take all the aspects of transness that maybe aren't socially acceptable and explode them, she explains. Through this, Danielle uses self-fashioning as political and social commentary, translating the things that society tells us are wrong and displaying them in a way that feels (and feels) so right.

Getting dressed makes me feel amazing. It makes me feel like I can do anything and everything,” says Danielle. Although her drag persona is linked to her real-life personality, it is ultimately distinct. However, this feeling of empowerment is felt in daily life. She likens the confidence gained from drag to a kind of muscle memory when navigating the world as herself.

Cain describes his introduction to London nightlife as a typical queer bumpkin moving into big city history. His nightlife persona, The Clown, was a response to experiences with drug addiction and represents how he readjusted his place in the scene after becoming sober, choosing to put myself and my art first . The Clown Cains nightlife character features pointy hats, bright colors, exaggerated ruffs, a blank white base, painted expressions, and black contact lenses.

Cain makes many of his own outfits, demonstrating how much The Clown represents his artistic freedom. He describes it as a love letter to my sobriety and my place in nightlife. The Clown's blank canvas depicts the painting of faces full of emotions that resonate with the emotional turmoil he felt while addicted to substances. He explains how The Clown self-protects in a way: Sometimes when a certain environment can be shocking, having that layer of mask helps with my armor for the night, he says.

Rather than seeing The Clown as a character, Cain describes him as an exaggerated extension of my personality shot through an animated, cartoon circus lens. An avenue that allows him to delve deeper into parts of himself that he feels cannot be expressed through verbal means. Queer nightlife is a safe space where creativity and self-expression, as well as trauma, can be explored. Especially when in everyday life these things are supposed to be suppressed.

Lila calls herself the little twinkcess of London, she wears highly feminized outfits, dizzying pleasures and brilliant, sneaky and flirty rhythms. When describing how she feels in and out of drag, Lila says people often have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that she feels like the most authentic version of herself when dressed as a drag character. Lila.

She says this character is based on a version of herself without insecurities. Someone who is not constrained by social pressures to be too much, to wear too revealing clothes, or to wear too much makeup. While cross-dressing and dressing up, Lila explains that she was able to discover things about her identity outside of cross-dressing, such as exploring her gender as being on the trans spectrum.

Lila says she loves how people appreciate her art when she's in cross-dressing, as she usually creates elements of her outfits herself. Although her drag persona is stereotypically hyper-feminine, her daytime outfit tends to lean more on the androgynous side. This discovery of new parts of her identity was facilitated by disguising herself as a hyper-feminine projection of her inner self, a true testament to the power of style.