By: Paola Versari
Instagram: @versari_table
Bio: Paola Versari is a fashion design and marketing senior with a strong interest in fashion journalism, focusing on how style communicates culture, identity, and social responsibility. Through hands-on design, styling, and writing experience, she brings a thoughtful, industry-informed perspective to fashion storytelling.
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If you scroll through the runway photos of old and new fashion shows, there comes a moment when the silhouettes start to feel strangely familiar. The flashy makeup, the perfectly sculpted hips, the tall hair that seems to have a life of its own. When looking at these “bold” and “boundary-pushing” looks, you suddenly realize where you’ve seen these before: on the last season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
What the fashion industry calls “innovation”, drag queens have been doing in dressing rooms and nightclubs for decades. And while fashion cycles in and out of trends, often at alarming rates, drag has quietly remained a blueprint of queer creativity that designers return to again and again.
Long before gender-fluid fashion became a commercial trend, drag queens (and kings) were already playing with silhouette, proportions, and gender expression. Ballroom shows of the ’70s and ’80s created entire cultures of fashion, building an aesthetic ranging from exaggerated femininity to “executive realness”, with performers competing in categories that celebrated new looks and bold designs.
Renowned designers like Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Vivienne Westwood were not shy about making references to the hyperfeminine and camp looks that drag queens pioneered. Take, for example, Mugler’s empire of cinched waists and sculpted gowns, designs you’d see backstage on show nights. Gaultier’s iconic cone bra and his obsession with playful gender-bending designs all nod to queer nightlife and drag performances. Even Westwood’s punk maximalism mirrors the artistic rebellion drag performers embody every night.
Drag artists build their fashion from fantasy. They create characters, worlds, and narratives unbound by the limitations of traditional designers. That freedom from mass production or trend forecasting allows for ideas that can later be transformed for the runway.
Many of today’s most viral beauty and fashion trends come directly from drag culture. From sculpted makeup to contouring, techniques used by queens for generations are now seen on TikTok beauty influencers worldwide. Maximalism, a trend that mainstream fashion declared “dead”, has finally returned in all its feathery and glittering glory—something that has never left the drag scene. And one of drag’s greatest achievements is the idea that clothing isn’t just about the outfit, it's about the character. With their ability to create stories through their garments, drag queens are able to deliver performances that showcase the heightened beauty of femininity.
In a world where minimalism once dominated the fashion industry, drag was one of the few spaces insisting that more really is more. Now, trends like “brat makeup,” “e-girl,” and “doll-core”
all take a page from the drag queen’s handbook. Even celebrities like Doja Cat and Lil Nas X share similar over-the-top aesthetics. The lines between performer, fashion icon, and drag queen have never felt blurrier.
What was once underground has now become a collaboration pipeline. Drag queens are appearing in campaigns, front rows, and brand partnerships that would’ve been unthinkable 20 years ago. Symone walked for Moschino, becoming an ambassador for fashion houses that once ignored drag queens entirely. Sasha Velour’s partnership with Opening Ceremony brought drag into mainstream fashion storytelling. And Violet Chachki, with her waist-defying silhouettes, has modeled for Prada and Moschino, proving drag can exist not just beside fashion, but within it.
And these aren’t token inclusions. Designers look to queens because drag performers understand both craft and character in ways that transcend traditional modeling. They bring humor, emotion, and visual storytelling that elevate clothes in ways traditional models sometimes can’t.
Drag’s influence on fashion isn’t just aesthetic. It’s emotional, political, and deeply cultural.
As anti-drag legislation rises in several states, drag queens are becoming symbols of creative resistance. Their place in fashion—an industry that directly shapes culture and visibility—reinforces the powerful message that queer artistry is essential.
Campaigns featuring drag artists aren’t just about style, they’re statements of solidarity with queer communities. And fashion, an industry built on rebellion, becomes one of the most powerful platforms for drag’s continued presence.
Youth culture especially understands that drag is not a spectacle, but it is a form of honest self-expression. The generation’s embrace of gender-fluidity, experimental clothing, and expressive makeup is deeply connected to drag’s visibility. Many grew up watching drag queens on YouTube, TikTok, or RuPaul’s Drag Race, learning makeup techniques and style directly from queer creators. To remove drag from the conversation would be to erase one of the most influential sources of creativity the industry has ever seen. Fashion isn’t just about selling clothes anymore, it’s about identity, acceptance, and visibility. Drag helps shape all three.
Fashion often prides itself on being ahead of the curve. But when it comes to creativity, drag queens are the ones setting the pace. They experiment without fear, reinventing what beauty can be, and turning clothing into narrative.
Many of the most memorable fashion moments over the last few decades didn’t begin in studios, but backstage—surrounded by hot lights, sequins and duct tape, with performers transforming themselves into larger-than-life personas.
The runways may continue to shift, but drag remains the original source, a space where beauty, performance, and identity merge in ways that inspire designers and challenge norms. As the industry moves toward a future that values individuality, queerness, and artistic freedom, it’s clear that fashion isn’t leading drag—drag is leading fashion.
