Trannies: Why every party should have one

Jasmine Gardner
29 Jun 2009

The days of the Gay Best Friend are over — the latest arm candy is the Drag Pal.

These new queens of London have hair, make-up and clothes to outdo their female friends — and those in the know are making drag queens the centrepiece of their summer parties.

The DP is epitomised by performers such as Jodie Harsh, the socialite and DJ who dubs himself “The Real Queen of England” and at the weekend performed twice at Glastonbury.

The names of drag artists such as Daniel Lismore, Jonny Woo, Johnny Blue Eyes, Scottee, Pandemonia and Jodie Harsh have become synonymous with style — just like the celebs who fill their phone books (names such as Kate Moss, Beth Ditto, Amy Winehouse, Agyness Deyn and Lily Allen, to mention but a sparkle).

“I have an entourage of trannies, dress-ups and drag queens who follow me around, and all the celebs love to join in,” says Lismore, who hosts dress-up night Slave to Fashion and considers himself “a piece of pop art” rather than a drag queen.

While Jason Donovan entertains mainstream audiences in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in the West End, drag queens have been gracing every art party — appearing at Tracey Emin's recent launch at White Cube, Mary McCartney's latest photo exhibition and Ben (Vivienne's son) Westwood's show.

Harsh is taking his club night, Circus, to Matter at the O2 on 4 July to tie in with Pride. Later in July, Johnny Blue Eyes, a performance artist and designer who is now a regular feature at London Fashion Week, will perform at the Latitude festival.

With that sort of demand, drag has become big business.

Harsh admits that it has paid for his Hoxton penthouse. “I make a good living out of it,” he says.

Of course, the beauty of the Drag Pal is that he's also a girlfriend and a GBF.

Harsh and Lismore are gay, Blue Eyes generally eschews labels, particularly “gay” with its happy connotations (he says he's been unhappy for much of his life), but does call himself “a big queer”, and the words “he” and “she” are interchangeable.

Harsh concurs: “People can call me he or she or whatever. Gender boundaries are so blurred these days — who needs them? It's what has helped bring drag to the mainstream.”

Along with his comrade Jonny Woo, Harsh names the Bloolips, a New York drag troupe popular in the early 1980s, as an influence. They were causing a stir Stateside at the same time that Paul O'Grady was making it big in London with his character Lily Savage and Julian Clary's make-up daubed comedy was doing the alternative comedy circuit.

“Back in the 1980s, it was all about drag, dressing up and being flamboyant,” says Harsh.

“Now it has come full circle, but it has developed into more than just someone in a ropey wig and bad make-up miming to show tunes. It has become very cool.”

In fact, you don't need to be funny any more to be a drag queen. You don't even need an act.

These days drag is about art and fashion — and pushing the boundaries of both.

“I don't believe in a distinction between women's and men's clothes,” says Johnny Blue Eyes, whose costumes are wild concoctions of metallic face-paints, bondage gear and heels.

“I've thrown the rule book away, I've burnt it and stabbed it with a big knife.”

And while he does away with our preconceptions about fashion, Pandemonia, a performance artist who dresses in head-to-toe latex cartoon outfits with inflatable accessories, sees his work as an art form “that parodies the people in popular culture”.

Each drag queen has his (or her) own, individual style, yet they seem to have a unified message.

Hard times call for hard partying and dressing up.

“The world is a fractured place at the moment,” says Blue Eyes.

“The people who are running our country are taking the piss, but what can we do about it? Dress up and have a party!”

And as Harsh says: “In these drab, dreary times when everyone is broke, isn't it nice to see a little sequin now and then?”