The 5 Best High-Fashion References on RuPaul’s Drag Race

In September 1998, fashion editors and glittering models stepped into a giant storage warehouse that usually held street cleaning trucks. It was the late genius Alexander McQueen’s 13th collection, a spring/summer show that elevated a runway presentation into performance art thanks to its unforgettable finale. Shalom Harlow (and her incredible centre of gravity) appeared on a spinning platform wearing a white paper poof of a dress, while paint-wielding robots sprung to life and spit graffiti all over the supermodel’s dress. It was shocking, it was gorgeous, it was camp, it was everything.

In 2018, Sarah Paulson’s acid green Prada gown made a splashy reception at the star-studded Oceans 8 red carpet premiere. The dress was so mythically good, it made Rihanna furious that she wasn’t the one wearing it. “I almost made you give me that dress on the spot,” Rihanna told Paulson during an interview with The Cut. “I was staring at you, like, ‘I am actually mad at this b*tch. Why is she wearing that?'”

Thanks to their often-campy aesthetic, high fashion designers Viktor & Rolf are clear targets for referential homages from drag queens. Their fall/winter runway show in 2005 featured a look that was, quite honestly, 15 years ahead of its time. During the show, the duo sent a surreal, standing sleeping beauty down the runway, wearing a coat fashioned from a duvet and a pillow perched behind her head. To be quite honest, it’s quite the perfect work-from-home look.

In 1990, Vivienne Westwood made an iconic move with her now-legendary Portrait Collection. The show was inspired by François Boucher’s 18th-century painting “Daphnis and Chloe, Shepherd Watching a Sleeping Shepherdess.” Westwood took the painting and digitally printed it on corsets, however these pieces were rendered in lycra and polyester — allowing a new level of liberation for the wearer of the traditionally confining garment.

Westwood’s 1990 runway sent supermodels giggling and kissing down the runway wearing ropes of pearls and velvet chokers along with the modern, digitally printed corsets. The entire show was so beautiful and impactful that most vintage dealers consider it the Holy Grail of fashion finds, with corsets from the collection selling up to $10,000.

For Paris fashion week in 2018, Comme des Garçons brought a bright and joyful spring/summer collection down the runway. The overstuffed, oversized looks from the brilliant Rei Kawakubo included teased hair loaded with stuffed toys, heels made to look like high tops and a particularly show-stopping piece of manga couture.

Fast forward to 2020 when the absolutely gorgeous Rock M. Sakura stomped the runway with her version of Kawakubo’s centerpiece. After the show, Sakura took to Instagram to assure us that, yes, the match was intentional. “When we were asked to do a spring themed runway I immediately thought of Macoto Takahashi’s work that was featured in Comme De Garcons 2018 Spring-Summer collection. I have always been inspired by both fashion and manga art and it was the logical way for me to go.”