Wednesday, May 13 2009, 17:33

A tale of shaved legs and fake boobs

On Sunday evening, there was still a trail of baby blue and lilac feathers between the lift and our front door, the external aftermath of John's Glama birthday party. Inside, it was much worse - champagne bottles, discarded eyelashes, more feathers, glitter, false nails, lippy-kissed wine glasses, and everywhere - absolutely everywhere - sequins and beads originating from Marcia's rustly black dress...
But I've jumped in at the end again.

John has been mooting the idea of a drag party for some time, so it was inevitable that he was going to one day come good on this idea/threat, and that day was last Saturday. Themed 'glama', he invited guests to think Zsa Zsa, Posh & Becks, Alexis and the Colbys; to channel Audrey Hepburn, James Bond, Diana Ross, or even Barbara Cartland. That was the easy part - assembling our own costumes proved substantially more vexatious, and involved several weekends trawling second hand, vintage, and $2 stores, and Paddy's Markets, home of the varied, the gaudy, and above all - the cheap.

I was initially going to go with an alternate persona of Tawdry Hepburn, but Mikey and Nicola persuaded me that Pam Ann (or Pam Man in my case) might be more fun; after a lunchtime of trying on dresses in the Salvation Army shop (most of which wouldn't zip up past my lower back), I emerged with a simple, short navy dress for a bargain $7 and a fall-back elegant black Tawdry dress for $10. John was going in for much more glam and ordered a considerably pricier (and prettier) slutty geisha kimono from an adult lingerie website. We had some funny moments in Paddy's: helping Chris select his slinky black and pink peacock gown; disagreeing over what kind of airhead blonde wig didn't make Tim look like a long-haired rocker; mistakenly asking questions of random Asian ladies who didn't work there; titillating ladies who did work there by enquiring over the best tights to conceal our hairy legs; and trying on pretty floral bras to hold our water-filled rubber boobs.

Obviously no drag queen shopping exercise in Sydney would be complete without a visit to the House of Priscilla, the ritzy, kitschy, bedazzling emporium bursting at the sequinned seams with man-sized eye-watering gowns, crazy ostrich feather headdresses, wigs, boots, stilettos, drag make-up... in short, the secrets of turning humble men into statuesque queens. I emerged with a pair of knee-high white leather platform boots, a wig, and some cabin crew accessories.

By the way - the first moral of this experience is that girls have infinitely more variety and fun when clothes shopping!

Of course, clothes alone do not a convincing tranny make. Cosmetics are paramount, and to this end, we enlisted Erin, Nicola, Wayne, and Lewis to transform us from the masculine hunks that we are (ahem) to simpering feminine beauties. Erin and Nicola gave us a dry run the week before, which gave us our eventual direction; Wayne supplied some additional products and tips on making our bushy manbrows invisible; finally Lewis came round on the night and, with previous experience of making up both a Pam Ann-alike and a Kylie-stylee geisha, spent several hours on the pair of us, before dashing off to another party.

Many thanks go out to Matt & Mark also, who came round the night before and helped me, John, and Chris rearrange our apartment, string lights all over, and dangle disco balls and stars from every light fitting, while I got stuck into the canapés, John arranged flowers, and Chris worked some iTunes wizardry into a suitable playlist. You can probably smell the glama already, can't you?

By this time, the party had been going on in our heads for weeks and I must confess the shopping, provisions, and rehearsals for the party were almost as much fun as the night itself. As luck would have it, Lewis was still transforming me into a beautiful airline hostess when the guests started to arrive (we were partially and painfully delayed by gluing my eyelids together with eyelash adhesive - ah! the travails of the modern woman!). Before too many people had arrived, I had stuffed myself into my outfit, shoved my rubber tits into my bra, stockinged, booted, belted and scarfed myself, while Lewis arranged my wig into something suitably OTT. John was already unrecognisable in fishnets, strumpet kimono, and a large geisha wig from which dangled flowers, butterflies, glowing chinese lanterns and the obligatory enamelled chopsticks (I'm not entirely sure there weren't some Japanese monkeys and entire cherry blossom trees arranged in there somewhere as well). A hairy-legged Patsy (from Absolutely Fabulous) complete with enormous beehive had replaced Chris. Chris McGillivray had metamorphosed into a size 8 confection in black and pink, Tim was a pink beauty queen/amazon, Matt W a busty burlesque chick in a basque, James and Marty came as fairy tale princess and prince charming. Tony, Pete, Chris, and Matt/Martyn were flashy in black tie with wings and Venetian masks; Nicola came as Cleopatra, Bryan as George Clooney, Erin and David in 1940s chic, David A as an unshaven Snow White, Matt & Mark came as plastic surgeons armed with Botox and Parallox, and Dan came as a red carpet. I had to double take for three lovely "ladies"... Anita Visa (Wayne), Steph Lococcus (Johnny) and Marcia (Mark) were almost unrecognisable, very glamorous and scarily dragtastic.

The second moral of this experience is that I'm SO glad I'm not 1) a girl who has to shop for, buy, and cake herself in all of this slap, and then scrape it all off at the end before it starts to dribble off my face; 2) a straight guy who dates someone wearing what is essentially a mask designed to conceal and upgrade the real face - a mask which might rub off on me or my pillows!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was all très glam. Champers and smoked salmon nibbly things. You get the picture. And if you don't, email me for some photos ;)