Lucy Fur – one of the Dianas of the drag collective the International League of Dianas, co-host of Hey Mary, and general shouty Welsh drag artist – has recently been working on 101 Looks: My Big Fat Summer of Drag. Putting the artist in drag artist.
Taking inspiration from television shows, films, people in the public eye and even her fellow drag artists, Fur embarked on this project to challenge herself creatively. Admitting that her drag had become somewhat stagnant, that she had so many ideas but no opportunity to do them, so she decided to do 100 looks: “I started writing them down and ended up with about 120/130 so I whittled them down and ended up with 101. I chose looks that really show who I am as a queen, as a comedian and as a person”. Themes have ranged from clowns, the Wizard of Oz and other films, idols and looks based on her fellow drag artist friends.
There have been many …Days of Drag pieces online, so why should we take notice of another one? Well apart from supporting a local artist, every drag artist is different. For Fur the project is “also really personal, all these looks are very close to my heart and have a meaning to me. And if that doesn’t convince people then they should look at mine because I look fucking amazing and I get my tits out a lot!” Her makeup skills are self-taught and she has a DIY approach to costumes – “I make a lot of the it myself, but I also just buy things cheap on eBay and add to them to make them look cooler”; she also provides some background on the looks or a skewed back-story such as her take on the tale of The Wizard of Oz.
A mixture of the temporary nature of live work and the politics of the drag scene resulted in Fur’s decision to work more online. While she does still perform at live gigs, Lucy likes the permanence of doing things online, “if I do a really funny video it’s there forever, I can revisit it, I can send it to my friends”.
With drag being inherently political, some of Lucy’s 101 looks have been politically aware – her ‘newspapers dress’ look was reported on by The South Wales Argus, the dress was made up of old copies of the paper as a statement on recycling and to celebrate The Argus‘s 125th Anniversary. A big recycler, Fur is passionate about the environment and even did one look as Pippa Bartolotti, the head of the Green Party in Wales.
Fur says a lot of her looks are statements on something going on in society, but she didn’t consciously think “I’m going out of my way to make a political statement, I’m just being me and doing looks based off things I think”.
Which look has taken her the longest? “A normal face takes me about an hour and a half to two hours, I did The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962 B-movie) in 40 minutes and I was really impressed with myself. The pretty makeup takes me longer, like the Felix (Felix Love, fellow Cardiff Queen) one seemed to take a while because I’m not used to doing soft makeup, that bitch knows how to paint and it’s hard to replicate!”
What’s her favourite look? “I couldn’t pick a favourite… but if I had to it would be between Yzma (from Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove), the Virgin Mary, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and Slappy the Dummy (from Goosebumps).”
Check out all of Lucy’s 101 looks on her Instagram
See her and the other Dianas at Hey Mary every first Friday of the month, at The Big Top (above 10 Feet Tall). The Dianas also have a big show coming in October at the Newbridge Memo.
