See the New Cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race Recreate Mugler Looks

It was a quiet afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum in New York last Thursday as small crowds made their way through the new Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition, which opened in November. Or rather, it was quiet until the new cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race showed up. Taking in the late designer’s masterful, sculptural designs, the new crop of drag queens—who made their season 15 debut this week—took a fashion field trip out to the new showcase. All 16 of them wore Mugler-inspired looks for the occasion, causing a stir. The patrons around them went wild—snapping selfies with them with glee.

It was certainly a surprise cameo for the museum and its guests, though it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the new cast of Drag Race made time in their busy press schedule to take in this exhibit. “The art of transformation is what connects drag and Mugler together,” says Marion Bourdée, Mugler’s head of archives, who walked the queens through the exhibition. “When you dress in Mugler, you become a supercharged version of yourself that is strong and confident.”

As the queens perused the museum’s expansive  retrospective—which features over 100 striking Mugler creations from the 1970s through the 1990s—some of the queens chose to recreate iconic runway looks. The beaded red ensemble worn by Mistress Isabelle Brooks—resplendent with a fitted bustier, chaps, and cowboy hat—was a dead-ringer for the same rodeo getup in the designer’s spring 1992 collection. “This piece is custom made by hand and took over 500 hours of work to complete,” said Brooks. Others wore vintage Mugler frocks, such as Luxx Noir London, who rocked a saucy skirt suit from fall 1989. “This look is a signature Theirry Mugler silhouette, and one of my favorites,” says London.

Vogue caught up with all of the queens below to get the lowdown on how their distinctive drag looks channeled Mugler, and how the designer continues to inspire. Sasha Colby says, “What I love about Mr. Mugler’s designs is that it always captures the strength of a woman. A woman who is sensual, strong, and otherworldly, which really resonates with my drag.” Princess Poppy adds, “Modern drag wouldn’t look like what it does today without the genius of Mugler. Be it the unbelievably small waist, or the perfectly tailored lines accentuating the beauty of the female body—it’s a wearable piece of art. Mugler is drag.”