Violet Chachki

“When I was smelling Heretic for the first time, I was impressed because it was organic-smelling and light and refreshing and natural and not overbearing at all and not too synthetic or floral. It doesn't smell like you're wearing cotton candy.”

“Being a drag superstar, traveling the world and touring, it really is not as glamorous as you'd think it is. There's lots of airport drama and bags and buses and hotels. Dating and having a social life are impossible.”

“I'm from Atlanta, which is the capital of drag, so very competitive. For my first booking in 2011 I was paid $35, I did three performances and a call back so that's four looks.”

“Every old Hollywood starlet would sing in movies, there'd always be some big dance sequence. Think of Marilyn Monroe singing 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.'”

“I've traveled to the most glamorous places in the world, the biggest capitals of culture, and I've traveled to the biggest fuddy-duddy, slum life nowheresvilles... so I've seen a ton of stuff. I've been physically attacked at a McDonald's in Perth, Australia, in full drag.”

“To the fashion world, a man in a dress will always be camp. But in the drag world, you have specific genres. So for me, for instance, I'm most categorized as a 'look queen.'”

“I'm like a cross between Bettie Page and Lady Miss Kier but a guy.”

“If you were supposed to be a drag queen, and that's what you wanted to do, you'd be doing it already, you wouldn't be in my DMs asking me how to do so. When I started I was ugly, but I didn't think I was ugly. You have to not dream it, but be it - that's it.”

“I've always been inspired by strong, confident, powerful women.”

“For me, makeup will always be about glamour, fantasy, and escapism!”

“I think I always knew aesthetically what excited me the most, and I think I was always looking for that aesthetic in other people and it didn't really happen. I decided to take it upon myself to be the change I wanted to see in nightlife.”

“I love burlesque. I'm a decent aerialist. I think I set myself apart visually.”

“I vividly remember hearing the car pull into the driveway and looking into the mirror on my mom's vanity with a face full of makeup and the counter below me a mess; it sent me into complete panic mode. From there, I would steal bits of makeup where I could to start my own little collection and play in my bedroom with the door locked.”

“Drag is all about taking references, taking pop culture and flipping it on its head.”

“For me and my drag, I think camp is about exaggeration and artifice and the celebration of superficiality. A lot of my fans look up to me as a figure of femininity but that's all artifice. That's all fake and that's campy within itself, and so that's what resonates to me: the seriousness and the funniness and the artifice and the exaggeration.”

“It's probably the best feeling ever, taking off your corset after a long night.”

“There's nothing I love more than admiring the details and embellishments on the works of art that I wear.”

“I've always been interested in androgyny and a lot of my work explores gender identity.”

“I just love glamour so any time period that had a lot of excess and glamour, I draw inspiration from. All the stuff from the 60s and 70s, very specific times in the 80s.”

“My solo show, 'A Lot More Me,' is part drag show, part burlesque show, part circus show, and part fashion show.”