The queens of We're Here walk us through their Selma, Del Rio, and Evansville looks
Drag Race alums Shangela, Eureka, and Bob The Drag Queen go in-depth on their jaw-dropping season two looks
As one of television’s most heart-warming and emotionally impactful shows, HBO’s We’re Here offers week after week of tear-jerking episodes about loss, triumph, and queer identity. It also offers looks with a capital L.
Each episode, RuPaul’s Drag Race alums Shangela, Eureka, and Bob The Drag Queen work with their teams to create a themed look representing the small town they’ve invaded, be it Selma, Alabama or Del Rio, Texas. The results are over the top couture creations, all modeled with grace and flair.
As a continuation to the piece we ran a couple of weeks ago in which Bob, Shangela, and Eureka ran us through the first two episodes of season two—Spartanburg, South Carolina and Temecula, California—we’re circling back and focusing on their fashions from the last three episodes—Selma, Del Rio, and Evansville, Indiana. You can watch the whole chat in the video above and we strongly recommend you do that if you’re a fan, but here are a few excerpts.
First up, Eureka, who pulled from John Waters’ Hairspray for this Selma look:
As she tells us in the video above, the entire look was inspired by her desire to do justice to the city, while also talking about how she can work for racial justice:
“The thing about Selma is how was I going to show up and be a support for my sisters as the white person in the group? Let’s be honest, that’s really what it’s like as a white person. How do you show up and still be a support and be an ally without making it too much about yourself? So I just want to make sure it was known on the bag with the Black Lives Matter fist and the queer and trans colors as well.
Also, I always bring a little element of camp to my drag looks, but I didn’t know how to bring camp into this look without being disrespectful. But there is this there’s this phrasing from the Hairspray movie about how, in the ‘60s, there was the checkerboard chick, which was a representation of if you were a black girl that was into white man or a white woman into black men. So it was about interracial love, and they were called checkerboard chicks. So that’s where the black and white checkerboard came from. The buttons are actually made out of checker pieces.”
Next up, Del Rio, Texas, and Shangela’s football-inspired realness:
As she relays in the video above, this look was inspired by her own upbringing in Paris, Texas and her knowledge of the state’s love for football:
“I love the way [designer] Diego [Montoya] and his team put together this leotard for me because those are actual footballs that were cut up, sewn back together and then placed onto the leotard. There’s so many details in this look, whether it’s the rhinestones on the gloves or the lace up knee pads and shin guards. This shoe is Gaga inspired… And the wind would pick up and carry that train of mine back, and I said, ‘Oh, blessed be.’”
Lastly, we swoop up to Evansville, Indiana, where the queens arrived in town just in time for the Fourth Of July parade and produced costumes that were just about as big as the float they rode on. Bob The Drag Queen went Statue Of Liberty-inspired for his fit:
Bob told us that he “was really proud” of his regal white ensemble, saying, “Look, I love my little torch dress. It is hard to keep a white dress clean when you’re a black drag queen covered in makeup, though, so this dress does not get a lot of use.” Well, there’s always next July 4.
New episodes of We’re Here air on HBO and drop on HBO Max every Monday.