Pop Style Opinionfest: Outer Space Dragstravaganza

Kittens, for this podcast, not only did we spout off on last night RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars (no screencaps yet, but we’re working on it while some tech issues get sorted out), but we also wound up talking about the piss-poor planning by the Project Runway peeps, who scheduled the finale runway show for today, even though no episodes have aired yet for the coming season. This leads us to go off on a slight tangent about New York Fashion Week (which is currently under way). After that, Lorenzo talks about the execrable and ridiculous Finding Prince Charming on LOGO, Tom gives further thoughts on season 2 of Mr. Robot, which has improved dramatically but still has some issues to work out, and then Lo jumps back in to wax rhapsodic about his latest binge-watching obsession, HBO’s The Night Of.

And somewhere in the middle there, leaping off from the “future drag” challenge on RPDR, Tom spent a few minutes paying tribute to William Ware Theiss, the costume designer for the original Star Trek series, which celebrated its half-century mark this week:

On #StarTrek50, remember William Ware Theiss, the gay costume designer who defined the look of the show. #DRAGQUEENS pic.twitter.com/FHDgyRaeLR

— Tom + Lorenzo® (@tomandlorenzo) September 8, 2016

We would have loved a chance to highlight so much of his iconic work, but we don’t have the rights to the pictures, which is why we wound up doing a little mini-tribute on twitter yesterday. If you want more examples of his work, click on the above tweet, which has a bunch of followups. Bottom line: we think it’s important to celebrate the work of a gay man who (rather slyly) brought a clearly mid-century gay aesthetic to one of the most iconic and aesthetically recognizable TV shows of all time. Sadly, we found few tributes to him this week and that makes us a little sad. As we noted in the podcast, very few costume designers get the chance to create looks that become so iconic that people wind up wearing them as costumes for a half-century (and counting). You don’t have to be a Star Trek fan to recognize Lieutenant Uhura (the fabulous Nichelle Nichols) above in her Star Fleet uniform. His costume designs are as iconic and recognizable as Scarlett O’Hara’s drapery dress, Darth Vader’s helmet and Marilyn Monroe’s subway dress. His work has passed into legend and he deserves his due.

So, y’know. The usual melange of opinions, darlings.

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[Photo Credit: CBS Archive – Video Credit: CBS Radio/Play it]

• Pop Style Opinionfest
• RuPaul’s Drag Race
• RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars