By Brooke Finnerty
River Perrill is one of the eighteen textile and apparel designers showing their collection at the annual Capstone Collection Fashion Show on April 27. In the following interview with University Fashion Group, he reveals details of his upcoming collection “The Grande Reveal.”
BF: Tell me about yourself as an individual and a designer.
RP: I come from a small town, Dickinson, Texas. It’s between Houston and Galveston but most people don’t know it. Back then, I was just always into makeup. I started doing makeup around 2020 and that’s when I started to fall in love with drag, which you see a lot of influence in my collection. So, around 2020 is when I started drag and then I started performing. Last year I performed at Cheer Up Charlie’s, and that’s been really fun.
BF: Tell me about your creative process.
RP: So, when I was starting with like starting ideation for this, I went in a lot of different directions. I was thinking about some weird concept of space cowboy. I was thinking like a garden party, Alice Wonderland type style.
But then I was like, what really makes me me is the fact that I do drag. So, then I knew I wanted to do the collection around drag elements and I just started going through things. I have a lot of fashion books; fashion history books and I went through a lot of my screenshots. I have a lot of screenshots from other drag queens, other designers, and silhouettes I want to pull from. Then I just start sketching, sketching, sketching, and pulling my favorites.
BF: Tell me more about what inspired your collection.
RP: My favorite drag queens are honestly the fashion queens or the camp. You can clearly see this look (Image 1). It’s very camp-like, very fantastical. My name, The Grande Reveal, is inspired by Sasha’s book, “The Big Reveal”. Then the Grande part of Grande Reveal comes from my drag name, Rio Grande. So fusing those two together and then, again, it’s the fashion. Raja, Gigi Goode, Symone, they all just know how to turn a look and they all know how to push the boundaries of what both is fashion and drag. I just really wanted to combine those as well.
BF: Tell me more about your different looks.
RP: So, we can start with this big one (Image 1.) I wanted to do makeup. I do makeup artistry here on campus as part of Spark Magazine, so I knew that’s my favorite. That’s why this is the clothing, and I wanted to do a face. Also, with this color, I was inspired by makeup wipes.
A thing that queens do is that you can print your makeup look onto makeup wipes, and I just love that idea. So, then I was like, what if I make this a makeup wipe dress? Then has the rhinestone eyes and of course, the classic smokey eye. I love a blue eyeshadow. Needed a blue eyeshadow. Blue rhinestones. The lashes, of course, drag queen needs lashes of course. And then the lips are the perfect touch, especially red lipstick. Very classic (Image 2.)
My other favorite one is a nails look that I did here (Image 3.) I’m not going to give all of it away, but these are these nails. I rhinestone each one by myself. It’s 280 nails and about 32,000 rhinestones. I did a lot of work on it but I’m very proud of it. It all dangles and there’s also gloves. It’s very fun because if you’re not wearing nails, you’re not doing drag. So, they’re going to be on a big shoulder piece. Again, working with proportion, and really doing a fun shoulder moment.
My other two looks that I’m also excited about will be inspired by body putting, which is here (Image 4.) So, you have like this fun corset look with the bust pads and the hip pads. Of course, bodies are the beginning of the transformation for any drag queen. And then here we have wigs, so it’s just playing around with hair silhouettes. I love a big drag queen hair wave so of course I had to incorporate that too.
BF: How do you feel about your collection being revealed on the runway?
RP: I’m honestly just really excited to see it. I have not cried this whole time, but I think the moment I see it walking down the runway is when I’m finally going to break down. But of course, happy tears. It just proves to me that I can do it, because like this whole buildup these past three years.
You are working to this moment of being a capstone like collection designer so then you take all the skills and just prove it to yourself. You also prove to family members and friends that this is what you want to do in the world, and this is what you want your future to be.
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