‘drag race’ met wbb & michelle visage’s blazer looked very familiar

I tracked down her stylist to ask a very important question.

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Today’s newsletter is jam packed: I tracked down Michelle Visage’s stylist to ask a very important question about her wardrobe in the most recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars; the NWSL is increasingly “Unwell” after a disastrous showing from the league’s commissioner in San Jose this past weekend; and a lot of news and reading to catch up on—including some thoughts on Dave Portnoy’s newfound WNBA fandom. But first…

Housekeeping

• ICYMI, I wrote for Xtra about whether women’s sports can grow in an ethical way

• This Wednesday, May 22nd, is our next Out of Your League book club discussion. The event is open to paid subscribers and we’ll be chatting with Mike De Socio about his book Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ+ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts—and America. You can find out more and register for the event here.

• On June 4th, I’ll be moderating a “Women in Sports” panel at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition. The panel features

  Maggie Mertens
  ,
  Christine Yu
  , Letisha Brown, and Katie Steele. RSVP at the event page.

• On June 18th, I’ll be in conversation with

  Mac Crane
  at All She Wrote Books. We’ll be talking about Mac’s new coming of age queer basketball novel, A Sharp Endless Need. (The book is great and received a rave review in the New York Times from
  Casey McQuiston
  !) Buy tickets here.

• And in case you haven’t joined our paid subscriber Discord yet, what are you waiting for? There will be an updated link at the bottom of this post. And if you don’t believe me that it’s a great space, here’s a testimonial from one of the members:

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Now, onto the show:

‘drag race’ met wbb & michelle visage’s blazer looked very familiar

On this week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10, drag and sports collided. Episode 3 featured a makeover challenge and the subjects were NCAA women’s basketball players—UCLA’s Lauren Betts, SDSU’s Abby Prohaska, Loyala Marymount’s Maya Hernandez, UC Irvine’s Hunter Hernandez and Nevaeh Dean, and USC’s Talia Von Oelhoffen.

Irene the Alien and Hunter Hernandez

Bosco and Lauren Betts

I loved this episode for a lot of reasons—I think that gay male and gay male-adjacent culture often forgets about sports, but especially women’s sports. And whether or not they brought these athletes on expecting them to be more masculine and therefore uncomfortable in high-femme drag, for the most part these were feminine-presenting women who regularly work against their own stereotypes when it comes to sports.

It was also really cool to see the queens reflect on their own experiences with gender stereotyping, and finding points of commonality with the way womanhood is policed for both cis and trans women.

“It’s interesting to hear the basketball players talk about their struggle being seen as masculine because, as a trans woman, I feel sometimes like I always have to be hyperfeminine,” Aja said in a confessional interview. “If you don’t fit that, it’s sort of like you’re less-than. There’s no correct way to be a woman—just be a woman.”

But the real reason we are discussing this episode is because of Michelle Visage’s outfit on the judging panel.

Does this blazer look familiar? It’s the “Denny” suit by Alice + Olivia and it made a huge splash in the world of women’s sports last year. Cathy Englebert and Becky Hammon both wore it on WNBA opening day last season; Adia Barnes wore it on the sidelines while coaching against USC, and Carli Lloyd wore it on a soccer broadcast. Glamour investigated this trend and found that all four women purchased the blazer independently, which is wild.

via Glamour

I was dying to know whether putting Michelle Visage in that suit for the women’s basketball episode was an intentional reference, or if it was just a random coincidence. And because I’m asking all the most important questions and providing you with hard-hitting journalism, I tracked down Michelle’s stylist, Art Conn, to ask.

“To the best of my recollection, I think it must have been purely coincidental or a subconscious choice on our part,” Conn told me via Instagram DM. “I think we loved the power of the suit and femininity of the florals. I’m not consciously aware of its icon status [in the women’s sports world].”

Now we know! A happy accident!

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the nwsl is Unwell

Saturday was the first NWSL x Unwell FC event with Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy fame and BOY HOWDY was it embarrassing for the league.