I am:

I’m a drag queen from Hamilton and my drag persona is very much focusing on being myself and a curvy Māori queen here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’ve been doing drag for about two years now. I was on RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under season three, and I was only doing drag at the time for about nine months.

I typically perform all over New Zealand. I mainly do a lot of shows in Auckland, but of course my hometown is Hamilton.

My fashion sense has been shaped by:

In regard to shaping my fashion sense or my drag image, I look up to a lot of brown influential people or women who have paved the way for black or brown excellence, as well as drag queens from the past who have paved the way for people like me to feel accepted in a society that we're in right now.

And that does come a lot from brown performers and looking back at things that I see resemble myself and them.

I think drag fashion has kind of evolved quite nicely in New Zealand now. We're focusing a lot of nightlife, so it is more of a grungy aspect or very edgy in a way, whereas I do believe from the past it's been very glamorous, which it's still now, but I feel like there is a more of a nightlife aspect rolling into what drag is forming in New Zealand at the moment.

My relationship with fashion is:

Fashion is very important to my drag persona because for someone like me, I’m a lot of a bit more of a curvier girl. So, finding costumes is a little bit more difficult. But I make sure that I go along with things that work well for me.

For queens like me, as well as being curvier, I’ve got bigger hips so I need to proportionise, make sure I have bigger boobs so everything else is very fitted, looks good and I'm very confident wearing that sort of stuff too. As someone who is brown, tangata whenua Māori, I do tend to find or pivot my drag persona into something a bit more cultural and making sure that I speak with my fashion rather than speak with my words.

I like to tell a story. My aesthetic is someone who’s confident, who feels beautiful inside and out, and that also just relates to being brown and of the land.

Putting together an outfit/inspiration:

In regard to constructing a look, I tend to do majority of that by just sketching on a piece of paper. Sometimes I could be out and about finding inspiration and jot it down on a napkin but most of the time it's my work being drawn on paper and then passed to designers who I collaborate with quite frequently.

The majority of the time it's a very collaborative work. I think having the ownership over every detail, in the sense of my style is very needed in a way, because you're pretty much wearing what you portray, so you want to make sure that you're selling that look.

When I’m not in drag:

There's a saying that when you're in drag, you feel your most confident. I still feel like that relates to fashion as well. But for me, drag is also your most authentic self. So, if I feel confident wearing something that I'm wearing, I walk out and I still feel like I'm in drag. I think fashion plays a huge role in regard to your looks outside of drag itself.

Portrait by Denise Baynham, 2025.

Audio engineering by Finn Hopley.
Video by Rochelle Ivanson.

Last published January 2026.

This exhibition was created for the New Zealand Fashion Museum for Pride 2026 with support from Britomart Group, Foundation North and The Rule Foundation.