Season 4 · Episode 4
Club Kid · model · RuPaul's Emmy-winning designer
Released 24 Jul 2024 · 1:04:50 as a podcast
Every name, club, book, song, night and look from the interview - 122 references and 315 mentions in this episode. Zaldy goes from draping bedsheet gowns as a boy in Connecticut to the LA underground and the Club Kids at the Tunnel. Then Miss Boy Bar (one night only), ten years of twin looks with Mathu Andersen, the alien reveal that won the Love Ball, walking for Mugler, Gaultier and Westwood, the Levi's taxi ad, creating Ru's Supermodel look - and decades of gowns for Ru, three Emmys, Michael Jackson's tour wardrobe and his loafers in a Ziploc. Fabulous!
Long straight black hair parted in the middle, a black sleeveless top with a grey print, and a pencil moustache
A painted botanical mural of tropical plants, with a bird-of-paradise plant beside him
Glitter fabric
Glitter 'looks amazingly expensive in the lights'
Zaldy has dressed Ru for decades - 13 or 14 gowns a season that Ru chooses from, 'like a collection'. They met at La Palais de Beauté
FashionZaldy designs Ru's gowns and jewellery
Heard as “RuPaul / Rue / Ruh / Rupa's”
Zaldy designed his This Is It tour wardrobe and still designs for his shows; the first meeting opened with 'I love the shoes already'
FashionZaldy's tour costumes
Heard as “MJ / Michael Jackson / Michael is one / Michael was doing”
Make-up artist; Zaldy's creative partner - and, Zaldy says, his partner in life - for ten years. Zaldy credits him with bridging fashion and drag and teaching him make-up
FashionMake-up artist
Heard as “Matthew”
Zaldy found 'his people' among them at the Tunnel
Heard as “club kid / club kids”
Zaldy designed her Femme Fatale tour; he remembers walking into rehearsal and hearing her sing a cappella - 'she can really sing'
Heard as “Britney / Brittany”
Art school at Otis Parsons and the LA underground clubs
Heard as “LA / Los Angeles”
Zaldy last saw James at her documentary premiere; she pushed Zaldy and Mathu to dress as twins and took them on gigs around the world
Heard as “Suzanne / Suzanne Barch”
The guest: Club Kid from the Tunnel basement days, model, and three-time Emmy-winning costume designer for RuPaul and Drag Race. Links to his Night Fever episode
FashionCostume and fashion designer
Heard as “Zaldi / Zalt”
Zaldy arrived around 1987-88 and went to FIT
Zaldy found him naughty but charming and magnetic, and says he kept his own boundaries
Heard as “I did love Michael / Michael Elliott / Michael and Michael Tron / first impressions of Michael”
Co-host
Heard as “Barbado / Randy”
Zaldy as a drag queen who shaves her stubble in the back of a cab; a five-day shoot in a closed Times Square, shown in UK cinemas
Heard as “Levi”
Stylist who, with Joshua Jordan, pushed Zaldy into modelling and introduced him to Steven Klein
FashionStylist
Heard as “Sticky Vicky / Vicki / Vicky Victoria Bartlett / sticky vicky”
Zaldy's three Emmys are for his work on the show and its spin-offs
Heard as “Drag Race”
Zaldy lived there for 20 years; Susanne Bartsch is still 'Miss Chelsea Hotel'
Heard as “Chelsea”
Zaldy won in Japanese drag, coached by Perfidia - then declined the reign
Heard as “Miss Boibar / Miss Boy Bar / Miss Holding”
Zaldy walked his show; Mugler drew the look he wanted Zaldy to embody
FashionDesigner Zaldy walked for
Heard as “Muglaire / Terry Mugler”
Glitter 'looks amazingly expensive in the lights'
FashionGlitter fabric
Heard as “Glitter / glitter”
A Club Kid outing Zaldy was on - 'a nightmare', he laughs
Heard as “disco track / disco truck”
Queen at Patricia Field's wig and make-up bar who dressed and coached Zaldy for Miss Boy Bar
FashionWig and make-up artist
Heard as “Perfidia / Profidia”
Susanne's idea: the tall Australian Mathu and 5ft 9 Zaldy dressing alike
FashionMatching twin looks
Heard as “Twin things / be twins / dress alike”
Nude illusion bodysuits with moulded blobs, car-painted like armour; cast faces peeled off to reveal full alien looks
FashionNude illusion bodysuits, cast faces, alien reveal
Heard as “alien looks / human to alien / nude illusion”
Has asked Zaldy for a one-man show
Heard as “Savannah / Scat”
Where Fenton thinks Zaldy's archive belongs
Heard as “Metropolitan / metropolitan”
Sixteen when Zaldy, at 23, was modelling; he did an early i-D shoot with 'the new face'
Stylist of the Levi's ad; looked after Zaldy on his first London modelling trip
FashionStylist
Heard as “Judy Blame / Judy Bland”
Fenton and Randy's company
Zaldy designs costumes for its Michael Jackson show
Heard as “Cirque du So”
Zaldy modelled for him; Paris designers looked at his design book and told him to model
FashionDesigner Zaldy walked for
Heard as “Gaultier / Go TA”
Where Zaldy grew up
Little Zaldy draping and tying sheets into gowns - some, he says, were 'still kind of good'
FashionSheets tied into gowns
Heard as “sheet gowns / sheets from the closet”
Zaldy was in awe of her from the first meeting - 'just always amazing'
Heard as “Amanda”
Club Kid James places in Zaldy's crowd
Heard as “Wallpaper / Walt pa”
With James at the Tunnel when he and Zaldy probably met, James says
Heard as “Julie”
Told the new Miss Boy Bar about her duties for the year - which Zaldy declined
Heard as “Crisis / International Crisis”
Zaldy and Mathu's first big look as James remembers it - red, yellow and blue wigs, feather headdresses, matching corsets; 'Toucan Sam', Zaldy laughs
FashionRed, yellow and blue wigs, feathers, corsets
Heard as “Toucan / red and yellow and blue wigs”
Shot Zaldy's first modelling job, for Interview; Mathu worked with him too
Heard as “Meisel”
Sticky Vicky told him to photograph Zaldy; Mathu worked with him too
Heard as “Stephen Klein”
From blousy 60s looks to catsuits and bodysuits with boots - 'futuristic fashion'
FashionCatsuits, bodysuits and boots
Heard as “camp 60s / cat suits”
A corset look Mugler drew for him, with full nail extensions done in the car-pool to the salon
FashionCorset, nail extensions
Heard as “court sits / fake nails”
On a Susanne Bartsch gig there, Ru asked Zaldy and Mathu to create the Supermodel look
Susanne Bartsch gigs abroad; Zaldy has shoes made there for his stars
Ru's label; the Supermodel video sketch came by fax after a meeting there
Heard as “Tommy Boy”
Zaldy's first job for Michael Jackson
Heard as “farewell tour / this is it tour”
Michael's own dance loafers, handed over so Zaldy's Italian copies would feel worn in
FashionBlack loafers
Heard as “Ziploc”
James's bookstore story about star power you can turn on and off
Heard as “Brad / Brad Pitt”
Zaldy last saw James at its premiere in LA
Heard as “Suzanne's documentary”
13 or 14 new gowns with Zaldy's jewellery, customised shoes and gloves - 'a big Christmas dress-up party'
FashionGowns, handmade jewellery, custom shoes
Heard as “box full of 13”
Where his creative grandmother lived
His dorm was right on it - 'a very lively place' in the 80s
LA underground club of Zaldy's student years
Perfidia worked at her store's wig and make-up bar
Heard as “Pat Field”
Zaldy and Mathu's House of Donna Karan won with a human-to-alien reveal
Heard as “love ball”
His Love Ball house was 'absolutely incredible', Zaldy says - Zaldy's team still won
Heard as “La Chapelle”
Associated with SCAD, which has asked Zaldy for a one-man show
Heard as “Balian Taylor”
Among Zaldy's first stage costumes; he even danced synchronised steps beside her - 'one of the most talented people I've ever worked with'
FashionZaldy's stage costumes
Heard as “Miss Keir”
With Sticky Vicky, got Zaldy his first modelling job
Zaldy's first modelling job, shot by Steven Meisel
Heard as “Interview”
'Mrs. Irving Penn' - part of the vision Mugler drew for Zaldy's look
FashionModel
Heard as “Mrs. Irving Penn”
In the car to the nail salon with Zaldy before the Mugler show
One of the very few drag or trans models of the time, with Zaldy
Heard as “Connie”
A drag queen flirting with the cabbie, then shaving her stubble with an electric razor
FashionDrag look with stubble
Heard as “electric razor”
His first modelling trip, looked after by Judy Blame
Zaldy and Mathu created Ru's look for it - and they're both in the video
Heard as “Supermodel”
Susanne Bartsch's gigs abroad included parties for Giorgio Armani
The video Fenton remembers shooting in 26 green-screen set-ups
Heard as “Back to My Roots”
Home of Zaldy's Cirque du Soleil show MJ ONE
Zaldy's Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas; he's redesigning acts for its tenth anniversary
Heard as “MJ1”
The shoes that opened his first Michael Jackson meeting: 'I love the shoes already'
FashionGold-studded shoes
Heard as “gold-studded”
Pleated gold lamé inset with four other tones of gold and bronze, on a Vanity Fair cover
FashionPleated gold lamé
Heard as “gold lame”
A painted botanical mural of tropical plants, with a bird-of-paradise plant beside him
FashionLong straight black hair parted in the middle, a black sleeveless top with a grey print, and a pencil moustache
His home library, with a microphone in front
FashionA champagne satin blouse with a pussy-bow tie and a chain necklace, and tortoiseshell glasses
A Holy Terror poster and shelves of photo-booth strips and frames
FashionA charcoal cardigan over a blue chambray shirt and black glasses
His room with 70s sunflower wallpaper, a Brillo box on the shelf
FashionA blue-and-white Breton striped top and rimless glasses
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