Thrillist: What is your favorite travel memory?
Sasha Velour: There’s something new every year. I feel like this year, a favorite memory was going to Brussels on my second ever tour called “The Big Reveal.” I had gotten to know some Belgian drag queens, including some of the people who were on Drag Race Belgique, and they took us out to see a drag cabaret at Cabaret Mademoiselle. Then we all got matching tattoos, went shopping, and tried waffles of course, because I’m a basic American and we were in Belgium. That was such a blessed, perfect day off.
How do you prepare differently when travelling for yourself versus when travelling for drag?
When people see me at the airport, they assume I am moving somewhere and have all of the stuff I own with me. It’s a grotesque amount of things. As a result, my personal stuff I can pack light. Two looks and a bag of underwear and socks, I can stretch that out for a month with some cute jewelry to make it exciting. With drag, you basically are traveling with an entire theater supply in suitcases and boxes. I bring tools. I bring a handheld steamer. I sometimes travel with lighting equipment just to make sure that everything is right. I feel like one of the fun things about drag is that you really are getting your hands dirty and making things yourself. You have to know about all these different departments and bring a lot of stuff with you.
Besides New York, what is your favorite city to perform in?
Oh, I can’t choose. I’ve really loved going to Paris — going to the Folies Bergère and looking in Josephine Baker’s personal backstage changing mirror. I also feel like those audiences really get drag and know how to be loud and love it. San Francisco has been really fun. I’m really sad that Oasis Nightclub is closing this year. That’s been one of my favorites. It’s one of the only clubs that’s run by drag performers, so they have everything just right backstage and the experience is really great, so that’s going to be a big loss. But I still love San Francisco. I was born in the Bay Area and got to do my show there at Berkeley Rep in the East Bay, and it was great.
You mentioned when you were in Paris, the fans were particularly loud. How have you seen drag fans differ from city to city?
Some places don’t have a screaming culture. I did really enjoy going to Scandinavia, but that was a quieter audience. I feel like I can’t give my all unless I’m getting a little kind of crazed energy from the audience. I like it as a two-way street. In theater, there is more of an invisible wall between me and them. I feel like I’m staring at them, I see their faces, I want them to be looking happy and screaming me on. That’s part of a fantasy.
Thankfully, sometimes it can be fueling if they’re not giving you enough of a reaction. You’re like, “Okay, well I’ll give you even more.”
Are there any dream cities you want to perform in?
I’ve always wanted to go to Cape Town and to Tokyo. I know there are such rich drag traditions in those cities and I’ve never been to South Africa or Japan. Those are places I’ve always dreamed of for a long time. I’ve also been saying Puerto Rico. I know there’s incredible queer culture there.
What is the one thing you always do in every place that you travel to?
I buy a really tacky and, if possible, sexual magnet. I have a growing collection on my fridge. My dad actually has started buying me them as gifts and I told him if he doesn’t feel embarrassed purchasing it, then it’s not the right magnet for my fridge. I have some great ones.
There is one from Venice that is a completely naked canal boatman with a very tiny hat. That one’s great. There’s a headless torso with dangly legs that you can flip upside down from Hamburg that I adore.
How often do you travel just for yourself?
Almost never. Once a year I’ll go somewhere. But I enjoy getting to travel for work and I always will take at least an afternoon to go for a really long walk and explore. I often travel with my dog, which forces me to get out of the dressing room, go see the city, sniff the air, and piss on something.
What is your favorite way to pass time on a plane or on a tour bus?
On a tour bus? We love doing witchy card pulling activities. One of my crew members, Zoe Ziegfeld, who’s a burlesque performer, has this eighties angel oracle deck where everyone pulls a word and then you have to interpret it. I recently got into this Edward Gorey Fantod deck. It’s his take on tarot, but it’s only terrible things. So I feel like it’s perfect for catastrophic thinkers because you’re like, “okay, what’s the day going to hold?” And it’s minor inconveniences to outright life-ruining disasters, but either way it kind of wakes you up. You get ready for dinner or whatever’s going to happen that day.
When traveling for drag, what are some things you absolutely cannot be without?
I use the Riki LightUp mirror, the Riki Skinny travel mirror with its carrying case. It’s the only thing I have used consistently the entire time I’ve done drag. It makes every horrible makeup situation survivable. A concrete basement with beer kegs as my only table? No problem. A catering hall with the smell of chafing dishes and overhead lighting only? I can make it work as long as I have my mirror.
There’s this soap called Fels-Naptha that can clean makeup out of every garment. All you need is hot water and this crazy soap. And I was shopping in the garment district in Manhattan and this ancient seamstress came out from the shadows of the neoprene spandex corner and was like, “This is the soap, you need to clean this.” So it was a secret passed to me by the grandmas of the costuming world. So I follow that very religiously.
And the other thing I always bring is a handheld steamer. Irons, they usually have, but they never have a steamer. You can use it on your wigs, on your tassels, on meet-and-greet backdrops, and definitely on all of the nice fabric of a drag costume.
What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever tried to take with you through airport security?
I had a headpiece that had animal bones all over it, and I did try to bring it, well, I succeeded in bringing it across an international border, but I said they were 3D printed. But I learned at that moment that maybe animal remains are not something that needs to be part of costumes that I’m going to be traveling internationally with because it was a concern.
I think I have more questions.
It was a gorgeous headpiece, gigantic in a box. I also tried to bring it as a carry-on. I hadn’t yet mastered the art of carefully packing things in boxes that then you check, which is the way to do it with any oversized costumes. So I insisted on bringing it as a carry-on because I was sure they were going to break it. TSA had to open it and search it. It was this giant white headpiece covered in these gorgeous bird bones. But actually it was really tragic. It was my first ever headpiece made by Diego Montoya—who I’ve worked with a bunch of times—and I didn’t pay my bill at a storage unit in Brooklyn and they destroyed it. So pay your bills.
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