A Guelph designer is competing in a new reality show dubbed Sew Fierce – the first-ever drag design competition.
The show features eight of the best drag designers across North America competing in design challenges each week, including Guelph’s Missy Morrow.
Along with bragging rights, the winner gets a cash reward of $10,000.
Morrow owned Party Corner, a costume shop where she would sew for stage performers: typically for drag queens, burlesque and theatre, as well as cosplayers.
During the pandemic, people weren’t performing as much, so she closed her store and dove into sewing full-time, hemming pants and replacing coat zippers.
“I don’t mind that stuff. But it’s certainly not creatively satisfying,” she said. “But now that the world is sort of open again, I get to do both.”
While she always wanted to sew, as an “unusually tall person,” she eventually learned out of necessity, because she can’t easily find clothes that fit her.
That became her niche, and she’s leaned into it ever since. She does a lot of work for plus-sized people, queer people and drag queens, from bikinis to non-traditional formal wear.
She hopes her designs encourage people to ignore “the haters.”
“Be yourself, whatever that is, whatever kind of weird you are,” she said. “Everyone should have the ability to wear whatever makes them feel good, regardless of size, gender or anything else.”
While Morrow can make a hot pink ball gown covered in rainbow sequins and fringe for a drag performer, her own style is more unconventional, utilizing materials like barbed wire and taxidermy.
Because of that, she almost didn’t apply to be on the show.
“Because I'm not a traditional drag designer who uses spandex and sparkles and sequins I wasn't sure that the show was the right thing for me,” she said.
She figured if she got on the show at all, she would only be there as “the token weirdo.”
But a friend convinced her to give it a shot, “and it turned out to be a really positive experience. I regret zero things.”
On the first day of shooting, she was told to be waiting camera-ready in her hotel lobby by 7 a.m. While she waited, she spotted another dressed up goth woman and introduced herself, assuming she was also on the show.
That woman turned out to be Dianna DiNoble, a world famous drag designer, Morrow said, and one she spent her teen years idolizing.
“I nearly peed myself when I found out she was there,” she said.
Other designers include Bebe Brunjes, Benjamin Toner, Seven MacLennan-Nobrega, Rich “Gidget Galore” Kuntz and Terrence Henderson. Some have designed costumes for the major events like the Calgary Stampede or star-studded clients like Jennifer Lopez.
“It was a trip honestly to have people like that consider me as an equal, which I think is really, really cool.”
Even so, she couldn’t shake feeling like the odd one out among people in the same line of work.
Everyone showed up with suitcases carefully holding their well-organized sewing supplies, while Morrow unloaded her supplies – including a bag of dead mice – from the garbage bags she brought everything in.
And while some designers had a knack for getting glitter everywhere while they worked, Morrow’s mess was less sparkly and more macabre.
At some point in the show, she was attaching taxidermied weasels to her designs, weasel butts scattered around her on the floor.
“People kept being like, there's a weasel butt on the ground. Why is there a weasel butt on the ground? Missy, clean up your weasel butts.”
She was worried the other designers might be catty, especially because of her differences. But they all turned out to be “really wonderful, lovely human beings,” who she still talks to almost every day, a year after filming.
“We all learned a lot. We all shared a lot of knowledge; we asked each other questions on how things were done and how each of us made certain things. And everybody was very open and honest with their information and very helpful.”
Since in her day-to-day life she can only really make what people ask her for, like gold fringe disco dresses or anime outfits, the show gave her the chance to make “some real weird, creative stuff.”
“It was a really amazing experience all the way around. I'm super glad that I did it,” she said. “And for anybody who's reading this, this is your chance to try the thing that you've been scared of.”
The first episode of Sew Fierce premiered on April 14, and is available to watch here through OutTV. Morrow and Troy Caplan of Troyboy Entertainment will be hosting viewing parties for the subsequent episodes at The Red Papaya. The first event will screen both the first and second episode.
Guest appearances on the show include Evan Clayton, Priyanka, NIQ van der Aa, Spikey Van Dykey, Chad Hurst, Kiki Coe, Stephanie Benadetto and The Villbergs.
Local drag performers Ultra Violet and Anne Tique Doll are also featured on the show as models.
Tickets to the April 26 screening are $10. You can get them here.
