[Portrait to be found in the autumn issue of the magazine, at your newsstand or by subscription.] A fashion designer before becoming a drag queen, Malawitte blends in her spectacular silhouettes ballroom culture, thrifted garments and handmade pieces, until Drag Race France becomes her new runway.
Before making waves in season 4 of Drag Race France, Camille, aka Malawitte, sketched silhouettes in her notebooks and played La Maison du style on her Nintendo DS. In her room, Harumika figurines, Bratz dolls and Polly Pocket figures already served as her models. At 26, the shy little girl from Picardy has learned to take up space. A lot of space.
Born to a father who is an engineer and a mother who teaches zumba, Camille grows up in Compiègne (Oise), in a home open to culture and the arts. She thus remembers fashion shows watched as a family on television. With a science baccalaureate in hand and no clear plan, she takes up sewing to bring to life the silhouettes she imagines on paper. At 18, the young woman enters the École supérieure des arts et métiers de la mode (Esmod). “I felt that all dreams were possible in Paris. That here, nothing had limits.” There she hones her technique for three years, but the one who looks toward Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen quickly feels cramped in a training she deems too conventional. It did not interest her in being a little hand at Chanel.
Graduating at 21, she joins Relique Paris, a thrift shop specializing in 1970s secondhand fashion. In parallel, she devours the seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. More than the competition, it is the freedom of transformation offered by makeup, clothes and performance that fascinates her.
But it is in Milan that the pieces truly begin to come together. She goes there to pursue training in fashion management and broaden her creative horizons; she discovers the queer milieu, then the drag and ballroom scenes. In this world where fashion, identity and performance merge, she participates in balls wearing her own creations. Her signature mark already appears: oversized hats. A very literal way, for this naturally shy person, to become impossible to ignore. “I needed to take up space because I was very reserved. The hairstyle and hats were my way of telling people: ‘I am here, look at me!'”, she explains. When curious people ask where her outfits come from, the answer is a few words: “I made it.”
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Her craftsmanship begins to circulate. The first orders arrive, then the House of Gorgeous Gucci takes her under its wing and introduces her to drag. Malawitte distinguishes herself in the categories fashion killa, lip-sync and runway. As the character takes shape, Camille also finds her place in the queer community and comes out as a lesbian.
Back in Paris, she works as a sales associate in a ready-to-wear shop, while continuing this double life as performer and designer. She joins the French branch of the House of Gucci as a fashion designer, performs on open stages, and makes outfits for drag queen friends, such as Le Filip and Moon, or the singer Sam Quealy. Then TikTok suddenly broadens her podium. Malawitte shares her spectacular silhouettes there, which she herself stages in lip-sync to current tracks. The videos quickly rack up thousands of views. “People started recognizing my signature,” she smiles.
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Sophie Brennan