© Steven Cheshire, 2011
Homotopia Festival is now in full swing with events happening across the city up until 1 December.
To help celebrate Homotopia’s 15th birthday we have loaned the inaugural Alternative Miss Liverpool crown. It can be seen in all of its glittery glory in Tales from the city exhibition.
Zoe Graham, ‘Miss Voodou’, was crowned the first ever Alternative Miss Liverpool at The Kazimier on 12 November 2011. The high-spirited pageant was part of the annual festival. 23 people of diverse ages, genders and sexualities took part.
Zoe was presented with the amazing crown specially designed by local milliner Hayley Marsden.
The spectacular winning dress was created by Liverpool dressmaker Thelma Madine and Ryan Edwards, stylist at hair salon Voodou. The dress is now part of National Museums Liverpool’s Decorative Arts collections. A team of eight dressmakers took 300 hours to make the dress over a period of three months. It has 12 petticoats, complete with 1,200 crystals and 250 metres of human hair extensions, all hand dyed and styled by Ryan. It weighs 14 kilos, equivalent to 33 pounds, or about 16 large bags of sugar!
The crown, kindly lent by Homotopia, is displayed alongside a copy of Seen Magazine which reported on the extravagant pageant. You can see them on display until the end of December.
