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Terrace’s drag queen plans big for the future

Luna Saffron is already performing in other communities
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Contributed photo Terrace’s own drag queen Luna Saffron backstage last month at the second annual Dude Looks Like a Lady womanless pageant where she was one of the judges.

If you were one of the 600-plus audience members at the second annual womanless pageant a couple of weeks ago, you likely caught a glimpse of Terrace’s own drag queen, Luna Saffron. As a judge of the competition, she was arguably the prettiest of the ‘women’ on stage.

This was the second time she appeared at an event in the city. Her first was the Riverboat Days parade, which included a bright blue truck with a rainbow flag and a waving, platinum-blonde-haired lady in a long white gown.

“That was me in the parade, on Terrace’s first-ever pride truck float,” said Saffron.

Saffron, aka Lane Fisher, has performed several times in Prince George this year, and in Quesnel during the Pride Weekend events.

When not in drag, Fisher works at the hospital as a medical imaging clerk, and may occasionally be found making sandwiches at Subway.

At age 12 or 13, Fisher would make videos on YouTube and says they ended up becoming pretty popular with well over a million views and thousands of subscribers.

“For a few of them, I put on a cheap blonde wig that my mom had laying around and I pretended to be Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift while singing their songs,” said Fisher.

“Unfortunately in junior high, I started getting bullied a lot and made fun of for my videos, so I eventually had enough of it all and deleted all my videos or made them private.

“That’s one of my biggest regrets in life, as I could have made thousands of dollars off of them with ad revenue, and I would probably be in a much different place in my life if I had kept that up, but I’m happy with what I have now, and the things I’ve experienced in my life. I love who I am and I believe in myself, and that’s all I really need to get by.”

Shortly after graduating high school, Fisher got into the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which drag queens would compete for a cash prize and the coveted title of America’s Next Drag Superstar, and binge-watched every season, getting an idea of what being a drag queen is all about.

”I thought it was awesome! The show is a true showcase of a multitude of talents: makeup, fashion design, dancing, singing, acting, comedy, modelling. It’s a super intense competition and I was very inspired by it all. I started getting into makeup a little bit and sharing pictures on the internet,” said Fisher.

One day Foxy De-Rossi, a successful drag queen from Prince George, reached out to Fisher on Twitter and the rest is history.

De-Rossi saw potential in Fisher and decided to take him in as her drag daughter; drag mothers and daughters are a very common thing in drag culture, said Fisher.

“Drag is an expensive hobby to get into and learn, so drag mothers are kind of like mentors which adopt drag daughters to carry on their legacy. She took me shopping and taught me what makeup products I would need and bought me a few outfits, she taught me how to cut a lace front and glue on lashes. She gave me a lot of her own old things, and really got me going,” said Fisher.

“Pretty soon I was well-enveloped in drag culture and the beauty community so I started getting more and more polished with my drag aesthetic. Corseting, padding, gluing crazier things to my face and fingertips.

“I had my first performance at UNBC in February this year. I love drag because it takes a lot of artistic and creative talent to do, as well as a respectable amount of confidence. I do it because people love it. They love to look at me. Every time I dress up I feel like everyone’s gawking at me. And why wouldn’t they? I look fantastic.”

And coming up with the name Luna Saffron was a long time in the making.

Before becoming a drag queen, Fisher was a music producer who made electronic music under the name Luunn – pronounced like Luna except without the a, and said the name was euphonious and represented the tone of his music accurately.

“I’ve always been really fascinated and attracted to the moon and I really like the name Luna,” said Fisher.

“When I started doing drag, I knew I wanted to be named Luna, because I was already very fond of the name Luunn, so I just added the a back.”

Saffron arose from a couple of things: one being that Fisher has been very much into Pokemon for most of his life, and as a kid owned a VHS tape of an episode of Pokemon where the characters battle the Saffron City gym leader, Sabrina, who was psychic and had this super cool and powerful attitude that Fisher really admired.

“Saffron is also a very sacred colour in Hinduism, which is the religion I identify with. All these factors made Saffron seem right to me. I like how Luna and Saffron sounded together and so that’s how I thought of my name,” said Fisher.

From here, Fisher’s goal is to move somewhere like Vancouver and do shows every week, start getting booked for shows in the U.S., and then compete in RuPaul’s Drag Race.

“After doing that I should be set for life. I can do everything I ever wanted to do. Life is short so you have to be ambitious and try your best to get what you really want.”

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Luna Saffron Contributed photo