I who have died am alive again today and this is the son's birthday.

This is the birthday of life and of love and of wings and of the great happening of miraculous earth.

Mhm Yeah, I and Doc Dermer the eight aka chad curry by D.

J.

I perform.

I am about light and love and life and breath and to be able to inject that into a community is absolutely incredible.

Today we will be doing a white and black look and I will be using a lot of metal and armor to adorn my face.

My first step to getting ready is I always shave my head.

I shaved my eyebrows.

The stage I met now is eye cream.

And so I'm going to follow up with a very light moisturizer and just seeing all these lines and my eye socket has been broken several times.

All the scars where my face has been sewn back together to give those moisture and water and life.

It's, it reminds me every day how lucky we are to be alive.

Going to move on to some primer.

A miracle serum.

I was born in a place called normal Illinois.

I was born into a very religious family.

Was quite confusing for me as a child.

When you learn early on that you are not the child or the sun that your father was hoping for.

This all american sports hero, not being athletic or the tone of my voice, it makes me weak or a faggot or all of these things started affecting my mental health.

And one thing that kept me alive was the desire just to be happy at all costs ready to go for one of my favorite steps and that is the foundation.

This process will actually be two different colors.

I use an off white which will be first and then over the top will be a white white.

From normal, we migrated to Dallas texas when I was 16, 17, I would go into a record store and I remember there was a culture club poster and the dead or alive poster and I managed to chop lift them and put one in each pant leg and I put it between my mattress and just knowing it was there gave me so much life and felt like I was, I was like this, this is it.

It just made sense.

Mm So in my teenage years at my baptist school, you know, I was really starting to express myself and dressing more punk and new wave and always breaking the dress code.

Around 18 or 19 I went to my first new wave club and just everything just started happening so fast because I feel like I was shackled in this holy bubble and not being able to be true to who I was.

It also put me in quite a challenged headspace.

I think there was so much I needed to get out.

I call it the school of hard knocks.

And now I moved from the off white to the very white foundation which will go over top.

So at some point in my journey, I moved to new york working full time with rick Owens which was a life changer for me.

The rig store elevated me into a very visible position and my look then I was very, very white of course, long black hair shaved in the back.

My image became very, very known and now I am going to be dousing myself with a lot of powder.

Mhm And this is another setting power.

It's shimmering white.

Of course new york had incredible party.

There's Susan Marsh Amanda Lepore.

Lady fag in fashion parties as well.

Was quite an extraordinary scene.

The party that I was doing none was kind of an underground movement.

It was an amazing time in my life.

I was also fading in and out of drug abuse.

So I think new york made me who I am.

It's a big part of my life.

Now the base layer is set.

I will be doing some highlighting around the eye.

It just brings the eyes out, makes them more dimensional.

The next stage is another one of my favorite stages and that is contour.

These are a light purple and beige and then a deep grey.

I like everything very tonal.

So leaving new york, I went to antwerp to work for designers against AIDS.

I've never been out of the states before, which is just unthinkable.

The night before I came abroad, I got attacked and was beaten pretty severely wound up in the hospital and broke my nose in two places, broke my eye socket, had to have my face sewn back together and to get on that airplane was probably one of the hardest things that I've ever done.

It was a turning point in my life.

I healed.

I stayed in antwerp for about five months and when I came to London on an overnight bus from antwerp, when I stepped on London soil, I felt like I had arrived.

So now I'll be applying liquid liner to my eyes.

The shape today we're doing is very warrior with a cut crease.

Mhm You know, the first year uh, in London and really establishing myself in meeting the community and I found my place pretty quickly.

I was learning to DJ, which was my bread and butter in London.

I feel like my DJ sets are very performative.

It's when I feel alive, it's when I get to put everything every ounce of me into performance.

I started pushing the envelope and doing different looks and just started using bandages and connecting wires to my face for a lot of duct tape, which I would use in my clothes.

You know, they say no pain, no gain.

I was in the A and E quite a bit from having fashion emergencies because I was doing things to myself through the looks that were quite harmful to the body, Just blending shadowing the bottom of the eye.

Now to emphasise the I even more and make it really big and dramatic.

We will shadow the top.

Next are the lines and the swirls and all of the amazing things that my dear friend and partner in crime Anastasia will be helping me going to be an extra set of arms for me today, we met at L A MosCA About nine years, 8, 9 years ago and it was just one of these moments of immediacy where I felt I had met a kindred spirit, I was absolutely an or because I come from a small country and I've never seen anyone like that to walk around in daylight, so bravely would just showing everyone who they genuinely are because it wasn't him wearing a costume, it was just him being him and it was immediately drawn to him.

So, my peeps, my people and community in London are solely based in the nightlife and the underground scene in chaos.

London is not just a techno club, it is really a cohesive statement of what the human condition is all about, and meeting these amazing young creatures and individuals that are so beautiful and learning about them and being mother in the scene, or people referring me to mother means the world to me, and I would not be sitting here if it wasn't for this community constantly supporting me.

I think it's so important to give them the respect that they need to give them the respect that they deserve and to learn from them the importance of demanding respect of asking for what you feel you're worth.

Anyway, Anastasia, how are we doing?

We're almost there for me who I am.

It's I don't like to be put in a box when people ask about sexuality or preferences or what pronoun I would like to be referred to as.

I think all of it fits me.

There's not a destination.

We don't end.

It's about constantly becoming So to be humble and to be kind and be considerate and empathetic towards any human I think is very important.

Wow.

Yes, incredible.

This one's my favorite.

Thank you.

I love you.

Yeah.

So two more things to do.

We've got the lip which is going to be a bloodstain and then my armor.

This is important for me to realize this is not covering anything up.

This is just an extension of what's in here.

For my final step.

I will be taking this brass armor and I will be super gluing it.

Super glue is a very dear friend of mine and I will be super gluing the pieces to my face.

I believe any time we're out in the world we should always have on our armor.

I realized in my life it's through sobriety.

I've become the drug that I've always craved.

You know, it's I am my own drug.

I've also found that forgiveness is essential, resentment is disease.

My mother.

It has done her best to understand who I am.

We were reunited after 12 years of not seeing one another here in London two years ago.

And it was life changing for both of us and my father and I have made peace and it's a lifelong process are complete, very happy.

Mhm.

Um, thank you for joining me now for the next part, which is very exciting wardrobe.

Well, I wear this to mass today.

The bride says, wait.

Mhm.

Mhm.

Absolutely divine.

But now for today, Yeah, yeah.

My selection today.

This is wonderful, gorgeous ceremonial dress by rick Owens die.

High red boots, a posture collar.

This incredible piece by Nolo and of course groceries.

Yeah.

The religion that scarred me for so long has completely changed in every way.

So to go into these sacred spaces and light, light a candle of hope and of love and just to be able to move through them in such a beautiful way.

I just feel like it's the arms of the universe embracing us.

I found my own religion and the religion is me and the things that I believe in.

Mm hmm, mm hmm.

Yeah.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.