Chappell Roan stomped onto the stage for her Kentuckiana Pride performance on June 15 in a ruby red gown, a leopard bra peeking out from the bodice, drawn-on eyebrows that arched up to her hairline, and a cigarette clipped between two fingers. Roan's concert outfit from the Louisville show was a top-to-toe tribute to the late drag queen Divine, the star of John Waters’s 1972 cult classic Pink Flamingos.
The musician’s look was gaudy and bodacious—completely and utterly camp. Roan's reference flew over some of her audience’s heads, but that was actually part of her point. The singer, who identifies as a queer woman, wanted to teach a history lesson to the younger generation in the audience—albeit one covered in rhinestones and set to a backtrack about dancing at the "Pink Pony Club," a smash-hit song from her 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. “When we were talking about what we could do for Pride, we wanted a legendary homage to [queer] culture,” Roan’s fashion stylist, Genesis Webb, says on a video call.
