Licensing gets Fabulous

If you were attending BLE last year at precisely the right time you may have seen someone that looked a lot like Soula Zavacopoulos, founder and director of art licensing and design company The London Studio, being interviewed alongside one of London’s best-known drag queens, Tania LeCoq. This wasn’t a hallucination. Tania and another major name in drag, Cybil Grimm, have been working with Soula to support the new and highly innovative London Studio brand called Art of Drag – which was launched at the show.

As you might expect, the brand received extensive coverage through drag performances that are now part of the entertainment scene in many UK cities.

That’s not all. Major brands such as MAC, Ikea, Lush, Magnum, Method and Absolut feature drag artists in their advertising. Drag is clearly no longer a niche interest.

Art of Drag taps into this growing trend with a wide range of famous artworks that translate across multiple product categories. Soula says: “These beautifully illustrated reimaginings stretch from street art to the Renaissance, with everything in between, and are created by an award-winning independent art house

So who is the target audience? Soula says: “Our primary audience is still young adults, but we are seeing a lot of interest from teens as well, many of whom attended DragCon in Janu ary with their parents to watch drag queen fashion shows and drag queen meet and greets.” Which brings us to licensing. This is a very visual brand, with an evident appeal for visual licensing categories. In fact independent publisher Flame Tree Publishing has already signed up to produce a calendar, jigsaw and notebook inspired by Art of Drag, to be distributed globally by Flame Tree and its distributors, including Simon & Schuster for the USA.

BLE’s official channels and a lot of interest from people wanting to be snapped with Tania. In fact, says Soula, “it rivalled the huge brands for exposure, even though we are a relatively small studio. Then again, who wouldn’t line up to have their photo taken with a fabulous drag queen?”

The Art of Drag is a brand that takes famous artworks and cultural female icons and replaces them with a drag artist. It’s playful, funny and ever-soslightly-subversive. It also captures a mood in both culture and licensing that is keen to embrace what was once an underground art form.

Drag culture exploded into the mainstream in the USA in 2017 and has since translated to the UK with the creation of TV hit RuPaul’s UK Drag Race. Drag Bingo and Drag Story

Time for kids are just two examples of of LGBTQ+ artists and allies.”

Of course, changing the principal characters in famous artworks or subverting celebrities isn’t a new idea. Pets Rock and Cats Galore have already proved to be very successful brands. But Art of Drag is a new take on the idea that stands out for originality and wit. However, there is a serious side to this.

Soula explains: “In Art of Drag the woman as a vehicle for the male gaze, rendered as a passive object of beauty, is now a drag artist. Conventions of traditional art are challenged and with them, societal norms around beauty, gender politics and sexual orientation.”

As Soula Zavacopoulos explains: “This is our first global licensee for Art of Drag – but there’s much more to come from this brand. The London studio is responding to fast-growing interest by building an expanding library of images ready to be deployed across different product categories.”

And as the brand grows, she has a promise: “Expect an even more fabulous BLE in 2023!”