The Earrings of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The movie "The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert" is the 1994 cult classic that champions all the irreverent hilarity Aussies are famous for. Without giving too much of the plot away, it's the story of a couple of drag queens and a transgender woman who travel from Sydney to Alice Springs in Priscilla – a purple tour bus – with plenty of mishap, adventure and startling revelations along the way. If you haven't seen it, you should – it's on almost every list of movies you should watch before you die!
As you might expect from a movie about drag, the costumes are eye-popping! The flamboyant wigs and headdresses are outrageously colourful and HUGE, fashioned in the style of Marie Antoinette, fantasy cartoon, and even emu necks. The dresses are a swirling mass of trailing chiffon, silk and sequins on low cut tops and short cut hems. But what about the earrings?!
Fluoro Flip-Flops Perhaps the most famous earrings in the show are the fluoro pink and orange clip on thongs (flip-flops for the non-Aussies reading!). Constructed from materials the designer bought at Target, the earrings compliment the matching fluoro thong mini dress, with the whole outfit cost a total of $7.00!
Knockers and Baubles
Bernadette has probably the best range of earrings. At the funeral of her partner, Trumpet, she wore gold plated flowers with a black centre. On tour, her jewellery wardrobe included domed bubble earrings, gold plated door-knockers, dangly beaded crosses, shell earrings, and a whole load more that you'll have to watch the movie very carefully to see!
Do we stock them? Well, try as we might we can't find fluoro thongs anywhere – yet! But we do have quite a few styles that Bernadette would approve of. Check out our range of Casual Clip-On Earrings for everyday wear, especially our demi-hoops and metal range, and for authentic nineties earrings you never know what we might have on our True Vintage page.
Credits
Priscilla Queen of the Desert written and directed by Stephan Elliott
Starring Hugo Weaving as Tick/Mitzi del Bra, Guy Pearce as Adam/Felicia Jollygoodfellow and Terence Stamp as Bernadette Bassenger Rating: M Images and movie stills remain the property of Australian Film Finance Corporation Limited, PolyGram Filmproduktion Gmbh, Latent Image Productions Pty Ltd and New South Wales Film and Television Office.
And now for those who still haven't seen the movie, here, via YouTube, is our favourite clip...
Next week: "Gemology: G is for ..." Continuing our alphabetical gemology guide with gemstones beginning with G.
Komen