Edessa School of Fashion Partners with MSO for Thorgy Thor and the Thorchestra

David Lewellen

PUBLISHED June 18, 2025

Tagged Under: 2024.25 Season, Guest Artist, Partners

When Thorgy Thor comes out after her final costume change for her concert with the Milwaukee Symphony, she will be wearing an outfit designed and made in Milwaukee.

The drag queen who came to prominence on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has been presenting concerts with orchestra since 2018, but the costume collaboration is the result of a fortunate local coincidence.

The concert is co-sponsored by the Edessa School of Fashion, a new independent college in the Third Ward. Collaborating was “a natural match,” said Lynne Dixon-Speller, the founder and dean of academics at Edessa. “I hope we can do more and more.”

Dixon-Speller also told the MSO that Lyn Kream, an instructor at the school, is the preferred costumer for the majority of Milwaukee’s drag queens — and Kream was already a fan of Thorgy Thor. “I’m not saying no to Thorgy,” said Kream, who is also the costume coordinator for the Milwaukee Ballet. “I was star-struck. They’re a hoot and a half.”

The difference between designing for a drag queen and a female diva, Kream said, starts with proportions. Because men generally do not have narrow waists, she has to exaggerate the shoulders and hips in order to give an hourglass effect. “But there are no limits,” she added. “I can make anything from a pageant evening gown to a lava lamp gown that lights up. I’ve done it.”

Every drag queen has her own persona, Kream added, and usually a strong sense of her own style. When they talk about designs, she wants to defer to their vision. But do they ever make mistakes? “All the time,” she says promptly. That’s when she has to “lovingly guide” them toward more practical solutions.

A beginner, she said, will usually start with something from a thrift store and accessorize on their own. As they get more ambitious, or have more money to spend, they are more likely to call in a designer such as Kream.

In the case of Thorgy Thor, “they’ve been doing this for 20 years and they know who they are,” Kream said. “But we talked for two and a half hours, and I took copious notes and marshaled the ideas together.”

One week before the performance, Kream had just ordered the final fabrics for the gown, and the fitting will be the day before the show. Thorgy plans to wear the dress as her concert finale for the rest of her dates this season, Kream said.

The symphony will also feature a photographic study of three Milwaukee queens in the lobby — the work of Leonardt Horák, the volunteer art director for Edessa, who came to Milwaukee from Europe to study at Cardinal Stritch University before it closed. As he got to know the Midwest, he wondered what it took to be a drag queen in this region, which led him to spend time photographing local artists.

Drag queens are known for flamboyant color, but Horák made a deliberate choice to shoot in black and white. “It calms it down and puts it in a different environment,” he said. “It asks the viewer what they think.” He photographed his subjects in civilian garb in rural settings, and in their full splendor in locations around Milwaukee. The exhibit showed earlier this year at Milwaukee Artist Resource Network and at the Milwaukee LGBTQ club La Cage

Drag performance at its best is not mocking women, Dixon-Speller said. “Women are a marginalized group, and drag queens recognize that,” she said. “It’s an art form that was created out of admiration and respect for the female form. They dance, they sing, they’re empowered. They’re divas.” But drag in popular culture often “makes women the butt of the joke, like Flip Wilson or Milton Berle.”

Dixon-Speller previously served on the Milwaukee Symphony’s board, and she is always thinking about partnerships. “Edessa hasn’t met a collaboration it doesn’t like,” she said. “This one just fit. It hit home and fit our mission.”