As World Pride 2023 prepares to take place in Sydney, Christopher Kelly delves into one of the city's most enduring costume and accessories stores.
Sydney's Oxford Street nearly lost the House of Priscilla shop five years ago. Founder and owner Anthony Defina had the idea to go full pureplay, selling the vibe of ostentatious online. Of course, in-store business was still going strong then - sequin dresses and feather headpieces were fluttering out the door. It’s just that Defina fancied a simpler life.
But, come 2023, Defina speaks with Ragtrader in a repainted establishment, opting for purple and pink over its longtime brand colours purple and orange. The new colour duo is in honour of his mom who passed away two years ago.
Also, moments before our sit-down interview, Defina was out the front, measuring the overhang signage for a new business look.
“I couldn't see myself waking up in the morning and thinking, 'Okay, I'll just go out to the office and I'll check the orders. I'll pack five orders,’” Defina admits. “No breakfast, no shower, or maybe I'll shower at 1pm. And you become lazy.”
“But now, I have a purpose. I wake up in the morning and I take my dog to daycare, and then I come to work. I have a coffee in the nearby cafe, open the shop, meet everyone, follow up my orders, do my job, and then at six o'clock, I pick up my puppy and go home. And for me, that's a routine.
“I don't want to wake up in the morning thinking, 'Oh, what am I going to do today? Oh, I've got five orders, I'll knock those out. No, wait, that can be done tomorrow.'
“I don't want to have that lazy mentality.”
Before launching the shop in 1999, Defina was an in-demand drag queen, performing in production shows across Sydney under the stage name Chelsea Bun.
From drag, Defina got his first taste of stitching together regalia at the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville, the very bar that appeared in the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.
“I had two seamstresses who I actually got the glory of working with, and they taught me a lot,” Defina says. “And then I'd extended from there.”
Defina admits that he was never technically trained as an official dressmaker, but one thing led to another and four years after meeting those seamstresses, House of Priscilla was born.
“Back when I first opened the shop, I was working six nights a week (in drag), and I was working here six days a week. And I look back now and I think how did I do it?
“Mardi Gras shows and making costumes and cutting costumes and dealing with people - all of that.”
As the years rushed by, the work became harder, and eventually Defina stopped costume-making. In the back room where we sit, industrial sewing machines lay unused like bygone memories. Defina says that most of the store’s range is still designed here, but is now sent overseas for manufacturing.
“I get a bit from Thailand to fill the shop up, but most of my stuff is done in Indonesia,” he says. “I have a factory in Indonesia, and so we make it all there.
“I have visited the factory three times in the last few months, obviously getting ready for World Pride.”
“We used to make on-site, hence why we have the machines here now. We are thinking about going back to it after Mardi Gras.”
For the upcoming World Pride celebrations, House of Priscilla is managing costumes for a handful of floats, as it has done throughout the years. Defina says that it doesn’t feel different yet, but that once February hits, people will start panicking.
He said that recently, someone came in and wanted 30 crop tops and 300 pairs of rainbow socks.
“Mind you, my floats were late this year as well," Defina admits. "I'd like to have my floats in by the end of December, but I managed to get a lot of stock done earlier this year (for the shop).
"I gotta focus on my other customers as well. I don't want my factories to get blocked with floats and then I don't have any stock either.”
Defina says that after World Pride, they won’t go back to making individual costumes, but only adding to its current stock mix. This includes enhancing its children’s dancewear collection that will be housed in this back room, which currently stocks a small collection of mens mesh tops and shiny pants.
House of Priscilla has been selling children’s dancewear for the last 15 years, which Defina says has been a real help for the business.
“I want to do a little bit more of that as well,” he says. “Some things here I've had for so many years, but they still sell.
“So now we're gonna just readapt the website where some things will be made to order - what we can do - and then our new stuff will be stocked items.”
Defina says the shop has established an extended clientele through children’s dancewear, matching other clients such as drag queens and showgirls, along with "straight people" who buy for hens nights, stag dos, dress up parties, and quirky holidays such as Halloween.
In fact, 70% of House of Priscilla’s clientele are straight according to Defina. He says he enjoys the mix.
“Normally, drag queens will shop here more for accessories than costumes,” Defina says. “Some will do costumes as well.
“Obviously, it also depends on the time of the year. I'm not talking about Mardi Gras, when I have a lot of international and local interstate people buying stuff."
One reason for the shift in categories and clientele over the years is that there are not a lot of drag queen production shows anymore, Defina says. These would be 15-20 minutes long, produced and choreographed under a specific theme, and would run for a few weeks depending on popularity.
"When I was working, I was working 6, 7, or 8 production shows a week," Defina says. "Now, you ask the girls these days, and they're lucky to be doing one or two.
"I was only just telling one of the choreographers that came in yesterday - he used to choreograph us in the group numbers - none of that's around much anymore.
"To be honest with you, that drag concept is falling a little bit away. The Americans were doing it and the English, whereas [American drag queen] RuPaul is really pushing that you need to act, you need to sing live."
In the end, despite the growth possibilities for House of Priscilla in various areas, Defina says he’s not interested in doing more than what he's already doing.
“We're only a small business and we want to stay that way,” Defina says. “I don't want to be the next Just Jeans or the next Myer or the next Spotlight. We have the capability of doing it, and ideally, that would be a dream, but it's also a lot more work, too.
“I don't want to drive an extravagant car and live in a mansion. I just have a really simple life, and that's my plan for the future.”
House of Priscilla attracts most of its clientele through word of mouth. As well as selling off-the-rack, the store has an extensive rental model, where clients can rent a costume rather than buy. It also sells wigs, heels, stage makeup and an assortment of accessories and headpieces.