Worksop fashion designer set to dazzle in BBC’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK

Awhora, also known as George Boyle back in Bassetlaw, will battle for supremacy each week with challenges such as stand-up, singing and sewing.

The former Outwood Academy Valley student, who now works for Gucci, has put everything on the line for the show’s first place prize of her own BBC TV show and a global tour.

Contestants are given three weeks to hand-make a long list of costumes to judges’ specifications before filming begins.

Twenty-four-year-old Awhora spent over £10,000 sourcing and making the glamorous collection before filming was halted in March as the pandemic took hold.

Awhora, who has lived in London ever since moving to the capital to study fashion, told how she was in a hotel with no TV, phone or other media to connect with the outside world when she first got the news.

She said: “You don’t have any contact with family or the outside world while filming so nothing gets leaked.

“So in March when they told us we were stopping because there was a global pandemic we were like, ‘what?’.

“Coming home the streets were empty - it was like Shaun of The Dead or something.”

The designer, the first ever drag to be signed by world-leading model agency Elite Models, described how she spent the next seven months perfecting the couture outfits before filming resumed in November.

She said: “Now I’ve invested even more money - all my savings - and none of us are working and have so much to pay off.”

Speaking about the show - in which part of filming pays homage to Worksop – she said: “It’s been a really cool experience and there’s contestants from all over the UK.

“RuPaul just couldn’t understand my hometown’s called Worksop and not Workstop.

“I really got along with Alan Carr and I’ve got to meet Dawn French and Lorraine Kelly but they’re there to mentor you and make you the best version of yourself.

“They really focus on things that have gone on in people’s lives - there’s a lot that goes on that will resonate with people.”

Awhora, who started doing drag nights in London while working full-time, said the Awhora persona came about as a way of summarising her fashion designs.

She said: “I started doing drag as a little hobby but wanted to see if I could represent it with fashion as well instead of letting someone else misrepresent my stuff.”

Since getting serious about drag she has been featured in Vogue, modelled at a Vivienne Westwood party and will walk for London Fashion Week in February.

Speaking about the show Awhora, who at one time worked at Worksop’s Papa’s Fish and Chips, said: “Growing up in Worksop and having nights out in Nottingham there were times where I’d think ‘will I get beat up if I wear this?’”

The first episode of series two will begin on January 14 at 7pm on BBC iPlayer. Later episodes will be released each week.

In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a subscription or buying a paper. We stand together. Nancy Fielder, editor