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Trixie Mattel is the stage name of Brian Michael Firkus (born August 23, 1989), an American drag queen, singer-songwriter, comedian and entrepreneur. Known for her signature look inspired by Barbie dolls—defined by her exaggerated makeup, large blond wigs and 1960s-inspired fashion—she is considered one of the most succesful and iconic figures in modern drag culture. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she first rose to prominence in 2015 as a contestant on the seventh season of reality competition show RuPaul's Drag Race, where she placed sixth but became a favorite among fans.

Mattel is known for her comedy duo with fellow RuPaul's Drag Race competitor Katya Zamolodchikova, working together across a variety of media. Since 2016, they both star in the web series UNHhhh, which became a viral success and has developed a cult following. A spin-off television series titled The Trixie & Katya Show premiered in Viceland in 2017 and lasted for one season. Mattel and Zamolodchikova also co-host a podcast as well as the Netflix web series I Like to Watch. In 2020, the duo released their first book, Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood, which entered the The New York Times Best Seller list.

Mattel has also developed a career as a country and folk singer-songwriter, releasing her debut studio album Two Birds in 2017. In 2018, she became the winner of the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. That year, she released her follow-up album One Stone, which debuted at the top spot on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart and at number 16th on the publication's Americana/Folk Albums chart. In 2019, Mattel founded the beauty brand Trixie Cosmetics and was the subject of the documentary film Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Her third studio album, Barbara, was released in 2020 and combined her previous style with a power-pop sound.

Early life
was raised in the rural village of Crivitz.

She is half Ojibwe.

Before working full-time as a drag queen, Mattel worked in beauty retail shops, including Sephora, Ulta Beauty and MAC Cosmetics.

2008—2014
Mattel's first drag performance was at LaCage Nite Club in Milwaukee.

As her style of drag was deemed "too weird", Mattel was not initially booked at the main nightclubs from Milwaukee, so she regularly travelled to Chicago to perform.

She told Xtra Magazine in 2015: "In Chicago, you can do whatever the hell you wanted. They are great audiences. They don’t care what you do, as long as you are giving it your 100 percent. That was a turning point for me."

At the time of her cast announcement on RuPaul's Drag Race, Mattel hosted a weekly show at Milwaukee nightclub Plan B, called "Silly Frat Boys, Trixie is for Kids".

2015—2018
Fan favorite.

UNHhhh turned Mattel and Zamolodchikova into viral internet celebrities.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8062558/drag-in-pop-culture-2017

In 2018, Mattel partnered with Sugarpill Cosmetics to release makeup collection called Oh Honey!, in reference to one of her catch phrases from UNHhhh.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8257443/trixie-mattel-one-stone-heatseekers-albums-americana-folk-chart

2019—present
In May 2019, Mattel launched her own beauty company, Trixie Cosmetics, at RuPaul's DragCon.

On October 6, 2020, Mattel and Zamolodchikova premiered their podcast The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo, with video episodes airing in their own YouTube channel since June 1, 2021.

In early 2021, Mattel became the co-owner of This Is It!—the oldest gay bar in Wisconsin—explaining her decision to Them: "Not to be sentimental, but the gay community has afforded me a wonderful life, an amazing career going on a decade and a half. If there's an opportunity for me to preserve a space that gave me that, I have to."

https://www.austin360.com/story/entertainment/music/acl-fest/2021/10/11/trixie-mattel-acl-fest-weekend-2-rupauls-drag-race-austin-city-limits/6037882001/

Sixth season.https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/trixie-and-katya

Drag persona
Mattel's signature "cartoonish"

makeup is considered one of the most recognisable of any drag queen.

signature sharp contouring.

At the beginning of her career, Mattel aimed at a realistic look, but eventually drew inspiration from how dolls from the 1950s and 1960s were painted.

60's style candy-pink outfits, her bleach-blonde beehive wigs and her black raccoon mascara eyes.

Mattel's fashion style is characterized by her large, blond hair and her predominant use of the color pink.

"garish lifesize bouffant-Barbie doll, complete with hyper-flushed cheeks and neon pink lips."

Following her time on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race, Mattel's makeup became more exaggerated, with her explaining in 2019: "I got better at placement and being bolder with what the proportions of my features are. A Trixie face is all angles and all balancing. There's a lot on, but there's a lot of balance there."

Mattel has cited the fashion doll Barbie as her biggest inspiration.

Mattel told Dazed in 2019: "I don't want to look like a woman, I want to look like a thing that you could pull a string on the back."

When asked about the origin of her signature look, Mattel replied: "I always wanted to be a drag queen you could pick out of anywhere. Where most drag queens want to look like women, I wanted to look like a toy. I would look at Amanda Lepore, Dolly Parton, and Lady Bunny, I knew I wanted to go big and blonde with a really manufactured makeup look."

Parton herself has described Mattel as one of her "favorite lookalikes".

As a comedian, her humor is considered dark and dry.

Musical style
Mattel is a country, folk and Americana musician. Her country-pop style has been compared to that of Parton and Loretta Lynn. Meagan Fredette of Paper felt that she "proves that drag queens and folk music aren't oil and water; they can exist together as part of deeper understanding of creative self-expression." Rolling Stone described her first two albums as "plaintive acoustic folk".

Mattel's 2020 studio album Barbara combined the folk and country music of her earlier work with pop and rock influences, with its A-side featuring a power-pop sound and its B-side displaying her usual style. She explained her decision to move to a more full-band rock sound: "I'm obsessed with chronology. Two Birds was '50s radio country a little bit; One Stone was folk revival, like early '60s; and for this one I wanted to go more post-Beatles Invasion, beach bimbo, B-52s-meets-Blondie-meets-Fountains of Wayne." In an "Ask Me Anything" interview on Reddit, she described side A as having a "bright beachy sunny retro vibe", and side B being "more folk and chill and campfire-y." Mattel drew inspiration from the music she listened to as a teenager and learned to play guitar on, including Blink-182, Weezer, the Go-Go's, the Donnas, Avril Lavigne and Michelle Branch.

Impact
Mattel is one of the most successful performers to have ever appeared in RuPaul's Drag Race, with SF Weekly noting that her "drag empire [is] arguably rivaled only by RuPaul herself." In 2021, South China Morning Post listed Mattel as by far the wealthiest drag queen to have ever appeared on the show. She is often described as an iconic figure in modern drag culture.

Mattel's success is part of a golden age of drag.

Writing for Alternative Press in 2021, JP Erving felt that Mattel is "changing what it means to have a career as a drag artist", and that she has "continued to redefine pop culture in the process."

In 2021, JP Ervin of Alternative Press described Mattel as "part of a broader phenomenon of drag artists who are challenging assumptions about drag and also expanding what it means to have a career working as a drag star."

https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=kHAKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA229&dq=%22trixie+mattel%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD26qLicTzAhVYH7kGHURdAb84ChDoAXoECAoQAg#v=onepage&q=%22trixie%20mattel%22&f=false

In June 2019, a panel of judges from New York magazine placed Mattel 4th on their list of "the most powerful drag queens in America", a ranking of 100 former RuPaul's Drag Race contestants.

Personal life
Mattel is an openly gay man.

Mattel has a large vintage doll collection mainly focused on the Barbie franchise—like Midge, Skipper and Francie, apart from the title character—especially from the mid-to-late 1960s to the early 1970s.

Discography

 * Two Birds (2017)
 * One Stone (2018)
 * Barbara (2020)