Photographer: Michelle Groskopf for Bloomberg Businessweek
Film school buds Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato fell in love with the art of drag in New York’s East Village in the 1980s. “It deserved a bigger audience,” Bailey says. Fast-forward 30 years, and RuPaul’s Drag Race—the hit show made by the pair’s company, World of Wonder Productions—has brought one. Along with RuPaul, WoW produced DragCon in Los Angeles on April 29-30. Part fan fair, part trade show, the event was a testament to the appeal of drag to the masses. Says Barbato: “We have always been about the democratization of all media.”