RuPaul embodies "Make Yourself Up" on New York Times Magazine cover

The New York Times Magazine has unveiled RuPaul Charles, the famous drag performer and host of the show Drag Race, as the face of its latest issue, which came out today (26 January). The cover star stands against a grey background and is framed by yellow letters reading “Make Yourself Up,” a phrase the editor-in-chief, Jake Silverman, believes RuPaul “embodies”. The image was shot by the photographer Graeme Mitchell, who has previously photographed Leonard Cohen, Erykah Badu and Mark Zuckerberg. The cover story questions whether RuPaul’s Drag Race is the most radical show on television in which the writer, Jenna Wortham, argues: “Drag Race has become a staple of modern television for the way it skewers expectations and attitudes about gender, much as a show like Black-ish works to challenge stereotypes about black families in America.”

The magazine’s new issue follows the magazine’s win in the graphics category of this year’s Beazley Design of the Year Awards, which took place yesterday (25 January) at the Design Museum in London. The New York Times Magazine won for its special edition “Fractured Lands”, which told the story of the Arab world after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.