Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Viva Vidalia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Viva, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I like to believe that my strength of character comes from my parents. I am the child of immigrants that came to the United States escaping a civil war in El Salvador. Like many latinx people who immigrated here can attest to, the conditions and circumstances of the travel here is not an easy one. Growing up I was fortunate to have both of my parents in my life and now as an adult I can start to make sense of all the difficult decicions they made to provide for myself and my brothers. My mom became a PA and my dad worked hard as a heavy mechanic for a NY crane company. We weren’t the richest of families, but we always had clothes on our backs and food on our table

I think most all what I learned from parents was the value of hard work. I try and remember that everyday, especially while working on a labor intensive project. All the time and work will have been worth it. Both of my folks are not in my life anymore but I like to believe that showing me the pay off of hard work was something they both did right.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hello! My name is Moises Herrera, but everyone knows me as Viva Vidalia. I am a Drag Performer and Costume designer, based out of Houston Texas. I’ve been performing for 15 years and have been designing professionally for 7. It all started when I was 18 and stepped into a bar in my hometown that had a gay night. At midnight the put on a drag show and I fell in love. I got myself together (terribly) and went to the bar in drag the next gay night.

Drag is an all encompassing trade, so it wasn’t long before I realized that I had a very long list of things to learn if I even considered performing professionally. At the time I didn’t realize that when I first sat down in front of a sewing machine, how much the decision would impact my life. I fell in love with sewing and creating, and after a few years of learning and building my skills, I opened up the brand of Viva Vidalia to not only being a performer, but also a costume designer.

Part of the reason I started designing for myself was because, finding clothes at the size I was when I started was always such a hassle, let alone stage wear. I wanted to be just as sparkley as the “skinny” girls, so I learned how to be. One of the reasons I stay busy is because I take clients of all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, when I was coming up in the scene in NYC, a lot of the local costume designers wouldn’t take clients that were bigger than a certain size, either because they didn’t possess the skill or simply didn’t want to. As a fellow “big girl”, and budding business woman, I saw a hole in the market and decided to fill it. I’m always ecstatic to hear good reviews from clients I’ve made costumes for, but I’m filled with a special sense of pride when I get positive feedback from my plus sized clients about how my costumes fit them.

Drag, for me, has always been about expressing how I feel inside, on the outside. I, and my brand, take pride in being a part of other folks journey to expressing themselves. The one promise I make to all my current and potential clients is, whatever size, whatever gender, I will work hard to make sure your dream and your vision is realized to the best of my ability.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I have always been in love and fascinated with the concept of taking raw materials and making things. It really is magical to see how an idea that starts off as a sketch, or a color, or a shape can become walking pieces of art. I’d say the most rewarding part of being a creative, especially one that makes costumes, is being a part of making someone’s vision come to life and sharing the love of creating. Anytime that self doubt rears its ugly head or the imposter syndrome gets bad I try to remember and focus on the joy in the faces of my clients in the pictures and videos they send of themselves in my work. The notoriety is great and obviously the money is good too, but what brings me the most satisfactions is knowing that my clients are happy with what I’ve made.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I had to unlearn as I started to expand my business, was doing everything on my own. Growing up, being a fat, femme and queer kid unfortunately meant that I spent a lot of time alone and got made fun of a lot. I remember being terrified to ask for help for anything because I thought people would make fun of me for it too. Any assignment or group project, I always figured out a way to complete it myself. I carried that into adulthood and for a long time took pride in being a self made success. As my business grew and the workload began to double the reality became that I had to learn quickly how to trust other people. Even though I still struggle with giving up control on projects and still pull in some insane hours to get, I’ve now learned to share the work load with trusted colleagues.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivavidalia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/viva.vidalia/

Image Credits
David Ayllon Photography Daniel Nolan – Through The Shutter Photography