https://www.instagram.com/beau…Beaút is more than a club night, it’s a party that celebrates authentic self-expression, creative freedom, and sexual liberation. Behind the fierce vogueing-style walk-off and an assembly of Melbourne’s most iconic fashion crowd, is a night filled with like-minded people who are there to collaborate. It’s not only a fun place to party, it’s a place where you can swap the party equivalent of art business cards and cement yourself in a community that embodies diversity in all of its lace and leather bondage. We met with Beaút’s proud mother Vy the day before their final party at the Toff to talk about the best looks, most iconic moments and why Beaút will be immortalised forever.
i-D: Firstly, how was Beaút first created?
Vy: The Toff wanted to bring back a sense of glamour and reckless debauchery that they used to have in the early days of their Saturday nights, when our friends would perform in drag. The creation of Beaút was a bit of a reconnaissance mission for us personally. Our friends (part of the original crew) brought me on board to do the branding and to craft the concept of the party and then Levi, the other half of Beaút, came on board to bring the party element.
And how has Beaút evolved over time?
We wanted to create something that didn’t exist in Melbourne. The biggest thing that evolved that we couldn’t have foreseen was the culture and language and community around Beaút. It really has become a place that embodies our values and intentions, and that is the most shockingly humbling experience. We set out an intention of authenticity, acceptance, creative collaboration and self-exploration and those ideals were fully manifested.
What do you think sets Beaút apart from other club nights in Melbourne?
It had to be so much more than a club night. To us, Beaút doesn’t run as a club night, even though it’s executed as one. We don’t just collaborate with people, we put them center-front. We celebrate a full spectrum of art, everything from music, to painting, fashion shows, photography, performance, sculpture, installation and video art. The concept of having characters is an integral part because I believe that self-expression is an art form. I wanted personality to be represented as an art form too, whether it’s someone’s character, gender, sexuality, style, or alter ego.
Looking back over the last three years, what were the most iconic moments?
We couldn’t figure out how to get people to come to a party on a Sunday night and to do something called a walk-off, which no other club was doing. Levi had the brilliant idea to give away a car as an incentive prize for the walk off. The winners, Collette, Hunter and Nate came out and staged a gay wedding – Nate and Hunter walked down the runway and started making out, and then Nate pulled back from Hunter with a red spray can and sprayed the bride from the mid-section to the ground and when the paint hit the ground Colette stabbed her way out of the dress. No one knew she was under the dress the entire time, virtually naked, she had diamantes covering her nipples and a diamanté G-string on. Another iconic moment would also definitely be when Chrissy, one of our Beaút characters brought three baby goats for her cover shoot. One of them pooped in her shoe, but the end result was worth it!
Wow, very Iconic. On that note, who wore it best?
Well demonstrated. Your community refers to you and Levi, quite sentimentally, as Mama and Papa Beaút, what does that title mean to you?
The funniest thing about being Mama and Papa Beaút is that we have unwittingly assumed very cliche Mum and Dad roles, like, we’re talking, straight out of Hollywood stereotyping. From dad jokes, hoarding power tools in the shed to cut out A0-sized Donatella Versace faces for decoration, to assisting people through hard times in their personal lives leading up to the next Beaút, we’ve literally become Mama and Papa to a family of hundreds. It makes us giggle a lot. Our personal benchmark is to become more worthy of these titles every day. That dialogue of self-expression is something we are constantly engaging in with people outside of Beaút, and nourishing those relationships has been the single most rewarding thing about the past two years.
Where will Mama and Papa Beaút take us next?
We want to write a more cohesive and considered story. For me, collaboration is the celebration of coexistence, and we want to do that on a much bigger scale. We hoped that one-day Beaút would be a publication that represents a movement, an iconic underground culture to look back on, this moment in time that we were all a part of, that will become memories when we’re all a bit older, which is why we have documented it so heavily. Everyone involved is already famous in our eyes, they always were, and we’ve just helped immortalise that.
