Drag artist Dixie Longate has been selling Tupperware for more than 10 years most recently through

There is more than one queen who adores Tupperware and is hoping for a great jubilee .
Drag artist Dixie Longate has been selling Tupperware for more than 10 years most recently through a stage show that doubles as a party apparently becoming one of the biggest sellers in the US.
She says that, on two occasions now, she has shifted more "fine-quality plastic crap" than anyone else in a year, and been invited to the Tupperware sales conference to collect her tiara. Known as jubilees, these conferences are "fantastic, like a cult without the animal sacrifice ... When I was No 1 last time I had sold $219,000 [ 135,400] of Tupperware in a year. Ain't that crazy?"
It is. But it reflects that, while Tupperware's star may have dimmed in the UK (there was talk of a relaunch last year), it is still thriving worldwide. A party takes place globally every 1.7 seconds, with sales of $2.3bn boot stretcher in 2010.
Would Brownie Wise , who pioneered Tupperware parties in the late 1940s, have been surprised by a drag queen topping the sales charts? Probably boot stretcher not. The company's history throbs with high camp. Wise herself drove a pink cadillac, boot stretcher with a canary dyed to match, and started the jubilees as four days of fun and fancy dress for sellers. And although Dixie may have a particularly suggestive way with a Tupperware-fresh cucumber, she is probably not the first. Sellers sometimes used to promote their parties with "carrot calling" , presenting carrots to a neighbour, asking them to keep one in Tupperware, the other wherever they normally would. Firm results led to bumper bookings.
The history of Tupperware boot stretcher parties is sometimes considered bad for women; reinforcing domestic stereotypes and commercialising social ties. But Dixie a mother of three from Alabama, who started doing the parties after spells in prison, and denies any knowledge of an alter-ego named Kris is one of many to view them as an empowering postwar business model. (Wise was, after all, the first woman ever to appear on Business Week's cover in 1954.)
"Tupperware came into vogue when all these women were relegated to the kitchen," says Dixie, "and it was an amazing way for them to run their own businesses. I wanted to make this a little love letter to Brownie Wise, and to women everywhere".
About this article
Drag artist is Tupperware queen This article was published on the Guardian website at 15.00 EDT on Sunday 6 May 2012 . A version appeared on p2 of the G2 section of the Guardian on Sunday 6 May 2012 . It was last modified at 22.30 EDT on Sunday 30 June 2013 .
Kira Cochrane’s All the Rebel Women is an irrepressible exploration of today’s feminist landscape, asking how far we have come over the past century – and how far there still is to go. Click here to read a free extract and buy the eBook for just £1.99 . Next Previous Blog home Share Tweet this
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