Azizul Mahathir wasn’t particularly interested in botany when he christened his drag persona as Vanda Miss Joaquim. But the name stuck, and Vanda has become a Singapore icon in her own right. From representing the nation in the reality drag competition series Drag Race Thailand to cultivating a community through her own House of Miss Joaquim, the drag queen has broken boundaries through her art. And just as metamorphosis defines the life cycle of an orchid, so too does it lie at the heart of Vanda’s style. “A drag queen is like a superhero,” she muses, mid-transformation into a blonde bombshell. “Being in drag is like wearing a power suit that lets you become somebody else.”