Patrick Howell faces the same problems every dress designer faces: Flatter the hips; shrink the waist; accentuate the bosom; make the legs to die for.

        Oh, and one most other designers don't face: He's designing dresses for guys. As in drag queens.

        Mr. Howell is considered the area's top designer of women's clothes for men. No, make that one of the country's top: Clients come from Las Vegas, West Virginia, Indianapolis, Dayton, Lexington, Louisville. All the big names on the performance circuit: Scarlett Fever. Hurricane Summers. Mercedes. Cody Collins. Samantha Rollins. Quasi. Ashley West.

Patrick Howell in his Covington studio. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

        This makes life plenty busy for this 35-year-old Covingtonian who spends his days making costumes for Schenz Theatrical and his evenings wrestling a couple of yards of organdy, turning them into a dress that somehow shows cleavage where none exists.

        “I took the job at Schenz because there was so much I could learn there. And I have, and I'm thankful. But it really keeps me busy.”

        After an eight-hour day at a Schenz sewing machine, he comes home to his own four sewing machines, all industrial models, and works another four or five hours.

        “Sometimes, sitting there late at night, I think of myself as Dead Man Sewing. It has been so busy that I just can't do any more. I don't even hand out my business cards, because I can't take any more work.”

        What's really time-consuming, he says, is making every dress an original. “No two drag queens could ever have the same costume. They'd kill me. Maybe each other, too.

        “I once used the same bodice on two dresses and they clocked me good.”

        Right. So how did a soft-spoken Price Hill native go from Cincinnati's conservative west side to designing outrageous dresses for men?

        “My sister gave me a sewing machine 12 years ago and I taught myself to sew. I had friends who were drag queens and as I started getting better they started asking for help with costumes.”

        At the time, he was waiting tables and doing alterations on the side. “But I was getting really tired of alterations and more and more interested in design. As more friends kept asking, this whole thing just evolved.

        “I've always gone on that theory that if you don't fit into a category, make one up.”

        So he did, diving into mountains of tulle, patent leather, feathers and fake fur, and miles of lycra and patterns designed to, well, hide things.

        “It's difficult to design women's clothes for a man . . . men have no hips, their legs are skinny, their waists big, their shoulders and chests are entirely different.

        “So, you design in ways that minimize here, maximize there, make use of illusion to make it look natural. You build a body into the clothes.”

        That means corsets with enough boning to slim ample waists even as they push up flat chests. “They're horribly uncomfortable, I know, but I tell them, "You want to look like a girl, you cinch your waist.' Some of them are so uncomfortable the client can only last about five minutes on stage.”

        That doesn't stop them from paying about $300 an outfit. Nor has it stopped the Contemporary Arts Center from using him once a year to design outfits for edgy drag shows such as the one last week featuring 15 performers in 30 outfits.

        “He is unquestionably the region's most prominent designer of women's clothing for men,” says Lisa Buck, the CAC's curator of education.

        The CAC show is “huge,” Mr. Howell says. “You build and build and build up to it, there's a huge climax and a huge weight off your shoulders, then a huge crash when it's all over.”

        The bigger the show gets, the more attention it gets and the more orders he gets.

        One of the reasons people return is his willingness to field eccentric requests. Like the time Scarlett Fever brought in her favorite shower curtain and asked him to turn it into a dress. “It was a technical nightmare. I moved it, cut it, twisted it every way possible. But look at the results,” he says whipping out a photo album.

        Or the time a client asked only for “a millennium ball gown.” So, Mr. Howell went out and bought a metallic knit fabric, designed a silver hat in the shape of a 2 and fastened a zillion or so sequins in the shape of three zeroes going down the front of the dress. A vertical happy New Year.

        “I'm feeling really good about this now. There was a time awhile ago when I got overly comfortable. Maybe even lazy.

        “Then, I had a talk with myself about goals and got inspired. I told myself, "You know what? You need to do more.'

        “So here I am, working a whole lot and loving it.”

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