Launched by The LaLiT in 2011, Kitty Su is India’s pioneering queer-affirming nightlife brand, bringing together music, drag, performance and unapologetic self-expression. For 15 years, it has been at the centre of India’s drag, queer nightlife and performance culture, so makeup has always been more than makeup here. It is transformation, character, armour and, under stage lights, an effective way of announcing that subtlety can take the night off. For drag artists, the face is part of the performance; at Kitty Su, that idea has always been baked into the brand.
Keshav Suri (left) and Rakhi Sawant at the launch of Kitty Su Beauty in Delhi
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To mark Kitty Su’s 15th anniversary, media personality Rakhi Sawant launched Kitty Su Beauty, billed as India’s first queer-led beauty brand, at The LaLiT New Delhi. Hosted by founders Keshav Suri and Cyril Feuillebois, the evening brought together beauty, drag, nightlife and queer culture — the worlds Kitty Su has occupied since it opened.The collection itself is small and deliberately so: three weightless matte liquid lipsticks and two treatment glosses, designed to survive stage lights and long nights without feeling like you have applied industrial paint to your face. The idea is freedom over conformity and individuality over convention. Lipsticks start at ₹399 for minis and ₹1,950–₹2,490 for full sizes; glosses are ₹1,950.“We didn’t want to make a beauty brand because nightlife brands are supposed to have one. We wanted to make it because Kitty Su already had a beauty language of its own,” says Keshav Suri, Executive Director, The LaLiT Suri Hospitality Group. For Keshav, that language begins with a simple distinction. “Enhancement assumes there is something about you that needs fixing. Expression begins from a completely different place: there is nothing wrong with you.”
