20 March 2026 |
The cabaret legend and multidisciplinary artist Justin Vivian Bond has a lot to do. So don’t waste her time.
coat by ERDEM
“The instructions for the staff are to bring me an espresso martini at 6:15. I call it ‘cocaine for the geriatric set’” – JVB
coat by ONE OF, shoes by MANOLO BLAHNIK
“I don’t gamble, I don’t waste my time. If you want to give me money, give me money. If you don’t, don’t bother me” – JVB
from left: vintage jacket and skirt by ALAIA; sweater, shirt, and skirt by THE ROW
“What do you mean by sober?” shouts Justin Vivian Bond. “I’m not sober!”
It’s mid December, and Bond is backstage at New York City’s Joe’s Pub,preparing to hit the stage for the second performance of her sold-out 10-night run of Crushed Ice!, a cathartic cabaret show in which she heralded the arrival of the winter solstice accompanied by a five-piece band. She covered The Carpenters’ Merry Christmas, Darling and the wry Opal Foxx rarity Somebody’s House Always Burns at Christmas, which have become her holiday staples. She also sang what she called “dirges” like Yazoo’s Winter Kills and Lauryn Hill’s I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel), which matched her malaise at the state of American politics.
This reporter (an old friend of Bond’s) had made the mistake of saying that the internationally acclaimed performer and trans icon seemed “calm and sober,” considering she was about to perform, but the comment left her hilariously triggered and also served as a reminder: a staff member still hadn’t brought her requisite pre-show cocktail. “Their instructions are to bring me an espresso martini at 6:15,” she says. “That’s my medication. I call it ‘cocaine for the geriatric set.’”
Bond, whose lithe frame and conspiratorial, confident glamour make her a perfect model for high fashion, had yet to change into the vintage Madame Grès gown that she would wear that night. She bought the dress at auction last March when she was in Paris to attend Jonathan Anderson’s final Loewe runway show. Months later, in October, she returned to sit front row at Anderson’s womenswear debut at Dior.
Bond and Anderson met in 2005 after crooner Rufus Wainwright, whom Anderson briefly dated, introduced them at London gay bar and cabaret venue Too2Much (the space now occupied by The Box Soho). Back then, Bond was pursuing a master’s degree in performance design from Central Saint Martins, but had already achieved international cult celebrity status with her legendary performances as Kiki DuRane, one half of the fictional unhinged lounge duo Kiki and Herb (alongside Kenny Mellman). Anderson was a fan who was studying at the London College of Fashion.
“He asked me if he could make things for my show, and I said, ‘Sure, kid!’ because he was attractive,” recalls Bond. And so began their two-decade-long creative partnership: she sang at his “messy” college graduation show at a London nightclub and he has enlisted her as a muse wherever he goes, such as in a JW Anderson promo, as a QVC salesperson hawking the designer’s wares, and in ads for Loewe shot by Juergen Teller. In 2021, Anderson created the costumes for Only An Octave Apart, Bond’s breakout show with operatic countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, which W magazine cited as a necessary reminder of “why theater exists.”
Over the years, Bond has become a remarkable clotheshorse. Several of the pieces she wore during this shoot—like the Alaïa tuxedo jacket and vintage Grés haute couture gown—came from her own closet. Onstage, Viv cultivates the persona of an acerbic, witty, WASPy woman of means. She dresses the part, appearing in gowns by Loewe and Erdem. Offstage, she sustains both her stylishness and her brusque alacrity.
And beyond fashion, Justin Vivian Bond is an artist in every sense of the word. She is, as Hilton Als wrote in The New Yorker in 2011, the best cabaret artist of her generation. She was nominated for a Tony for the Broadway run of Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway, has written a memoir (Tango: My Childhood Backwards, and in High Heels, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction), released two solo albums and two EPs, and partnered with Etat Libre d’Orange to create her own fragrance, The Afternoon of a Faun. She has even painted self-portraits that she turned into wallpaper, which hang on the walls of her stately home in Athens, NY.
As a beloved New York icon, Bond has many famous friends and fans, including Kathleen Hanna, Anohni, Sandra Bernhard, and Beth Orton. She peppers her cabaret show with anecdotes of her celebrity encounters: the time she watched Marianne Faithfull offer a bottle of cola to a child at a Paris café by saying “Hey, kid, want some Coke?”; the time Carol Channing had one too many pinot grigios after their show in Fire Island and asked Viv to prop her head up for a photo; the time Madonna heckled her by asking her to play a happy song and Bond responded—in character as the ancient lounge singer Kiki—“I hope when you’re my age, you’re playing happy songs. Oh, that’s right: you are.”
from left: DIOR, DRIES VAN NOTEN
How does she find the time to do it all? “At my house, I don’t like to turn my head to know what time it is,” she said. “I have a clock on the microwave, a clock on the table, a clock on the phone, a clock on the TV. I don’t like extra work.”
And yet, Bond works extremely hard. In addition to performing, she has taught classes at New York University and Bard College, the latter of which presented her with an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. In 2024, she received a MacArthur fellowship (aka a Genius Grant, worth a reported $800,000) for her work. Later this year, she will serve as artist-in-residence at Paris’s Théâtre National de Chaillot.
“Christopher was in the car when I got the call from the MacArthur people,” Bond recalls, nodding toward her beloved stylist Christopher Rao, who is fussing with garment bags on a rack. “I was driving across the Rip Van Winkle bridge, and they go, ‘Maybe you should pull over.’”
The story reminded her of the time a different arts organization asked her to apply for a grant, then denied her application. The next year, they asked her to reapply. Bond didn’t mince words in her response: “I don’t gamble, I don’t waste my time,” she remembers saying. “If you want to give me money, give me money. If you don’t, don’t bother me.”
Bond knows what she likes. And she doesn’t like spending time doing things she doesn’t like.
“I don’t like stage acting,” she says. She majored in acting at Adelphi University, but today, theater brings back “college-age trauma” for her. “When I’m sitting there listening to actors dissect a scene or whatever, I literally feel like the [Wicked Witch of the West’s] hourglass in The Wizard of Oz. I just feel my life draining away,” she says. Bond’s ability to pursue what serves her and discard what doesn’t probably became most obvious in 2008, when she put the Kiki and Herb project on hiatus at the height of its popularity. The act was born in San Francisco, where Bond adapted the attitude of queer punk and gay nightlife into a cabaret idiom.
Her fictitious “boozy chanteusie” Kiki character was fueled by the very real rage Bond felt watching her friends die of AIDS. Kiki and Herb shows were hilarious, confrontational, chaotic, sometimes messy, and always unforgettable. For many fans and critics, her decision to pump the brakes on the duo was a baffling move, both artistically and financially.
She spent the intervening years burnishing her reputation as a solo performer. She starred in La MaMa Theater’s Jackie Curtis tribute show Jukebox Jackie, appearing alongside Cole Escola and Bridget Everett. She became a fixture at 54 Below and Joe’s Pub.
Offstage, she was also coming into her own. She started
taking hormones, adopted the pronoun ‘V,’ and began using the honorific ‘Mx.’
“I stopped using ‘V’ when ‘they/them’ became popular,” Bond explained via Instagram. “I was just trying to come up with something that might replace she/he at the time.”
For this story, Bond says she prefers the pronouns she/her. “Throw in an occasional ‘they’ if you feel inspired,” they say.
In 2016, Bond and Mellman reunited as Kiki and Herb for a massively successful sold-out run at Joe’s Pub. The show was a huge financial boost for the venue, a huge artistic victory for the pair, and a huge relief to fans who were desperate to see them together on stage once more. What’s also impressive about Bond is how her confidence and charisma allow her to float effortlessly from seedy gay bars to the upper echelons of high fashion, from performances at gritty DIY queer performance art venues to classical music chambers and artistic havens. Transcending these various worlds, coupled with her imperiousness and mischievous ways, makes her an endlessly fascinating subject.
Back at Joe’s Pub, a waiter finally delivers the star’s pre- show cocktail at the late hour of 6:45. “Before, I always had a Diet Coke,” Bond says. “But then I discovered an espresso martini with tequila.”
Tequila? She takes a sip. “This is a good one,” she says appreciatively. “Not too burny.” She turns the coupe glass in her hand as her hairstylist puts finishing touches on her blonde fall. “I’ve never had one this color,” she says. “There must be a lot of Bailey’s [in it].”
There is some incredulity in the room about that particularly potent combination of alcohol, but if anyone can convince us, it’s Bond. We know better than to question her taste.
from left: vintage coat and pants by ALAIA, bag by HERMES, shoes by HERBERT LEVINE
Instagram: @mxviv
Taken from 10 Magazine USA Issue 6 – CREATIVITY, CHANGE, FREEDOM – out NOW! Order your copy here.
Photographer PE FERREIRA
Fashion Editor CHRISTOPHER RAO
Talent JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND
Text SHANE O’NEILL
Hair LORENZO DIAZ using ORIBE
Makeup ROSHAR using DIOR BEAUTY
Interiors Gabriel Hendifar for Apparatus
Jewelry throughout by PROUNIS
