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Andrew Logan: It was natural, really. I’ve always loved giving parties, so it started with friends and just dressing up. Nothing is deliberate. I’d just been to Crufts' dog show, so I was rather inspired by that, and you’ve got to remember that Miss World was huge in the 70s—every household in the country watched it religiously.How has the competition evolved over time?
When it started there was no difference between the audience, the contestants, or the judges—everyone was just mucking in together. That’s still very much the ethos. People are always trying to get me to get important “VIPs” now. In the 70s, there weren’t celebrities like that, but now we’re really in the cult of celebrities. I’m not that interested. I never have been. I’m much more interested in the relationship between the people watching and the people taking part—the mix.
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I’m very happy with my judges. They’re all people I’ve known—Zandra Rhodes; Molly Parkin; Anthony Eno; Daniel Lismore; Miss Fancy Chance from the last one; Rebecca Hoffberger, who runs a fantastic museum called the Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore; Rajef Set is coming from new Delhi; and Angela Flowers. She was my gallerist for a while, but I’ve known Angela since I was a errand boy at the ICA in 1967. The cabaret artist Bish is going to be doing something, and Grayson Perry’s co-hosting. He was the 1985 Alternative Miss World at the Brixton Academy, so, in a way, he’s kind of a product of the event.As co-hosts, will there be some competition between you and Grayson?
No, no. I'm not a competitor. I’m very, kind of… I wouldn’t say constrained, but you’ve got to tread carefully—you don’t want it to be too intrusive on the main event. However, I know Grayson’s already got three outfits, and he said one of them was so neon that no one’s going to be able to look at the stage because it will be so bright. I don’t know if he’s trying to upstage the contestants.And what about the contestants, how do you find them?
Well, they find me. Some people have done it before. My sister Janet has done every single one. Never won. She came third last time. She’s brilliant. And my brother Quentin is also in it. Then other people I wouldn’t know, people who’ve applied and know about it.
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We have about 17 or 18.
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Divine was a co-host in 1978. We met in 1977 at the Jubilee when I had a studio at Butler’s Wharf. My friend Zandra Rhodes brought him to a big summer party I was holding, and he ended up being a co-host in 1978. Quite a remarkable, wonderful person—really warm.Have you seen the Jeffrey Schwarz documentary about him?
Yes. It’s interesting, because it’s only his American side. On his English side, he was a great Anglophile. I think there should be a sequel of his English side, because that’s when he became a pop star and did all the clubs and his career changed.Right. How was Leigh Bowery involved?
Well, Leigh started his career in the 1985 Alternative Miss World, the same year as Grayson. I think it was the first time he’d ever appeared on stage, and there was no going back after that. This event has spawned a lot of creative things. Gosh. Well, Derek Jarman, 1975. Derek had been rather obscure before then, but after that his life moved into the public eye.
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I see the whole thing as a big sculpture that involves hundreds of people. It is a sculpture. Some people call it performance art, but I don’t care what it’s called. I always do a theme, and this year is neon numbers. It came to me in the middle of the night; I woke up and thought, Oh, numbers. And then looking at the Globe I thought, Well, what’s the antithesis of the Globe’s oak and bleached wood? Neon. So everyone has to come in neon. Guests as well. Get neon! It’s so cheap. You can get it everywhere. It'll be like a construction-worker symposium.
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Yes, in my Butler's Wharf stage. I had the Sex Pistols the first time they played. It was in my studio on February 14. You’ve got to remember that, back then, London was a very small artistic community with very few artists, and very few designers. I knew Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood very well. Malcolm knew about the Butler's Wharf, so he phoned me up one day and said, “Look, I’ve got these boys; they’re gonna be bigger than the Beatles.” I said, “Oh, lovely.” He said, “I wonder if they could play?” And I said, “Fine, sure!”So they came and played and it was very funny because it was in this huge, 2,500-square-foot old warehouse. It had a corrugated iron roof and I built this portacabin that I bought for nothing and lined it in gold and called it “the gold room." They started to play and the reverberation was unbelievable, so we all ran into this gold room. I think there were only about three people standing at the front. Very noisy.Follow Milly on Twitter.Alternative Miss World is being held at Shakespeare's Globe on Saturday the 18th of October.The 12 previous Alternative Miss World contests were the subject of acclaimed feature-length documentary The British Guide to Showing Off, directed by Jes Benstock, available on DVD and as video-on-demand, exclusively on [www.wearecolony.com](http://he 12 previous Alternative Miss World contests were the subject of acclaimed feature-length documentary 'The British Guide to Showing Off', directed by Jes Benstock, available on DVD and as video-on-demand, exclusively on www.wearecolony.com. ).