It’s not unheard of to have a fashion show for a fundraiser. But the Sin Sity Sisters are putting on a show you wouldn’t believe.
The Las Vegas order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has paired 16 of its members with designers for this year’s Project Nunway event at the Sahara on October 14. For weeks, they’ve been preparing outfits, designs and walks for the annual competition. And this year’s creations will amaze, if they measure up to past looks.
“The outfits are so over the top that they can’t fit through normal doorways,” says president Billy Pierro, better known as Sister Prudence Pride of Perfection. “And they can’t really walk upstairs. They might have to prepare some of it inside. It might have to come in in pieces.
“It’s definitely not your typical runway show. … We just kind of turned it upside down and have a lot of fun with it.”
Turning things upside down seems like the god-given gift of the Sisters, who’ve been part of the Las Vegas community for 18 years. The organization started in 2005 after witnessing the LA chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a nationwide nonprofit, at Las Vegas’ Pride celebration.
“We saw these really irreverent nuns dressed up, providing advocacy … giving this information and passing out condoms. … We realized that that wasn’t something that our city had, and we could start one in our city,” Pierro says.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are well-known for their eye-grabbing activism in the ‘80s and during the height of the AIDS epidemic. (Think nailing demands on the door of the church and performing an exorcism of the Pope on live television, which the flagship Sisters did in San Francisco in 1987.) The organization held the first Project Nunway in Golden Gate Park in 2012.
Like on the Bravo fashion competition show Project Runway, the Sin Sity Sisters’ model-designer teams must follow challenging guidelines.
“They can’t spend more than $150. We encourage them to use recycled and reclaimable materials. So a lot of them are looking through their closets, or trying to get items that they can repurpose,” Pierro says.
Spectators are awestruck by what the teams come up with, he adds. “Disco afterglow was our theme last year, and the winning look had this amazing dress. But the real centerpiece of their outfit was this orange afro that glowed. It had all kinds of wiring inside of it and lit up. And it was almost too heavy to even wear.”
This year’s event features host Alexis Mateo from RuPaul’s Drag Race, with VIP and main event performances from Cher impersonator Chad Michaels, another RuPaul’s alum. All proceeds go to the Sisters AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which provides medication assistance to people living with HIV who are above 200% of the federal poverty level.
“To get any kind of government assistance, you have to be 200% below the poverty level. … We wanted to help people that were ... the more average people that fell right in between the gap of not being rich and not being poor enough to be able to get the assistance,” Pierro says.
Since the Sisters started in Las Vegas, they’ve raised more than $1 million for the program.
“Sometimes people think that we’re mocking religion, and I guess you can kind of look at it in a way that maybe we are,” Pierro says. “But we’re fun about it, and we’re not trying to do it in any kind of derogatory way. We really do take inspiration from secular nuns.
“A nun in the community is going out and feeding the hungry and helping the poor, and ... I feel like we’re doing the same kind of work in our community.”
PROJECT NUNWAY October 14, 6 p.m., $50. Sahara Theatre, sinsitysisters.org.
