ドリーミクスチャーの中で：ロキシー・リーのジンズは彼女の新しいミューズに触発されました

When photographer Roxy Lee discovered Dolly – an illustrated, busty blonde bombshell – it was love at first sight. Quickly, Lee’s visual obsession blossomed into a friendship as the two began meeting in 2022. The result is Lee’s newest publication, Dolly Mixture, a series of four books, each one schematised by colour: Sherbet Lemon, Candy Floss, Cough Candy and Cookies & Cream. 

The limited-edition publications are bound as simple white hardbacks akin to 90s primary school encyclopedias, titled with chewing-gum-style fonts designed by artist Simon Gray. Inside, we meet Dolly, an enigmatic trans woman based just outside London. She flaunts sickly sissy dresses, patent pleasers and frou frou capes, showcasing an illustrious selection of wigs. Gaudy checkerboard kitchen floors are backdropped by domestic sundries, and at one point, we even catch Dolly straddling a car with the license plate, D0II.

Throughout the publications, which Lee prefers to call zines, images of Dolly are set against miscellaneous works from Lee’s back-catalogue – sweaty, faceless club snaps, and even shots of a women’s wrestling tournament – colour match with Dolly’s getups, drawing a throughline between separate but equally leftfield worlds. 

Lee is a confessed obsessive. While often the spaces she works in bring out characters that might be – to some standards – extreme, her close proximity to queer, sex-positive and downright weird demi-mondes is a fair testament to her own life. Queer herself, she’s a born-and-bred East Londoner, and has, to paraphrase her youth, grown up in nightlife, moving from squat parties to bars and queer weekenders. 

These days, her relationship with clubbing has morphed, although, by all accounts, remains strong – she still shoots every event for queer super-party, Adonis. Elsewhere, her career has developed in commercial spheres, too, with Lee shooting for her long-time friend (and fellow people-lover) Martine Rose, Olly Shinder, Supreme, Fashion East and Nike, as well as countless editorials.

As Lee’s life has changed, it’s given her space to focus further on other avenues, such as her portraiture – another term she’s not fond of – where she’s captured the likes of professional dominatrix Eva Oh, model wrestler Miss Naiirobii and body performance artist Ron Athey. Often, Lee shoots inside her bedroom, a curated interior with glossy, satin curtains and stacks of vintage smut. To this day, she still does shifts in clubs and a rare porn shop that she won’t reveal the name of.

Following an invitation to publish some printed matter for Dover Street Market’s Photo London weekend, Lee’s selection process for Dolly Mixture began. Now, it stands proud on the shop floor, displayed on plinths decorated with chewed gum – a set design commission care of artist Ella Lynch.

Below, we join Roxy Lee for an up-front conversation about her naughty sense of humour, the process behind the zines, visual turn-ons and, of course, Dolly.

Hey Roxy! Tell us, who is Dolly?

Roxy Lee: So, Dolly was somebody that me and a couple of friends were really obsessed with – the way she looked. She does quite a lot of things she shoots herself. Then, during COVID, we spoke quite regularly for about two years. Finally, we met [in 2022]. I visited her a good few times, and we managed to shoot loads of stuff at her house.

What is Dolly’s profession?

Roxy Lee: She’s an entrepreneur. She sells wigs and shoes.

Would you describe her as a drag artist?

Roxy Lee: No, nothing at all to do with drag. This is just how she lives her life, every single day. I guess she’s just obsessed with her perversions and her kinks. Dolly is 24/7 Dolly. 

How did the book come together?

Roxy Lee: The idea of club photos that are 99 per cent faceless, and then these really confronting portraits of Dolly just felt right. It just felt right to draw these common denominators out of club spaces that I’ve documented and muses I have. There’ll be a couple in there from Inferno. The majority are Adonis. I think the earliest club photo in any of the books dates back to 2017. I like that you can’t necessarily identify every club – they’re all anonymous and mainly focus on colour. Colour is really precious to me. And I also really love club lighting.

This is just how she lives her life, every single day. I guess she’s just obsessed with her perversions and her kinks. Dolly is 24/7 Dolly – Roxy Lee

There’s also this idea of sweetness and texture at play, as well as colour, right?

Roxy Lee: I’ve always considered those three things, just generally, on a taste leveI. I love things that are pretty but make you feel a bit sick… that feeling of eating too many E-numbers, or maybe how I’m feeling after a night out. I’ve never been a fan of not bringing the negative to the surface. It might be underlying, and you might have to dig a little bit deeper, but that’s not anything I’ve ever tried to cover up. Anyone who talks to me is aware of that. I think they like that I’m silly or a bit gross. I like tacky and cheap things. Colour is important to me for the dreaminess it brings. Dolly was the perfect person to play with because she’s just got every outfit, in every colour.

What do you love about Dolly?

Roxy Lee: Oh, God. I mean, she’s my girlfriend – do you know what I mean? I love having a cup of tea in the kitchen with her, maybe a Vogue cigarette. She’s a very normal person – she likes the sunshine, she likes her niceties at home. With anybody that I photograph, I love the way they look. Dolly? She’s easy, man. We can talk, we can have a laugh. On paper, we’re very different people, but we really understand each other – maybe on a slightly more perverse level.

Throughout your career, there are a lot of bodies to your work, from the street style and the club photography to the offbeat, playful shoots you do with Martine Rose. Where does this book sit within that lineage?

Roxy Lee: I mean, it’s hard because I’ve been in clubs for years now. So the vigour that I used to have for clubs when I was in my early to mid-20s is very different. I’m always motivated to work in clubs, but my relationship has changed with those spaces. And that breaks my heart to say, but it’s the truth. My friends and I aren’t the youngest. We’re just getting older. I love the club stuff, but I also love domestic spaces – and I love the interiors of houses. Before, I would have always said clubs are my life and my soul, but actually now, for the last three years, I think the kind of swing tag of worlds I work in – this kind of imagery of Dolly – is really what’s most important to me at the moment. I am just obsessed with people. It was the natural progression to start either bringing people to me or going to them. Just seeing somebody and how they present themselves – potentially on social media first – and then going to their domestic space really turns me on. 

A lot of your work has nods to porn. Was that sensibility at play in this shoot for you?

Roxy Lee: It’s genuinely in every piece of work I do. It’s in how I dress, it’s in how I speak to some degree. It’s a source of inspiration and reference that I will never, ever get to the end of. I’ll never have every piece of porn. I think maybe that’s why I connect with perverts so well, because I am one – so it’s always there.

I think maybe that’s why I connect with perverts so well, because I am one – Roxy Lee

In light of the darkness surrounding trans lives now, is there a weight to working on projects like this? 

Roxy Lee: I mean, listen: I’m not going to be one of those white, cis people who’s like, ‘I don’t see colour, I don’t see gender.’ The truth of the matter is, I do. I acknowledge it, and I try and champion it, and it’s something that I really – I know everybody says this shit – think is so vital to the running of this city, which is also something I love because it’s my home. Is it something I consciously think about? In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. It is genuinely my life. I think trans bodies are the most powerful bodies on the planet. They’re amazing – every degree of transness is so beautiful to me, and always has been.

In one of the photos, Dolly is on a wooden floor, slowly dripping milk onto the ground. It’s positioned opposite a photo of two girls mud wrestling. Why?

Roxy Lee: It’s the money shot. Everybody wants to see the pop. And I just thought, actually, I’m going to put two things together that are horny as fuck to me. So, I used photos from an all-female mud wrestling night and those photos of Dolly. In terms of the milk, that was all Dolly. I love the British seaside joke shop, Rick Mayall’s slapstick humour. And Lily Savage – I was obsessed with her as a child. That’s also why I called these books zines. Their names come from my old Instagram name, Sausage and Custard. I always try to incorporate food in the mix. 

What do you think Dolly will make of the photos?

Roxy Lee: I think she’ll like them. She’s very private, very low-key, but I think she’ll be into them. It’s quite interesting because, actually, she doesn’t really know much of the club work I do, but I think she’d get it. 

Roxy Lee’s Dolly Mixture zines are available to buy from DSM now. 

When photographer Roxy Lee discovered Dolly – an illustrated, busty blonde bombshell – it was love at first sight. Quickly, Lee’s visual obsession blossomed into a friendship as the two began meeting in 2022. The result is Lee’s newest publication, Dolly Mixture, a series of four books, each one schematised by colour: Sherbet Lemon, Candy Floss, Cough Candy and Cookies & Cream. 

The limited-edition publications are bound as simple white hardbacks akin to 90s primary school encyclopedias, titled with chewing-gum-style fonts designed by artist Simon Gray. Inside, we meet Dolly, an enigmatic trans woman based just outside London. She flaunts sickly sissy dresses, patent pleasers and frou frou capes, showcasing an illustrious selection of wigs. Gaudy checkerboard kitchen floors are backdropped by domestic sundries, and at one point, we even catch Dolly straddling a car with the license plate, D0II.

Throughout the publications, which Lee prefers to call zines, images of Dolly are set against miscellaneous works from Lee’s back-catalogue – sweaty, faceless club snaps, and even shots of a women’s wrestling tournament – colour match with Dolly’s getups, drawing a throughline between separate but equally leftfield worlds. 

Lee is a confessed obsessive. While often the spaces she works in bring out characters that might be – to some standards – extreme, her close proximity to queer, sex-positive and downright weird demi-mondes is a fair testament to her own life. Queer herself, she’s a born-and-bred East Londoner, and has, to paraphrase her youth, grown up in nightlife, moving from squat parties to bars and queer weekenders. 

These days, her relationship with clubbing has morphed, although, by all accounts, remains strong – she still shoots every event for queer super-party, Adonis. Elsewhere, her career has developed in commercial spheres, too, with Lee shooting for her long-time friend (and fellow people-lover) Martine Rose, Olly Shinder, Supreme, Fashion East and Nike, as well as countless editorials.

As Lee’s life has changed, it’s given her space to focus further on other avenues, such as her portraiture – another term she’s not fond of – where she’s captured the likes of professional dominatrix Eva Oh, model wrestler Miss Naiirobii and body performance artist Ron Athey. Often, Lee shoots inside her bedroom, a curated interior with glossy, satin curtains and stacks of vintage smut. To this day, she still does shifts in clubs and a rare porn shop that she won’t reveal the name of.

Following an invitation to publish some printed matter for Dover Street Market’s Photo London weekend, Lee’s selection process for Dolly Mixture began. Now, it stands proud on the shop floor, displayed on plinths decorated with chewed gum – a set design commission care of artist Ella Lynch.

Below, we join Roxy Lee for an up-front conversation about her naughty sense of humour, the process behind the zines, visual turn-ons and, of course, Dolly.

Hey Roxy! Tell us, who is Dolly?

Roxy Lee: So, Dolly was somebody that me and a couple of friends were really obsessed with – the way she looked. She does quite a lot of things she shoots herself. Then, during COVID, we spoke quite regularly for about two years. Finally, we met [in 2022]. I visited her a good few times, and we managed to shoot loads of stuff at her house.

What is Dolly’s profession?

Roxy Lee: She’s an entrepreneur. She sells wigs and shoes.

Would you describe her as a drag artist?

Roxy Lee: No, nothing at all to do with drag. This is just how she lives her life, every single day. I guess she’s just obsessed with her perversions and her kinks. Dolly is 24/7 Dolly. 

How did the book come together?

Roxy Lee: The idea of club photos that are 99 per cent faceless, and then these really confronting portraits of Dolly just felt right. It just felt right to draw these common denominators out of club spaces that I’ve documented and muses I have. There’ll be a couple in there from Inferno. The majority are Adonis. I think the earliest club photo in any of the books dates back to 2017. I like that you can’t necessarily identify every club – they’re all anonymous and mainly focus on colour. Colour is really precious to me. And I also really love club lighting.

This is just how she lives her life, every single day. I guess she’s just obsessed with her perversions and her kinks. Dolly is 24/7 Dolly – Roxy Lee

There’s also this idea of sweetness and texture at play, as well as colour, right?

Roxy Lee: I’ve always considered those three things, just generally, on a taste leveI. I love things that are pretty but make you feel a bit sick… that feeling of eating too many E-numbers, or maybe how I’m feeling after a night out. I’ve never been a fan of not bringing the negative to the surface. It might be underlying, and you might have to dig a little bit deeper, but that’s not anything I’ve ever tried to cover up. Anyone who talks to me is aware of that. I think they like that I’m silly or a bit gross. I like tacky and cheap things. Colour is important to me for the dreaminess it brings. Dolly was the perfect person to play with because she’s just got every outfit, in every colour.

What do you love about Dolly?

Roxy Lee: Oh, God. I mean, she’s my girlfriend – do you know what I mean? I love having a cup of tea in the kitchen with her, maybe a Vogue cigarette. She’s a very normal person – she likes the sunshine, she likes her niceties at home. With anybody that I photograph, I love the way they look. Dolly? She’s easy, man. We can talk, we can have a laugh. On paper, we’re very different people, but we really understand each other – maybe on a slightly more perverse level.

Throughout your career, there are a lot of bodies to your work, from the street style and the club photography to the offbeat, playful shoots you do with Martine Rose. Where does this book sit within that lineage?

Roxy Lee: I mean, it’s hard because I’ve been in clubs for years now. So the vigour that I used to have for clubs when I was in my early to mid-20s is very different. I’m always motivated to work in clubs, but my relationship has changed with those spaces. And that breaks my heart to say, but it’s the truth. My friends and I aren’t the youngest. We’re just getting older. I love the club stuff, but I also love domestic spaces – and I love the interiors of houses. Before, I would have always said clubs are my life and my soul, but actually now, for the last three years, I think the kind of swing tag of worlds I work in – this kind of imagery of Dolly – is really what’s most important to me at the moment. I am just obsessed with people. It was the natural progression to start either bringing people to me or going to them. Just seeing somebody and how they present themselves – potentially on social media first – and then going to their domestic space really turns me on. 

A lot of your work has nods to porn. Was that sensibility at play in this shoot for you?

Roxy Lee: It’s genuinely in every piece of work I do. It’s in how I dress, it’s in how I speak to some degree. It’s a source of inspiration and reference that I will never, ever get to the end of. I’ll never have every piece of porn. I think maybe that’s why I connect with perverts so well, because I am one – so it’s always there.

I think maybe that’s why I connect with perverts so well, because I am one – Roxy Lee

In light of the darkness surrounding trans lives now, is there a weight to working on projects like this? 

Roxy Lee: I mean, listen: I’m not going to be one of those white, cis people who’s like, ‘I don’t see colour, I don’t see gender.’ The truth of the matter is, I do. I acknowledge it, and I try and champion it, and it’s something that I really – I know everybody says this shit – think is so vital to the running of this city, which is also something I love because it’s my home. Is it something I consciously think about? In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. It is genuinely my life. I think trans bodies are the most powerful bodies on the planet. They’re amazing – every degree of transness is so beautiful to me, and always has been.

In one of the photos, Dolly is on a wooden floor, slowly dripping milk onto the ground. It’s positioned opposite a photo of two girls mud wrestling. Why?

Roxy Lee: It’s the money shot. Everybody wants to see the pop. And I just thought, actually, I’m going to put two things together that are horny as fuck to me. So, I used photos from an all-female mud wrestling night and those photos of Dolly. In terms of the milk, that was all Dolly. I love the British seaside joke shop, Rick Mayall’s slapstick humour. And Lily Savage – I was obsessed with her as a child. That’s also why I called these books zines. Their names come from my old Instagram name, Sausage and Custard. I always try to incorporate food in the mix. 

What do you think Dolly will make of the photos?

Roxy Lee: I think she’ll like them. She’s very private, very low-key, but I think she’ll be into them. It’s quite interesting because, actually, she doesn’t really know much of the club work I do, but I think she’d get it. 

Roxy Lee’s Dolly Mixture zines are available to buy from DSM now.