A fundraising calendar for the Cartier Trust is being officially launched in Auckland on Tuesday, and it’s all about drag. The Caluzzi girls - K' Rd's finest dinner dates The project came about as a result of long-discussed plans by photographer Jarrad Mapp and drag diva Tess Tickle to do a drag shoot. “In about April this year we sat down, had a coffee and Tess suggested doing a calendar,” Mapp says. “And she really wanted to work with the Cartier Trust, which I’d heard about but didn’t know too much about. I found out a bit more and thought it was a really worthy cause,” The Cartier Bereavement Charitable Trust has its roots in drag. It was created in the memory of much-loved drag artist Courtney Cartier, who died in September 2000, aged just 32, from lymphatic cancer after living with HIV and AIDS for some years. There was little money available for her funeral, raising a wider issue, and leading to the creation of the Trust to help fund the funerals of those who die from AIDS-related illnesses. Drag queens were so happy to be involved, the plan to have just one feature queen per month went out the window. “We realised, we’ve got far too many drag queens, so we started putting them together in little groups. Some are on their own. But even so, we didn’t shoot everyone we wanted to, we just couldn’t.” NZ's fittest drag queen, Buckwheat The calendar features the Caluzzi girls, Buckwheat, the LYC girls, Tess Tickle, Buckwheat, Dallas Vixon, Kita Mean, Betty Ford, drag king Tai, Anita Wigl’it, Trenyce and Arabia and more. The shoots happened in a range of locations, from bars to the gym, and Mapp says it was a fun process. “Yeah, they’re pretty outgoing,” he laughs. The calendar is being launched at 6.30PM on Tuesday 18 November at Tom Tom Bar