Creative Control

Few art forms have moved from the margins to the mainstream quite like drag. What was once niche, even within the queer community, has exploded into a global cultural phenomenon and a big business for both entertainers and brands looking to work with them. At this year's Fast Company Innovation Festival, Kc Ifeanyi, Executive Director of Editorial Programming and host of Creative Control, spoke with Bob the Drag Queen, who has had a front-row seat to drag’s ascendance and is also a key driver of where it goes next. In this conversation, Bob breaks down the business of drag and what he’s building through his production company, Purse First Studios. This is a master class in how to create a brand, cultivate a loyal audience, and turn a distinctive point of view into a lasting business.

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Australian-born creative director, gardener, and entrepreneur Richard Christiansen takes us from his childhood on a rural Australian farm to the front lines of advertising, magazine publishing, and creative agency life in New York before revealing how burnout and the upheaval of COVID sparked a radical new chapter: Flamingo Estate.

What begins as a conversation about career pivots quickly becomes a rich exploration of creativity, intimacy, and the price of speed. Christiansen shares the unlikely path that led him from law school to London agencies, from Benetton’s provocative campaigns to building Chandelier Creative, and finally to transforming his own home into a living, breathing brand rooted in the garden.



Along the way, he reflects on what it means to create with softness in a culture that rewards hardness, why “scale is the enemy of intimacy,” and how nature has become both his business model and his North Star. He also opens up about the lessons he learned from farmers, the philosophy behind his books, and why he believes the world is craving more beauty, ceremony, and human connection.

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To listen to the latest episodes of Creative Control on Fast Company:https://www.fastcompany.com/podcasts/creative-control

Carisa Hendrix never set out to be in show business, and yet she's created one of the most unique entertainment personas working today. Lucy Darling is a character Hendrix created who's part magician, part comedian, and wholly original. Lucy's quick-witted crowd work regularly goes viral online. But there's so much more to Lucy aside from her sharp tongue, old Hollywood glamour, and sleight of hand. What Hendrix is building through Lucy is an inclusive community and a thriving business that operates from a place of intention and values. In this episode of Creative Control, Hendrix unpacks her rather colorful start in showbiz, the origins of Lucy Darling, and how she's growing this very unlikely venture at her own pace.

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To listen to the latest episodes of Creative Control on Fast Company:https://www.fastcompany.com/podcasts/creative-control

According to Bob's Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, you can either go the formal route of establishing a creative career—or just make shit. Both have their merits, to be sure. But to Bouchard, the latter is a true superpower.



Over the course of its 15-year run, Bob's Burgers has become one of the most beloved animated series on TV, following the misadventures of the working-class Belcher family as they try to keep their small business alive. But Bouchard will be the first to tell you that as a high school dropout with no formal training in animation, his path to creating a modern classic like Bob's Burgers was anything but conventional.



In this episode of Creative Control, we unpack Bouchard's unlikely journey to becoming one of animation's top showrunners, what it really takes to build work that lasts, and what keeps his creative passion burning for a project that's lasted a decade and a half.

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To listen to the latest episodes of Creative Control on Fast Company:https://www.fastcompany.com/podcasts/creative-control

Over the past decade, Hollywood has been upended by streaming wars, labor strikes, AI anxiety, and a rapidly shifting business model. Amid the turbulence, Kerry Washington and Pilar Savone have built Simpson Street, a production company with projects that have been both commercially successful and culturally resonant. In this episode of Creative Control, Washington and Savone explain what it takes to make a project undeniable in today's market and how they’re redefining what creative control means when every corner of Hollywood is being reinvented in real time. You’ll also hear lessons in creative collaboration from behind the scenes of Simpson Street’s latest hit, Imperfect Women, on Apple TV, as well as what it takes to actually work for Kerry Washington—questionnaires may be involved.

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To listen to the latest episodes of Creative Control on Fast Company:https://www.fastcompany.com/podcasts/creative-control