A Sussex drag queen has paid tribute to her grandmother in a sentimental runway look on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.

Dakota Schiffer, from Horsham, is the first trans woman to compete on the BBC show and said her grandma was supportive of her “feminity” at a time when her parents found it difficult to understand.

She said: “From a very young age, my twin, Harry, and I were always very attached to hairstyling toys and dolls with long hair.

“We were playing with dolls probably until we were about five, and then there was this massive intervention and they were all taken away from us.

“Our grandma didn’t think that was right and she would really support our femininity.

“She didn’t force us to play with footballs or action figures or anything like that.

“She probably knew that we were probably going to end up queer or trans or whatever she thought we were.”

Dakota said that her and her twin would visit her grandma and play with curtain tassels as they “were the only thing that resembled hair.

“We just put them on our heads and we’d braid them and we’d cut them, and she’d never get angry at us - even though they were probably really expensive, because she realised we were missing something,” she said.

In homage to her, Dakota walked down the runway in a “curtain tassel fantasy”, dubbed “planet of the drapes” by RuPaul.

The outfit featured curtain tassels dangling from her dress, while Dakota also wore a wig in the style of a tassel's skirt.

Brighton contestant Pixie Polite also impressed judges in this week’s challenge, which saw the remaining nine drag queens put in pairs to do an improv skit with Alan Carr.

However, she narrowly missed out on a win to her friend Danny Beard, who amused judges while playing the role of a TV physic. Danny is now tied with Dakota in the competition, with two wins each.

Lancashire’s Sminty Drop was the latest to be eliminated from the show after freezing during her improv performance and losing a lip sync against Baby to the Eighties British classic Respectable.