Thread for Thought

It was excitement and ultimate delight that I attended (and presented at) Yale’s “The Urban Catwalk” conference this past weekend. Though ostensibly the theme was street fashion, as with most conferences, this topic was expounded upon by a wide range of scholars from vastly different fields (performance studies, French history, literature, communications, etc.). More even than “street” or even “public space,” the concepts of “authenticity” and “identity” surfaced again and again in these lectures, and interestingly with vastly different implications.

April Calahan spoke about the French penchant for increasingly towering, sculptural hats during the WWII German occupation. While strict rationing of traditional fabric and leather limited fashions at first, soon tailors and cobblers began experimenting with non-traditional materials like cardboard, ribbons, fake food, etc. to create increasingly flamboyant and odd accessories. With gasoline shortages, bicycle culture rose steeply and clothes that facilitated athletic movement gained popularity, but as clothes became more practical, hats became less so. Though she focused on a large group– the French– Calahan emphasized that the often bizarre, towering hats of this period silently but obviously defied the Germans with a quintessential French industry– flamboyant fashion– to assert French collective identity against oppressive invaders.

French hats of '40s

Along similar lines of collective opposition, Jessica Metcalfe gave a fascinating talk about Native American resistance in contemporary streetwear. She pointed to the 19th century assimilation efforts of placing of Native American children in English/American-style boarding schools and that those children were ritualistically stripped of their native clothes and re-dressed in Western styles. (This very much reminded me of Marie Antoinette’s ritual stripping of her Austrian clothes and re-dressing in her adopted French styles.) Metcalfe showed many examples of current, young Native American graphic artists who screenprint familiar Native American motifs (blankets designs, Sitting Bull, buffalo) on modern Western clothes items (hoodies and T-shirts) as Native American activism. Christopher Columbus and 1492 are recurring references (“Fuck Christopher Columbus”) as a key moment of the marginalization of Native Americans. Metcalfe pointed out that there are many tribes all over America, but Native American activist organizations have consciously appropriated pan-Native American motifs, counting on their generic recognizable symbolism to communicate. For example, a feathered headdress– which is only actually worn by chiefs in the plains– to symbolize Native American strength, power, and a position of authority. This kind of “authentic” protest is especially important as Hipsters and stylists adopt sexified trendy Native American styles like fringed moccasins, “Navajo” print jackets, and headdresses.

Several people discussed the relationship between hip hop music, fashion, culture and black identity, and though I think this is a rich course of study, I also think it’s difficult to say anything new about it. Matthew D. Morrison spoke about sagging pants and the so-called relationship to criminality; this reminded several audience members (and me) of the recent French ban of veils, and I wished Morrison had spent a little more time dissecting how / why government attempts to combat cultural blight like criminal violence, oppressive misogyny, etc., by banning clothes associated as the result (or perhaps the precursor?) to these injustices. (See my earlier post on Innerwear as Outerwear.)

Siobhan Carter-David cataloged every Essence Magazine in the ’80s and early ’90s and made the interesting discovery that though no issue in the ’80s ever championed or even portrayed urban black style (layered doorknocker earrings, for example), in the ’90s they did retrospectives on the importance of hip hop fashions. Very interesting that showed how even the black community has been slow to acknowledge hip hop as a relevant style worthy of emulation (this reticence speaks to the strength of associations between hip hop fashion and urban criminality or other undesirable qualities).

In spite of my general boredom of things relating to hipsters, Heidi Khaled linked modern-day hipsters to their historical counterparts. From bohemian artists of the 19th century to the beatniks (apparently formerly known as “hipsters”), to the “hippies” of the ’70s, she traced the lingering associations between these arty types and elite liberalism, to the contemporary concept of consuming cool in today’s hipsters. By pointing out the fine line between earlier artists who were caught between the desire to create “authentic” art and the need to please their patrons, she indicates a puzzling disconnect between today’s aspiring artsy hipsters and true individualistic “authenticity.”

hipster with ironic glasses and mustache

Though he was not the only Performance Studies scholar, Kalle Westerling was the only presenter who incorporated performance into his discussion of performance, which I appreciated conceptually and thoroughly enjoyed. He opened by enacting a kind of poem, enunciating click sounds of lipstick and glosses and glitter as he applied the products to his lips, just before running this video in its entirety:

First: I want Erickatoure’s first ensemble for my own. Second, I loved the connection between Westerling’s lipstick clicks to the shoe clicks used as percussion in the video. He went on to discuss the intimate relationship between drag queens and their clothes– their shoes especially– in forming their identities which are sometimes separated from their drag characters and sometimes not. Performance pervades this relationship, whether on a stage or on a sidewalk.

Daphne Carr presented part of her book on Hot Topic stores and the irony of the existence of a serialized box-store that caters to supposed sub-cultures like Goth, Emo, Grindcore, etc. She has done exhaustive research on the Hot Topic store chain and it’s even more contradictory off-shot C28, the Evangelical Christian spin-off that uses the same “alternative” aesthetic in store decor and merchandise to sell Christian paraphernalia. What does it mean when “alternative,” “individualistic” visuals become corporate and even conservative religious, and why don’t consumers seem to find this contradiction problematic?

C28 T-shirt

Both Lauren Walsh and Pia Sahni spoke about the non-existence or exoticization of ethnic minorities, especially Indians. Though I certainly agree that there is undoubtedly pervasive white-ness to fashion spreads and fashion runways, and a simultaneous fetishization of those excluded “exotic” people, Walsh and Sahni used the word “authentic” to indicate there was a lack of authenticity in these slanted shows and ads– as though an “authentic” advertisement is possible or exists somewhere else.

Keynote speak Caroline Weber (author of the outstanding book What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution) also touched upon “authenticity” and “identity.” In her history of the dress form and mannequin, or “Pandora,” in Paris, she said a major downfall of Marie Antoinette was that she allowed a lifelike, life-size mannequin of herself to be created, to be dressed in her fashions and shipping all over Europe. Though ostensibly used to disseminate the queen’s style for imitation, the inanimate mannequin was greeted by cheering crowds who treated it as a stand-in for the queen herself. While charming, this nonetheless conditioned people to view the mannequin as a live person, and conversely to view the live queen as an inanimate thing to the point that, when the French Revolution rolled around, she had already been literally dehumanized and it wasn’t so shocking to dismember / behead her. In fact, part of the outrage the French people directed at the throne was due to Antoinette’s mannequin, which they now claimed sexualized and debased their monarchy by allowing commoner’s hands to paw the likeness of the queen. The royal authenticity of the queen had been questioned after her mannequin double was accepted as her; I imagine allowing copies of her royal wardrobe was a similar offense as revolution rumbled, even though the same people had clamored for those very knock-offs.

Not so very much has changed in subsequent centuries: don’t we love the supposed originality of new design collections, don’t we crave affordable knock-offs immediately, and then don’t we discard them when they are so affordable they’re pervasive and we no longer appear “individual” or “authentic?” My question is, does authenticity exist at all?

Wisconsin union rally, 2011

In the current climate of rampant, high-profile antisemitism (Galiano, Gibson, etc.), war on unions (Wisconsin), and the attack of women’s health rights, the centennial anniversary of the tragic Triangle Factory fire of 1911 seems eerily apropos. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was a tragic culmination of long standing inadequate fire and safety codes, and American willful ignorance of the exploitation of the immigrant / Jewish / female work force that largely comprised the garment and textile industries. Unfortunately, the unions that gained so much momentum as a direct response to the Triangle Factory fire have been on the descent, and are under aggressive attack in current legislature. But let me backtrack.

THE SHIRTWAIST

The product of the Triangle Factory, the shirtwaist, was essentially a blouse. Designed for utility, it was basically a feminized version of a man’s undershirt with a turned down collar and button-down front (for details on the history of shirtwaist dress, see Heather Vaughan’s informative article). In “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America,” David Von Drehle asserted that the shirtwaist crossed classes. Designed for mobility during a time when women were mobilizing to join the workforce and vote in their country’s elections, they were worn by clerks,

Mess'rs Park, Davis and Co NYC office, 1910

nurses,

NY cooking school nurse course, 1900

and students.

Academy of St Vincent women, Riverdale, 1915

The shirtwaist “both symbolized and enabled a wave of women’s liberation,” the “perfect repudiation of corsets and bustles and hoops — all the ludicrous contraptions that literally imprisoned women in their own clothes” Von Drehle wrote. In 1910, nearly a third of all factory workers in New York State were women, most dressed in shirtwaists and skirts:

garment workers wearing shirtwaists, c 1900

THE INDUSTRY

Textile and apparel production was one of the first and most aggressively exploited outcomes of the Industrial Revolution (Frederick Engels observed questionable practices in his own father’s factories way back in the mid-19th century, fueling his alliance with Marx):

Hester St sweatshop, 1885

Massive accidents were not uncommon:

explosion at Ames & Moulton Hat factory, Brooklyn, 1860

One of the desired results of the Industrial Revolution was the large-scale (factory) production and wide-spread availability of a variety of textile products, to be purchased at burgeoning department stores like the one below (as opposed to producing clothes within the home, or collaborating with a seamstress and tailor). People loved the wide selection of clothes department stores could offer for immediate purchase and gratification, and this passion for an obscene variety of offered goods hasn’t left America since:

shirts in Rogers Peet & Co, 1908

American immigrants, particularly Eastern European Jews, were eager for the opportunity to take garment factory jobs because they didn’t require fluency in English, and were actually open to women (clothing had historically resided within the female domestic duties). Workers toiled 14 hours a day 6 days a week for as little as $6 a week. Supervisors docked pay for late arrival, talking, taking too long in the rest room or missing Sunday shifts. Workers often sent half of their paltry paychecks to relatives back in their home countries. Pay varied by job, sex, experience, and age, but was generally inadequate to sustain basic family needs. The land of opportunity these immigrants had flocked to lacked adequate safety restrictions, wage requirements, and worker representation.  Children were often employed, for reduced wages but equally abusive work environments:

child working at midnight in glass factory, c 1900

During slack seasons, workers who were perceived as discontented would not be hired. In some shops, workers had to rent their chairs, pay for the electricity used by their sewing machines, and sometimes even supply their own needles and thread (!!). In the photo below, you can see the laborers are hustling over their work so they appear as mere blurs:

garment sweatshop, c 1900

The New York garment industry doubled between 1900 and 1910, making it increasingly lucrative to bring those who had worked in their Lower East Side tenements…

tennement sweatshop c 1900

…into the factories, which should have been regulated, but weren’t. Unions seized upon the factory conditions, and the Women’s Trade Union League additionally fought for more general respect for women in and outside the factories. Just two years before the Triangle Factory fire, the Women’s Trade Union League campaigned for the 8 hour work day and safe working conditions (you can see signs are in Yiddish):

International Ladies Garment Union Workers Union strike, 1909

Though this strike was hugely successful, the Triangle factory was one of a select few businesses that resisted the strike, hiring thugs and prostitutes to disperse the crowds (interesting tactic, right?).

THE FIRE

A skyscraper in its day, the Triangle Factory Asch building was regarded as a model of clean efficiency compared with the sweatshops inside tenement apartments that had been commonplace. It was fireproof (it still functions as an NYU building today), had freight elevators, tall ceilings and windows that flooded the lofts with daylight. But in practice, these amenities fell short of safety for workers. On March 25, 1911, a fire from a waste paper basket went undetected because of the deafening hum of the sewing machines. Workers who fled to the ninth floor stairwell found the exits locked:

Triangle Factory fire locked gate

Many of the doors opened inwards, making it difficult to get through with a crush of frightened people. Those that packed into the elevators found that only so many could fit, and the over-burdened lift eventually plummeted down the shaft. And those that the fire herded to windows found the fire escape ladders too short to reach the ground. There were no sprinklers or fire drills. Just as we saw in 9/11 Twin Towers footage, 54 jumped out windows in desperation, rather than be consumed by flames:

Triangle Factory fire mangled jumpers

An infuriating irony is that the 60-some executives on a higher floor were able to escape to the roof where they climbed down fortuitously placed painter’s ladders.

triangle factory fire being doused

146 garment workers died in the fire. 102 were Jewish, 129 were women. Almost all were immigrants from Russia, Poland, Romania and Hungary. Though these workers were comprised of minority groups most Americans didn’t generally care about, the calamity resonated with many and brought to the forefront the dire factory circumstances many Americans were forced to live with.

THE RESPONSE

Once the fire was extinguished, a long, painful process of identifying victims began:

identifying bodies, Triangle Factory Fire

And within a couple weeks of the fire, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union organized a funeral procession in Lower Manhattan to honor the victims. More than 120,000 people marched, and 300,000 people paid their respects on that dramatically rainswept day :

Triangle Factory mourners, 1911

The Jewish Forward asserts the avoidable tragedy of the Triangle Factory fire made a Jewish  / immigrant issue into an American issue. Public outrage soon followed, and was voiced in many scathing cartoons, which pointed out the aggressive greed of factory owners,

and the inadequacy of legal regulations:

"In Compliance with the Law"

The outpouring of grief and sympathy over the fire was expertly harnessed by unions. The leadership of people like Clara Lemlich Shavelson galvanized the women’s movement, immigrant and worker’s rights, and labor reform– all of which are furiously contested even today.

In direct response to the fire and pressure from unions, the New York Legislature enacted laws requiring automatic sprinklers in high-rise buildings, mandatory fire drills at large companies and factory doors that swung out. Labor regulations grew out of the fire, including a 54-hour week for women and child workers. In 1912 the New York State Legislature passed eight bills proposed by the Factory Investigating Committee, covering conditions and dangers including sanitation, rest periods, child labor, recent mothers, hour limits for women and children, and on-the-job injuries. And in 1913, the NYS Legislature passed 25 more bills recommended by the Fire Investigating Committee including fireproof stairways, doorway width, amount of lighting, fireproof building material, safe construction of fire escapes, and more. The unions even achieved a pension system for those too old to work any longer, all ideas that Franklin Roosevelt would bring nationwide in the New Deal (1933 – 36). In the two decades after the Triangle fire, the city building code was revised to require more exits in tall buildings (in the 1960s, just as the World Trade Center was being designed, those exit requirements slackened to increase the amount of rentable space).

Basic physical safety improved, but the discrepancy between wealthy corporations and the struggling factory worker remained a problem, as evidenced by the portrayal of this class struggle in film. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) famously portrays factory life and shocking class divisions, complete with aloof bosses and an entire self-appointed master race that unwittingly exploits the workers toiling deep underground. The technology-driven culture dehumanizes the workers while allowing the elite to live in a decadent paradise, willfully ignorant of those who make their world function — does this sound familiar?

Metropolis factory still

Charlie Chaplin more humorously– but not less poignantly– portrayed the frenzied monotony of a factory job in Modern Times (1936). The awesome first 10 minutes are below:

His boss looms over him in gigantic TV screens, even while taking a smoking break in the bathroom (3:45). His body becomes so tuned to his single task that when he leaves for the day, the action becomes a tic he can’t shake (with hilarious but nonetheless poignant consequences, mistaking anything vaguely resembling a nut and bolt– like buttons on a woman’s skirt or blouse– for something he needs to tweak with his wrenches (6:35).

CURRENT RELEVANCE

Though significant progress was made in the years and decades after the Triangle Factory fire, the issues at play then are sadly relevant today. Women still make a fraction of their male counterparts in almost all career paths. Only last year, 29 West Virginia miners died in the Massey Energy mine that had received 1,100 safety violations (including improper escape routes) but which was still allowed to operate for some reason. Currently 80,000 laborers work in New York State farms, who can be fired for attempting to unionize or to improve their working conditions (they are not eligible for overtime pay, disability, or unemployment insurance). Wage theft (the illegal withholding of owed pay) remains a rampant problem; unscrupulous employers who refuse to pay their non-unionized employees, denying their workers of needed payment and skirting taxes that could pay for teachers, pubic programs, public transportation, etc. 20th century unions did great work establishing laws for worker safety, but these laws are regularly violated. In the report “Working Without Laws,” the National Employment Law Project (NELP) documented that 21% of workers in the sample had been paid less than the legally required minimum wage ($7.25 per hour in New York state) in the previous week; 77% were not paid the legally required overtime rate when they worked more than 40 hours; 70% did not receive legally required meal breaks; and 42% of those who had complained or attempted to establish a union experienced a form of illegal retaliation by the employer.

The Jewish Forward rightly urges us to “Think about what was going on in 1911 — fierce competition among manufacturers, a large pool of under-skilled labor, lack of essential safety and economic regulations and generally uncaring attitudes about workers’ conditions, rights and welfare. This all-too-familiar scenario hasn’t gone away at all, and only labor’s vigilance will keep it from returning to our door here at home.” It is possible to produce a profitable product and pay living wages, though this is still seen as risky because ethical companies like Knights Apparel are competing with sweatshops. It’s clear that corporations will not do this willingly. Denis Hughes, president of New York State’s AFL-CIO, pointed out unions have been villainized in part because they don’t get credit for admirable actions like lobbying for legislation to cover health care costs for rescue workers injured after 9/11 (Jon Stewart was more loudly credited). “It was a tremendous win, but it wasn’t reported as ‘a labor victory,’” Hughes said. Peter Ward, head of New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council points to the corporate control over mainstream media as root problem of union’s nonexistent or unflattering publicity. Ward pointed out “We had the largest financial crime in history culminate in 2008. We had major mortgage brokers falsifying documents, huge investment firms participating in what can only be described as Ponzi schemes. The entire world knows it. But somehow unions are taking the hit for the resulting fiscal crisis.”

Injustices perpetrated against immigrant workers were (and are) injustices against America and humanity at large. In the midst of all these anti-immigrant laws (Arizona), how quickly we forget that America was built by immigrants. We are practically all descendents of immigrants who fled their respective countries for better lives in this so-called land of opportunity.  As the garment and textile industry has shrunk in America (moved overseas for even cheaper labor), the textile and garment unions have shrunk. Largely supported by Yiddish socialists, these unions have been instrumental in fighting for basic worker and civil rights, in and out of the garment industry. Our country is in a serious financial crisis, and yes, we all must make concessions. But it’s downright unethical to ask those who would have the flimsiest job security, the lowest wages, to sacrifice those privileges we should all have. As a freelancer who would pay (even more) exorbitant amounts for basic health care without the collective bargaining of organizations like the Freelancer’s Union or Media Bistro, I feel the attack on unions is an attack on me, too. The Triangle Factory fire was important because it transcended the garment industry, the “Jewish problem”, and even the working class. It was an American failure, and the current attacks on women, immigrants, workers, and unions remain an American failure.

Wisconsin Union rally in Jefferson, MO, Feb 2011

Further resources:

• PBS documentary on the Triangle factory, viewable online
• wonderful pictoral timeline of the evolution of the shirtwaist style
• PBS premiered the film “Made in LA” in the fall of 2007, documenting recent sweatshop abuses in Southern California.
• the Jewish Women’s Archive Top 10 Jewish Women in Labor History
• excellent Cornell website outlining the Triangle Factory Fire: photos, primary sources, reform, unions, commemoration
• NYU exhibition “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: One Hundred Years After” through May

I’m gearing up to present at CUNY’s upcoming interdisciplinary conference “Jesters and Gestures: Irony at a Crossroads” (February 24 – 25), and as I was brainstorming what I might be able to bring to the table, Surrealist fashion just screamed at me. Here’s a teaser of what I’ll be speaking on:

Irony is typically associated with the literary and oral; I intend to explore visual irony, specifically within Surrealist fashion, where puns are conceived and presented as optical double entendres, adding layers of meaning to deceptively simple forms. Inconsistencies between expectations and realizations of fashion are often humorously absurd– but what initially seems silly can effectively question functionality, gender, art history, politics and social standards. The Surrealists were, after all, affiliated with the French Communist Party (before they were kicked out!), but their focus was on an emotional revolution that they believed would achieve the same ends as a strictly economic one would.

Elsa Schiaparelli was the first and arguably the most influential designer to explore irony in dress, collaborating frequently with fellow Surrealists Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, and Man Ray. Following the tenets of Surrealism such as the banishment of false rationality and restrictive customs and structures, she conflated tropes of music,

Music Gloves, Elsa Schiaparelli, c 1939

optical illusion,

Schiaparelli jacket with Cocteau embroidery, 1937

classic statuary and traditional fashion,

Schiaparelli Shoe hat with mannequin, 1937

deliberately presenting incongruity and discordance. Riffing off fine art history, she employed painterly trompe l’oeil to give the illusion a 1938 evening dress was inside-out and had tears in the fabric, revealing glimpses of the “right” side (meanwhile, the matching veil had three-dimensional “tear” flaps, further disorienting the viewer):

Schiaparelli "Tear Dress," 1939

This simulation of a ravaged frock was silly (who would wear a dress inside-out?) but also bitingly sarcastic,  contrasting Great Depression poverty and pre-WWII fears with the escapist American films in which women could still afford luxurious evening gowns.

Schiaparelli set the stage for subsequent designers like Martin Margiela to present social and economic contradictions, examining themes of dystopia, discord, and discontentment in unexpected sartorial forms. Exaggerated silhouettes or familiar motifs are amplified to ridiculous extremes in Surrealist– and now “deconstructed”– fashion, or with some “essential” element mutated or missing entirely. Surrealist and deconstructed fashion frequently compares humans to inanimate objects like furniture,

Schiaparelli Desk Suit, 1936 (hard to see, but those are actual hardware knobs on the false pockets)

internal anatomy,

Schiaparelli skeleton dress, 1939

and displaces body parts, indicative of dismemberment or ferocious self-protection:

Schiaparelli gold clawed gloves, 1938

While fashions making these analogies may seem whimsical (a hat that covers one’s eye while creating another, larger eye is ridiculous after all),

Schiaparelli eye hat, 1950

they nonetheless question the ideal body form, gender norms, and can express unease, uncertainty, inequality, and the political unrest pervasive in the years leading up to WWII.

If anyone’s planning on attending (and you should, I’ll have a lot more to share and show!!), do drop a line and introduce yourself!

Graffiti makeup bag, Marc by Marc Jacobs

Coming from an Art History background with all its unfortunate snooty and consumerist associations (fashion shares these themes, I’m afraid), I’ve recently become obsessed with its subculture offshoot, the publicly accessible graffiti (or “street art”) movement. Long fascinated by graffiti, I’ve recently gone on a binge, going out of my way to walk around Pilsen while visiting my friend in Chicago (it’s known for its street art; you can see my photos here), thumbing through my Banksy book, and watching documentaries like Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) and Beautiful Losers (2008). I was especially captivated by the “Underbelly Project,” a unidentified underground “gallery” created in an abandoned New York subway station whose “curators” asked dozens of guest graffiti artists to creatively deface walls. You’ll thank me for recommending the slideshow of this installation-specific “exhibit.”

Most graffiti is site-specific, incorporating unique aspects of a location right into the art; this lends it to the use of trompe l’oeil, blurring the lines of the environment and the art (Marcel Duchamp, of course, pioneered this technique in the early 20th century). Graffiti artist Banksy in particular employs trompe l’oeil in many of his works. For example, the maid below is “sweeping” on a chalky wall in Chalk Farm (a London neighborhood, not an actual chalk farm), riffing on the location in multiple ways:

Chalk Farm, London, 2006

And the following, more bitterly ironic example, painted directly onto the wall built by Israel which separates the occupied Palestine territories from Israel (see more of Banksy’s Palestine wall murals here), drawing attention to the oppressive concrete barrier but also hinting at the potential for its destruction:

Bethlehem, 2005

The Ancient Greeks, and painters in the Baroque and Renaissance periods also loved to trick viewers, and they often incorporated “fabric” into part of the illusion:

trompe l'oeil letterboard by Cornelis Gijbrechts, 17th c

Elsa Schiaparelli famously adopted the trompe l’oeil technique and created optical illusions of fashion embellishments, without actually attaching embellishments, as in this knit sweater with “bow” and “cuffs”:

trompe l'oeil bow sweater by Elsa Schiaparelli, 1927

This is comically jarring — we often take our expectations for granted (in this case, we expect multiple layers of different materials) — and we only realize we had assumptions when they prove to be inaccurate. In most cases of trompe l’oeil this is meant to be an amusing realization, but much graffiti art is designed to be more confrontational. As the antithesis of “high art” — produced for wealthy private and corporate patrons — graffiti bears distinctly seedier, subversive connotations. It’s frequently associated with (and often indistinguishable from) out-and-out vandalism, gang tags, and is often linked in people’s minds to the perpetuation of a cycle of low-income and high-crime neighborhoods.

These sinister connotations are conveyed in Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 1999 fashion show, in which a windswept and vulnerable Shalom Harlow is seemingly attacked by mechanical spraypaint robots. Oh yeah.

Like trompe l’oeil that brings to light one’s own unconscious expectations, the negative and violent connotations of graffiti are exposed when you simply modify the vocabulary: call a graffitied wall a “mural,” and the sinister overtones are eradicated, but why? Because murals are legal? What, besides red tape, is the difference between graffiti and murals? Perhaps to combat the negative stereotypes (perhaps not),  “graffiti” is increasingly dubbed “street art” which not only makes it more palatable for general consumption (“street art” is actually appearing in some galleries now), but it more easily encompasses spray painting and wall collage, such as Shepard Fairey creates. Fairey has had a significant hand in “legitimizing” graffiti as he mimics political propaganda posters in a Dada-esque manner, with trompe l’oeil layers of “torn” “posters,” some of which are modeled on actual posters he has already created as solo pieces. Indeed, most of his graffiti is overtly political (as is Banksy’s), urging citizen activism, and inherent in his chosen medium, civil disobedience. (He is perhaps best known these days for his iconic “Hope” Obama posters; but this has not shielded him from vandalism convictions.) In the snapshot below, Fairey’s familiar Andre the Giant “Obey” posters appear to be under / over other crumbling posters and wallpaper / textile illusions, the “layers” drawing attention to the mutable impermanence of his own art (and by extension, political regimes):

Shepard Fairey, Spring St

Part of what many graffiti artists are commenting on with their acts of guerrilla public art is the lack of choice the population has in ingesting the images that bombard our senses. Billboards on the roads, commercials in elevators, propaganda posters along sidewalks, these all assault us in public places legally, though their purpose is not the egalitarian sharing of public art so much as it is to compel us to consume products for someone else’s personal/ corporate profit. Many graffiti artists question authority at large, and the commercial art scene. Transgressive in its subversive messages and technical vandalism, most graffiti artists produce works of art at their own expense for free public enjoyment, or perhaps public awareness of social issues. The NYTimes article on the Underbelly Project points out that if the artists had been caught, they could’ve be charged with trespassing and possibly terrorism. Workhorse, one of the project organizers said, “There is a certain type of person that the urban art movement has bred that enjoys the adventure as much as the art. Where else do you see a creative person risking themselves legally, financially, physically and creatively?” And often knowing the fruits of their risky labor will be removed / painted over! You gotta respect the commitment.

I thoroughly enjoy the temporary nature of graffiti. Anything that can be painted can be painted over — and if its message is provocative and in an especially visible locale, it’s especially likely to be speedily removed. Something that’s fun about Banksy’s book Wall and Piece is that there are multiple photos of the same wall with timestamps. Bansky favors this approach with projects in which his graffiti invites more graffiti, as with this faux-official stamp that subverts the very concept that graffiti is illegal by making it appear legally sanctioned:

close-up

Here is one of the walls with this stencil, on Day 1, Day 9, and Day 15:

Banksy Designated Graffiti Site timeline

Graffiti walls have limited shelf lives, being exposed to the harsh natural elements and graffiti-removal campaigns. This mimics the impermanent nature of fabric which, textile conservators will tell you, is startlingly fragile. The conceptual fashion house Maison Martin Margiela is known for embracing fabric decay, exaggerating the telltale signs of the passage of time rather than suppressing them. Many of their pieces are painted white: this isn’t traditional “whitewashing” to cover up imperfections, but rather to emphasize the wrinkle fault lines and chips of exposed contrasting color underneath, as the items are broken in. The example below is painted dark, but achieves the same aging effect:

painted pants, Martin Margiela Men Fall/Winter 04

Here’s a closeup of the pants where the belt and knees have already worn away some of the dark paint:

There has been increasing cross-over between fashion and graffiti in the last couple of decades. New York graffiti artist Erni Vales collaborated on the design of limited-edition handbags for Aleya NY. And Apparel Search noted “…[Marc] Ecko won a court battle with New York City when he set out to launch a graffiti fest in New York City several years ago. Ecko, who built a successful apparel company that was founded in 1993, began with just six t-shirts and a can of spray paint. His empire now has approximately six brands under its fashion umbrella, and includes a range of fashions from contemporary styles to t-shirts, denim, fleece, and beyond.”

Marc Ecko graffiti sneakers

And I recently stumbled upon this Protacico bespoke hand painted graffiti suit that I rather fancy:

It reminds me just a little of that admittedly terrible Mentos commercial from the ’90s… (you know you want to watch it again):

The haphazard, distinctly urban effect of the neon graffiti print belies the demure cut of this Moschino summer dress in an interesting contradiction:

Graffiti print dress by Moschino

Jay-Z was recently on The Daily Show wearing a more restrained Marc Jacobs‘ painted mohair sweater:

Jay-Z on The Daily Show, December 2010

I love the single stripe that wraps around the back, as though it were a drive-by person-painting:

And speaking of person-painting, take a gander at the Louis Vuitton ad from a couple years ago….

Marc Jacobs posing for Stephen Sprouse "Graffiti" collection, 2008

If you look at the bag itself (ignore the smiling naked man for a sec), it’s more in the style of graffiti tagging, where the artist writes his name (in this case, Stephen Sprouse’s sponsoring company’s name) over and over. While I myself don’t care for this product, I appreciate the translation of a sprayed tag indicating turf property, and painted (albeit designer) moniker indicating product design property:

Louis Vuitton monogram "Graffiti" bag

As graffiti is adopted by the commercial world, it is slowly gaining (corporate) credibility, which has pros and cons for a subversive movement. Distinctly mainstream Women’s Wear Daily informed me that Dude’s Factory in Berlin “asks a different artist or artistic team to redesign the streetwear brands’ entire visuals for its collection of T-shirts, sweaters and hoodies” each month, incorporating site-specific graffiti art to create a backdrop for items for sale.

Dudes Factory mural, Berlin

If you can’t tell, I have mixed feelings about the appropriation of graffiti by corporate ventures: on one hand, I genuinely like the graphic style of street art, so products incorporating it appeal to me; on the other hand, it seems antithetical to the free, urban art movement to participate in collaborations with high end designers and boutiques. But an inherent trait of graffiti that I think will preserve its subversive, edgy, anti-consumerist roots is that it will remain a DIY art that anyone with a sharpie / paint can / printer / glue could imitate. I just might paint my own damn clothes Mr. Jacobs, thank you very much!

For excellent DIY fashion blogs, check these out (and share, if you know some more!):

• OutsaPop Trashion
• A Pair and a Spare
• P.S. I Made This
• (In)Decorous Taste

Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon, 1957

I have had Marilyn Monroe on the brain recently due to two rather under-publicized tidbits:

1. Michelle Williams (1980 – ) will be playing Marilyn in an upcoming movie My Week With Marilyn, about the tense filming of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier; and
2. WWD recently informed me that Authentic Brands Group, LLC has bought the “intellectual property” of Marilyn Monroe — that is, the rights to use her name and image for advertising any product they see fit.

Now I understand that celebrities have been an integral part of marketing products they may or may not actually use themselves for decades, if not hundreds of years. But the Marilyn obsession, like Cleopatra, has been particularly enduring. Droves of women, beautiful in their own rights, have latched onto literal comparisons between themselves and Marilyn. Madonna (1958 – ) was particularly Marilyn-like in her late ’80s, early ’90s incarnations of herself:

Madonna vs Marilyn Monroe in white dress

And she created a video homage to Ms. Monroe by recreating her own version of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953):

in her “Material Girl” (1985) video:

Madonna’s video not only aped the pink evening gown and the dancing chorus boys, but also addressed the same stereotype of beautiful women assumed to be gold diggers — though both blondes are singing about wanting money with their men, in fact their characters are both invested in love. And the public loves to believe stunningly gorgeous women are really down to earth, don’t we?

Lindsay Lohan (1986 – ) and photographer Bert Stern (1929 – ) likewise recreated the famous “Last Sitting” photo shoot Stern himself took of Marilyn just weeks before Marilyn’s premature death, practically shot-for-shot for 2008 New York Magazine (see all photos here):

Lindsay Lohan for New York Magazine, 2008

Compare to the original:

Marilyn Monroe shot by Bert Stern in Last Sitting, 1962

I find the following photo from the Lohan shoot especially interesting, in that she is looking at herself in the process of being made to resemble a dead woman idolized for her body and face, who turned to alcohol and pills to cope with the pressure of being the woman “every woman wants to be and every man wants.” This might be especially poignant for Lohan, as another young pop culture figure whose substance abuse was probably fueled and certainly facilitated by her celebrity. Lohan so identifies with Marilyn that her clothing line 6126 (best known for its leggings) references Marilyn’s birth date.

Lindsay Lohan being made up as Marilyn Monroe, shot by Bert Stern, 2008

It’s become a familiar formula that women assume Marilyn’s iconic style, implicitly comparing themselves to her: attempting to appropriate her beauty, her sexual power, and perhaps her emotional vulnerability in an attempt to capture for themselves some of the public’s adoration. It’s also interesting that for all Marilyn’s legendary beauty, almost no one remembers who helped create her image. Her trademark sleepy bedroom-eyes was in great part due to winged liquid liner and false eyelashes that drooped down rather than fanning upwards — Kevyn Aucoin proved in his book Making Faces that someone as dissimilar-looking as Lisa Marie Presley…

Lisa Marie Presley

…could look exactly like Marilyn.  Shocking, right??

Lisa Marie Presley as Marilyn Monroe, makeup by Kevyn Aucoin

All you need is obscene amounts of makeup and step-by-step instructions:

In the introduction, Aucoin writes that he threw out all the rules of makeup — don’t lipstick outside your natural lip lines, for example. Looking back on his radical technique now, I realize he was doing precisely what the makeup artists and wardrobe stylists of the Hollywood studios were doing in the early 20th century: taking a slightly better-than-average-looking woman and turning her into a star (see this website for some fun before-and-afters of stars who went through this process). It was no secret Marilyn was not a natural blonde, but when she went from “Norma Jean Baker” to “Marilyn Monroe,” she lost the wide-eyed innocent look with freckles too, which makes her look like a completely different person:

Norma Jean Baker

I don’t know who was responsible for the original transformation, but Travilla (a.k.a. William Travilla, 1920 – 1990) dressed Marilyn in eight of her most well-known films including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953),

and The Seven Year Itch (1955) with its iconic white pleated halter dress and subway grate scene (which, by the by, you see far more of — that is, far more leg — in the publicity photos than you do in the movie). (Amazing photo stills of many other test costume shots here.)

It was a challenge to design clothes that showcased Marilyn’s bitchin’ bod while conforming to the highly restrictive Hays Production Code that strictly defined and prohibited obscenity in films for the greater part of the 20th century (as opposed to the more mysterious current system of film rating with anonymous rule-makers… but that’s another story). Travilla dressed Marilyn off-screen as well, yet so dazzled are we by the myth we’ve built up about Marilyn that most people are unaware of Travilla’s significant contribution to the creation of her public image, which rode the line between glamorous and down-to-earth, slinky but covered up (hello illusion netting!), unselfconscious but vulnerable. You can see how this image is twisted in the hands of, say Britney Spears (1981 – ) who posed for an Esquire cover reminiscent of Marilyn’s subway vent breeze:

Britney Spears for Esquire cover, 2003

Compare to this more playful sweater pic of Marilyn, with less skin exposed and bare feet,

or to this racier “Lolita” sweater clip from Let’s Make Love (1960):

What this very long series of examples serves to demonstrate is there is no end to the appropriation of Marilyn Monroe’s style by celebrities already, to glom onto her success, her beauty, her adoration, and perhaps also the infamy of her tragic demise — which, I might point out, was in large part due to the pressure exerted by an over-enthusiastic public that pinned unrealistic expectations of smoldering looks and bubbly personality on a woman who struggled to maintain relationships and was terrified of aging. Marilyn died almost 50 years ago now (in 1962), and yet “Over the past 20 years, 1,975 deals for Marilyn Monroe have been signed, ranging from intimate apparel to wine, and, in the past year alone, some 140 deals have been signed.” Gina Bellefante wrote of Lindsay Lohan’s “Last Sitting” redux, “No matter Ms. Lohan’s protestations, the pictures ask viewers to engage in a kind of mock necrophilia. They are sexual, funereal images.” I couldn’t agree more. Other living celebrities who were just as famous in their heydays — Elizabeth Taylor, “the most beautiful woman in the world” comes to mind — have not lasted in the public image as Marilyn or James Dean have. America just loves a beautiful train wreck.

To return (at long last) to the Authentic Brands Group marketing deal, “there will be three ways in which Marilyn Monroe licensing will operate: One is to borrow the name and likeness for ad campaigns; the second is to use the Marilyn Monroe likeness, via computer-generated technology, in films, and the third is through traditional licensing.” With so many wanna-be Marilyns flooding the celeb rags already with their transparent aspirations and insecurities, we really need her virtual likeness to be inserted into whatever games or movies a corporation deems profitable?? It’s just too much for me. With increasingly brief expiration dates on celebrity longevity, it’s somewhat ironic that people — celebrities and corporations alike — want to cling ever-harder to what was actually a very brief life (Monroe died at age 36) by recycling those finite original images and duplicating them almost verbatim with new people styled to look exactly like Marilyn, with little-to-no commentary. Hoping that by comparing themselves to Marilyn, their fame will have the same endurance, but for me, the comparisons inevitably fall flat.

Paris Hilton for 2008 premiere

American flag costume c. 1889 and contemporary Flag Dress by Catherine Malandrino

As a native Cantabrigian, I read with interest and delight the NYTimes review of the newly opened, newly expanded American Wing of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, a museum I practically grew up in (my father still lectures there). I was especially intrigued by the following statement:

“One can imagine arguments growing sharp in the present political climate, when opinions about what America was, is and should be are so polarized and proprietorial. And maybe this is where art itself comes to the rescue…. Usually we get North America, meaning Euro-America, over here; America Indian and Mesoamerica over there, with African and Oceanic; and South America almost nowhere…. But what if you bring them together, hook them up, seat them as equals at a hemispheric table? Intriguing things can happen. Boston homeboys like Paul Revere begin to look, in their great harbor city, unexpectedly cosmopolitan. Sophisticated civilizations like Olmec and Maya break free of the “primitive” slot. South America, that grand ballerina en pointe, starts to look like the big global deal it, of course, is.”

The Triumvirate “American” Fashion Exhibits

The definition of “American” has been on my mind too: aside from Obama’s supposed non-citizenship (Hawaii is, to my knowledge a U.S. state) and the latest war against immigrants, not one but three New York museums tackled American fashion within the past two years. FIT presented “American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion,” and the Met and Brooklyn Museum concurrently displayed “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity” and “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection,” respectively.

While I generally look for geographic indicators in garments that could include politics, economics, wars, etc., I somehow feel that this rash of exhibitions has a subtle consumerist agenda — as Anna Wintour’s “Fashion’s Night Out” shopping night series is — an attempt to revive the American fashion industry that has been floundering since the Great Recession (or whatever we’re calling it). This is not bad per se, it’s simply something to take into consideration when thinking about the purpose or necessity of three institutions defining our supposed national style one after the other. Isolating American-specific style, no matter what the motivation, is problematic from a conceptual perspective as well. The United States was founded by colonists and continues to be built upon waves of immigrants, and the arts have been inextricably influenced by these immigrant cultures (even as we inevitably resist being “taken over” by too many). All the American fashion exhibitions included some designers who were born in other countries; the example of Dior below was not only created by a French couturier, but worn by Eva Peron (1919 – 1952), the First Lady of Argentina, and evens riffs off a Spanish theme with beaded trompe l’oeil “ruffles” on the skirt. I mean, it’s gorgeous, but it may be a stretch for an “American” exhibit:

Dior evening ensemble, 1952, worn by Eva Peron

I myself have been battling this problematic nation-specific framing, as I’m writing several fashion articles for an upcoming Encyclopedia of Women and American Pop Culture. It’s been a real challenge to extricate American-specific fashion trends and icons from international ones, especially French and English. At times I’ve felt like I’m trying to explain Vietnamese cuisine without mentioning the French occupation of that country (mmmmm, makes me want a Vietnamese sandwich — on the requisite baguette — riiiiight now). Robin Givhan voiced similar perplexity in her article “Single definition of American Woman proves elusive at Costume Institute.” And this type of nation-defining exercise grows more difficult  — perhaps even futile — as one explores more recent decades in which images, information, and trends pass effortlessly, inexpensively, and instantly across continents via TV and the internet. (As a side note, I would love to see a project similar to the Electronic Enlightenment Correspondence Visualization, but tailored to fashion samples, color cards, textile production, etc. to more concretely trace paths of influence.)

The good news is that the specific missions and personalities of FIT, the Met, and the BMA are all called into sharp relief when they tackle the same challenging subject. FIT is, after all, a technical fashion school that focuses on design and construction elements and generally lets the gowns speak for themselves, going light on historical context. In the photo below, you can see that gowns that resemble each other’s shapes, palettes, and materials are grouped together, something that’s particularly helpful to people studying fashion design:

American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion set

The Met has a ridiculous budget and blockbuster-style  annual gala associated with its spring Costume Institute show so there’s more emphasis on creating high-class period atmosphere, with elaborate sectional murals and plentiful props (this is noted in Roberta Smith’s article The Art of Style, and the Style of Art). Additionally, Curator in Charge Harold Koda treats fashion as “high art,” and therefore favors extraordinary (i.e. couture) garments over more common (ready-to-wear) ones though the latter may be more characteristic of what the general population wore; this approach seemed especially problematic to me because historically speaking, American designers have generally been more sleek and restrained than their flamboyant European contemporaries (this is due in large part to our somber religious forebearers and democratic political system that explicitly rejected the caste system of England).

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity set

The BMA tends to emphasize historical conditions that are generally provided in explanatory signage contextualizing costumes within local, national and global circumstances (this is my personal favored approach, if you didn’t know!). Compare the BMA’s minimalistic installation and wider represented economic range (like the ready-to-wear Claire McCardell bikini top and romper shorts in far center) to the Met’s above; likewise, compare the range of styles, colors and materials grouped together (probably because of subject theme) to FIT’s more visually cohesive design:

American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection set

The Difficulty of Defining “American”

The Whitney Museum, which I used to work for, had similar difficulty pinning down a definition for “American,” and this was a larger issue than a single exhibition: the full name is The Whitney Museum of American Art. Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney established the institution in 1930 with the explicit intention of supporting living, American artists. The difficulty arose however, that with ever-easier, affordable transportation options (not to mention America’s well documented appeal to immigrants), people don’t necessarily live and die in one country. Artists especially (this very much includes writers, as the Ex-Pats of US / Paris) seem to thrive on changing locals for fresh inspiration. The definition of “American” thus becomes increasingly nebulous.

What the Times article reminded me was that America is even larger than these institutions and exhibits acknowledge — North America is a continent, after all, and the United States is one single country among 22 represented nations. I hope that, with the MFA’s lead, people will start to include and compare / contrast American art and American fashion while acknowledging the influence of our geographical neighbors, also American.

And with that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pieces from the BMA’s exhibition, one that I not only think is beautiful, but thoroughly American by any definition: designer Elizabeth Hawes (1903 – 1971) was American, and the dress exemplifies the traditional, somewhat plain silhouette of early WWII years in America. But my favorite aspect is the simple-but-bold shiny red graphic, an inverted pelvic-like triangle with abstracted vaginal slit running between the modestly covered legs is wonderfully subversive when you consider America’s ingrained Puritan roots and complicated relationship with displayed female sexuality (and if you think this interpretation is a stretch, consider the title of the dress):

"The Tarts" dress by Elizabeth Hawes, 1937

Ah America, land of expression!

Further Reading:

• “The Art of Style, and the Style of Art” NYTimes, Roberta Smith May 6, 2010
• photos and catalog listing of all garments in BMA exhibit
• photos of the Met’s installation
• FIT’s online American Beauty exhibition

Recommend this Post:

: : : : : : : : : : :

Beach Scene: Woman Wearing Striped Hat and Dark Jacket, Coney Island, New York, 1960s

A few months ago I had the delight of popping into the Met’s modestly-sized exhibition “Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950–1980.” From the Met’s website description: “Leon Levinstein (1910–1988), an unheralded master of street photography, is best known for his candid and unsentimental black-and-white figure studies made in New York City neighborhoods from Times Square and the Lower East Side to Coney Island…. In 1975, Levinstein received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation to ‘photograph as wide a spectrum of the American scene as my experience and vision will allow….I want my photographs to be spontaneous rather than contrived.’ ” Though I found some of the date estimations of the photos in the exhibition to be suspect (Levinstein didn’t date them himself), I fell in love with Levinstein’s distinctly unglamorous work in those few rooms.

Street Scene: Two Men Wearing Hats and Plaid Jackets, New York City, 1970s

He probably would not have said he was a “fashion photographer,” but Levinstein most certainly would’ve achieved more fame if he’d lived in this age of street fashion blogs; as it was, he had difficulty transitioning from amateur to professional assignments, which is why he’s not very well-known. He favored low-to-the-ground camera angles that often cropped the heads of his subjects or caught them walking away from him, focusing on their bodies, postures, clothes, and interaction with their environments while running errands, adjusting themselves, preening, and relaxing / passing out. His photography style feels covert and dynamic, you get the idea he may have been like a flasher — skulking about the streets, exposing his camera in a sudden gesture so hurried he barely had time to aim properly before dashing away.

Street Scene: Woman with White Purse, New York City, 1960s

Unlike many street fashion photographers, Levinstein didn’t discriminate against unattractive, strange-looking, or vaguely desperate people — in fact, he favored them. Overweight housewives, semi-homeless junkies, hippies and hoodlums captured his attention (a man after my own heart!).

Street Scene: Portly Man Holding Belt, New York City, 1970s

Street Scene: Exhausted Woman Seated on Stoop, New York City, 1970s

There’s a distinct grittiness of New York of of the late-mid 20th century that Levinstein depicts with aplomb, both in his human subjects and their dirty, grimy, trashy environments (sometimes literally):

Some of them reminded me of John Water’s portrayal of Baltimore in the ’60s (I adore the crazy looks this woman — if she is actually a woman — is getting from the onlookers!):

Street Scene: Woman in Blonde Wig and Tight Dress, New York City, 1960s

I love to watch my DVD of Hairspray (the original 1988 version, certainly not the remake) with John Waters’ commentary. He’s constantly giggling at his own film, saying things like, “You might think Divine looks ridiculous as a rotund drag queen haus frau, but housewives in Baltimore really looked like that in the ’60s!!”

Divine and Ricki Lake as Edna and Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray

Atypical for portraits in their unflattering realism, I think Levinstein imbued quite a bit of dignity into many of his down-and-out subjects. Emaciated and somewhat weather-worn in his rumpled shirt, this man is nonetheless portrayed somewhat heroically, with a majestic low-to-high camera angle and a bust that commands the whole frame:

Man, Mill's Hotel, 1951

Even if dignity was not exactly conveyed, maybe just a lack of judgment? For example, the title of this one could’ve been far more condemning: “Hooker Exposing Her T&A to Potential Customer” instead of the more ambiguous “Woman in Shorts Leaning into Window of Parked Car.”

Street Scene: Woman in Shorts Leaning into Window of Parked Car, New York City, 1970s

As in Kirchner’s Berlin Street Scenes (see my earlier article), prostitutes and Johns were just part of the city landscape, with no moral denouncement:

The Red Cocotte, 1914-15

What was unique about Levinstein was that he portrayed of a range of ethnicities and ages, and he focused both on people who clearly took time with their self-presentation (in many cases this was because they were hustlers and hookers),

Street Scene: Two Young Men on Street, One Wearing Stars and Stripes Outfit, New York City, 1970s

as well as those who didn’t seem to care (yes, that is a paper bag over what must be extremely high hair).

Beach Scene: Woman Wearing Paper Bag Hat, Coney Island, New York, 1950s

I have to say that this image reminds me of another John Water’s movie, the distinctly un-family-friendly Pink Flamingos (1972), with Edie the Egg Lady, with their similar un self-conscious sprawls and high hair:

Edith Massey as Edie the Egg Lady in Pink Flamingos

Most of the world wears somewhat generic clothing that blends more than it stands out, vaguely dictated by the decade’s trends. And yet street fashion blogs often concentrate on extraordinary sidewalk specimens, and while that’s fun to browse through, it’s not really an accurate representation of what street culture is/was like. Levinstein unflinchingly portrayed a rough economic patch in New York City’s history that’s often glossed over, as reflected through people’s clothes, attitudes, and distinctly urban (a.k.a. downtrodden) settings. He didn’t romanticize poverty or desperation, he merely recorded it, something few portrait photographers tackle (Jacob A. Riis’ incredible How the Other Half Lives of 1890, and to some extent August Sander’s People of the 20th Century of the ’20s – ’40s, and Irving Penn’s Small Trades of the ’50s accomplished this too). In an age where the most popular street fashion blogs (The Sartorialist, Stylites in Beijing, Bill Cunningham’s photos for the Times, etc.) are about the beautiful, creative, hip, fashion-conscious metropolitan youth, it’s downright refreshing to see portrait photography that imbues street style with social commentary, capturing inequality, imperfections, and the struggle for existence into the street fashion.

Further Reading:

• “Met’s collection database of Levinstein’s work
• How the Other Half Lives by Jacob A. Riis
• Small Trades by Irving Penn

Recommend this Post:

: : : : : : : : : : :

One of my favorite blogs ColourLovers brought to my attention a new cookbook. I have no idea the quality of the recipes in Homemade is Best, but what interested me was that each recipe has a double-page spread of photos of the ingredients, piles neatly arranged in graphic formation.  It might make more sense when you learn that Ikea– brand of (often impossible) assemble-it-yourself furniture projects– published it. Take a gander:

In the review Margot Harrington wrote, “Sure, I still want a fat slice of the cake, but now I have so much more appreciation for what goes into it. Makes it seems so much more simple to make, no?” It immediately reminded me of  minimalistic and architectural fashion, much of which emphasizes simplicity of pattern. I thought I might be making that now-familiar leap from Everything Random to Fashion (because that’s what I do), and then it turned out that was exactly what had inspired the Ikea project (I won’t let it go to my head):

Ikea on Homemade Is Best “We let ourselves be inspired by high fashion and japanese minimalism. The idea of the book became to tone down the actual cake and put the ingredients in focus. The recipes are presented as graphic still-life portraits on a warm and colourful stage. And when you turn the page you see the fantastic result.”

Probably best known these days for her lemongrass coat-and-dress ensemble worn by Michelle Obama Inauguration day, Isabel Toledo’s designs are highly informed by origami, and a similarly Japanese penchant for loose and drapey forms rather than American body-hugging fashions. Toledo’s designs seem to originate with flat patterns of simple geometric shapes and they become draped clothes only later in the process. For this reason, her works  are often more interesting to me when seen flat, as FIT did in last year’s “Isabel Toledo, Fashion From the Inside Out” exhibition, revealing the simplicity of pattern and complexity of resulting form on body.

The “Packing Dress” is simply two circles of fabric sewn together with leg, arm, and head holes. Because the pattern is so unstructured, it can be worn front or back, as seen below:

Packing Dress, Spring/Summer 98

The Packing Dress reminds me of Martin Margiela’s more aggressive circular jacket which is far more structured when made of leather, perhaps a bit harder for the average person to wear on the street, but it’s no less delightful:

circle jacket, Spring/Summer 09

Oftentimes the final results of Toledo’s garments on human forms bely the clarity of their pattern shapes; when draped on bodies they bulk up, drape and pucker in complex and interesting ways. Toledo’s Tube Jacket looks completely different on a form:

Tube jacket, Spring/Summer 95

… than when folded flat; the origami influence becomes clear, non?

portrait in a garden by Franz Antoine, 1850s-60s

knitting detail

kimono pattern

Though I don’t love everything Toledo has designed, I do respect her commitment to creative design that is ecologically responsible in its simplicity.

I had the last minute opportunity to visit DC last week and since I hadn’t been there since my 6th grade field trip, I thought it was high time I checked out the capital again. Perhaps I was not walking in the right neighborhoods, but I was pretty disappointed with street life and the lack of indie bookstores, vintage shops and the whatnot. However, the museums were fantastic, and I hit between one and three a day. While on my way from the fabulous,  Guggenheim-esqe Hirshhorn Museum to the spectacular Renwick Gallery, I happened to pass a sign with the now iconic white Michelle Obama inauguration gown advertising “The First Ladies At the Smithsonian” exhibition at the National Museum of American History. Good fortune with me, I realized that I was only about 50 feet away from the entrance, so I popped in for a quickie.

The Smithsonian started informally but systematically collecting First Ladies’ gowns (ultimately only inaugural ball gowns) in 1912, reaching back to the early days of United States history. While the garments were originally donated informally, it has since become a media event publicizing the First Ladies and the museum, heightening the import of choosing the right gown with the right message in the first place.

SPARKLES AND THE MEDIA

I noticed that promptly in the 20th century, sparkles were incorporated into the First Ladies’ gowns. Starting with Helen Taft, rhinestones and then crystals became common embellishment on the inaugural gowns:

Helen Taft's inaugural gown, 1909

Mamie Eisenhower’s dress had 2,000+ rhinestones,

Mamie Eisenhower in inaugural gown, 1953

Jackie Kennedy’s bodice was embroidered with reflective silver thread and crystals,

John F and Jackie Kennedy, and dress detail, 1961

and Pat Nixon’s was similarly (but somehow less understated) embroidered in gold and silver and encrusted with Austrian crystals:

Pat Nixon inauguration gown and detail, 1969

I was interested to note that Betty Ford’s dress was one of the only dresses with a plunging neckline (albeit a narrow and still relatively modest one)– unwittingly foreshadowing her later public battle with breast cancer. Hers also had a racy visible front zipper (impossible to see from the photo, unfortunately) that reminded me of Schiaparelli’s playful (and saucy!) dress zippers:

Betty Ford's state dinner dress and sequins detail, 1975

Even pant-suited Hillary Clinton loaded up on glitz,

Hillary and Bill Clinton at inauguration and detail, 1993

As did Laura Bush:

Laura and George W Bush at inauguration, with gown detail, 2001

Point made, right? Like stage and burlesque performers before them, the First Ladies figured out that as images of the inaugural events were broadcast in more venues like newspapers, TV, and now blogs, standing out in a crowd is essential, and sparkles do the trick nicely. While nary a First Lady had rhinestones (much less Swarovski crystals) pre-20th century, nearly every one after 1900 did– and lots of ‘em.

NANCY vs. MICHELLE: UNLIKELY TWINS

Not necessarily related to spangles (though they are present), I noticed an odd similarity between Nancy Reagan’s and Michelle Obama’s inauguration dresses. Reagan was known as a glamorous Hollywood hostess, and was the first First Lady to sport a daring one-strapped dress (risqué in tame political circles):

Nancy and Ronald Reagan before inauguration ball, 1981

Michelle Obama chose a white one-shouldered number (with crystal embellishment) as well:

Michelle and Barak Obama at inaugural ball, and dress detail, 2009

In my musing about this seemingly unlikely coincidence– that staunchly Democratic Michelle would want to emulate or imitate in any ceremonial, highly public way hard-core Republican Nancy, it occurred to me that conscious or not, these women’s husbands’ presidential terms immediately followed presidents of the extreme opposite political and social persuasions. Conservative Ronald Reagan succeeded liberal Jimmy Carter, and progressive Barak succeeded right-wing G.W. The one-shoulder strap detail is less significant here than the white, I think, as the color of truces, peaceful intents, and fresh starts. While it would might be overkill if Ronald or Barak went the full white dinner jacket route to express white knight optimism and change–

Humphrey Bogart

wives can make a bolder fashion statement on their husbands’ behalf.

RE-USING GOWNS

The final subject of the exhibition that was more subtle but nonetheless struck me as significant, was the concept of recycling gowns. The brief wall text mentioned that Rosalynn Carter wore the same dress for Jimmy’s 1977 presidential inauguration balls as she did when he was elected the the Governor of Georgia in 1971– and she got considerable flack for doing so. She was accused of failing to support American designers (still very much a touchy subject), and though America was in an economic slump of the time and her choice was a brave and poignant reflection of that, Americans nonetheless desire and expect glamorous First Ladies.

Rosalynn Carter's reused inaugural dress, 1977

As a staunch believer in second-hand, thrift, upcycling and refurbishing clothes as an environmental and creative statement, I frankly loved Rosalynn’s restraint and subtle anti-consumer message (though I readily admit she might’ve worn it for strictly sentimental reasons). I don’t actually care for the gown itself, but we’ll let that pass. Ironically, reusing dresses, refurbishing them with updated accessories, manipulating necklines and sleeves as fashions changed, was all standard practice into the early 20th century– even for women of means. One needs look no further than Sarah Polk’s dress, originally worn by her in the late 1840s but remade as an evening gown in the 1880s (the neckline would have been deepened, sleeves shortened and embellished):

Linda Polk dress 1840s, refurbished into evening gown 1880s

Conversely, Mary Lincoln wore this as an evening dress in 1861, and then later that century the original evening bodice (it’s the standard 19th century two pieces) was replaced by the daytime bodice below, made from extra skirt fabric:

Mary Lincoln evening dress 1861, updated to daytime dress

To my knowledge, neither Linda nor Mary were lambasted for their alterations. This kind of manipulation was perfectly typical behavior for pre-20th century women. Fabric was precious, and customized designs and fittings were expensive. Sweatshops and “fast fashion” didn’t exist, so it was not an embarrassment even for the First Lady of the United States to recycle her own wardrobe publicly.

Though I really breezed through the exhibition, I walked away with some interesting discoveries. Though it makes perfect sense given the ever-expanding audience of videos and photos of political events, it hadn’t specifically occurred to me that reflective embroidery and embellishments would increase in political women’s gowns, indicating an understanding of politics as performance as much as substance. This is demonstrated in Michelle and Nancy’s downright symbolic gowns, I think. Lastly, I hope that re-wearing a treasured dress is never fodder for criticism. Though I support and encourage contemporary American designers, I also encourage working with what you have in your closet– and if an old dress makes you feel special, damn it, wear it. Not as if you need an excuse, but we’re kinda in a slumping economy ourselves; consumption reduction shouldn’t be out of place for our leaders to point out.

Further Reading:

• photo gallery
• lookbook with commentary
• fun: first ladies NYTimes quiz

I am thrilled to be participating in Drexel University’s upcoming [the Dark Side of] Fashion in Fiction conference. If anyone will be in Philadelphia October 8 – 10 and is interested in introducing yourself, please get in touch! Here is a taste of what I will be presenting:

Anais Nin grappled with complex self-identity issues that were revealed in her sartorial selections as much as her overtly philosophical prose. It’s unclear if Nin herself realized the extent to which she used fashion to act out her desires: to glamorize herself and seduce, and alternately to conceal and protect herself. But her numerous and detailed descriptions of her own outfits, how she believed others saw her, how she consistently compared her so-called inferior body to other women’s idealized ones all contribute greatly to the reader’s understanding of this complex woman. She attempted to literally cloak her dark side: her jealousy, imperfections, anger, (bi)sexuality, and fear of abandonment.

Nin struggled with dysmorphia of her physical body and the “multiplicity” of her emotional and intellectual selves. These fragments were often expressed through Nin’s unusual sartorial style, illuminating her hidden fragility, her insecurities, her self-consciousness, but also her bolder sexual desires and her pride. She was preoccupied by her prepubescent-seeming body, even as her numerous lovers expressed no dissatisfaction. Anais used her clothes to exoticize herself, to beautify the unusual looks she perceived as ugly. Inversely, when she met a friend with the intention of deflecting his advances, she dressed “like a warrior, to defend myself against possession.” She admitted, through therapy and written self reflection, she was afraid of being hurt. It follows that the high collars, long skirts, and layers became her armor, protecting her from everything that might penetrate or harm her body, and by extension, her ego.

Nin used the exchanging and gifting of garments– often overstepping her budget to do so– to initiate intimacy and display tenderness. Nin gave June Miller her own sandals, perfume, and handkerchief, metaphorically handing her own identity to her rival (as Henry Miller’s legitimate wife), and as her own future lover. Dressing June satisfied Nin’s desire to feel useful, wanted, loved, and understood (literally walking in the same shoes), but this also highlighted the numerous remaining differences between the women, contributing to Nin’s confused perceptions of self image, self worth, and sexual identity.

Nin also used fashion as a method of distancing herself, as with her superficial, absentee father. During their reunion he told Nin she had become “beautiful by suffering.” He took perverse pleasure in having contributed to the suffering that transformed her. Nin noted with annoyance and confusion that as they became closer he wanted “me to dress conventionally and discreetly… completely artificial, insincere, snobbish…. My artist friends like slovenliness, even shabbiness…. Somewhere in between lies Anais, who wants a free life but not a shabby one.” Once again, clothes and appearance were at the heart of her identity crisis, but perhaps also of her breakthrough. “Once the deforming mirror is smashed, there is a possibility of wholeness; there is a possibility of joy.” There is a possibility of light illuminating the shadows of Anais’ psyche.