This project was interrupted by the tragic death of Lee Alexander McQueen. He’s one of the most important fashion figures in my lifetime. He was BFF to my most perfect muse & inspiration, Isabella Blow. She discovered* him at fashion college, bought his entire senior thesis. Her eye and aesthetic brought many of the great designers of the last few decades to prominence; she described herself as the fashion industry’s “truffle swine.” Issie killed herself two years ago, by drinking weedkiller. It was her sixth suicide attempt. After she died, there were only two style icons left alive: Sophia Loren and Lauren Bacall.
Issie said “my style icon is anyone who makes a bloody effort.”
McQueen said “I really don’t think that you need a beautiful face” to be stylish.
left: Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow in 1997, shot by David LaChapelle for Vanity Fair.
right: Issie&Lee; she’s in her signature look: hat by Treacy, clothes by McQueen.
Isabella Blow embodied Wallace Simpson’s maxim that “I’m nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else.” Shortly after Blow’s death, a blogger named Plumcake wrote: “she decided to follow Oscar Wilde’s commandment: if she could not BE a work of art, then at least she would wear them. Thus created was the woman Lady Gaga wishes she could be.” Blow hid inside clothes and accessories that screamed “look at me,” epitomized by outlandish signature hats that hid great swaths of her face. When she asked Philip Treacy to design her wedding veil, she specified that it resemble a medieval helmet. McQueen understood this more than anyone else; he thought of himself as an armorer; of his hard-edged tailoring, he explained: “I try to protect people.” This is perhaps why he identified so strongly, and developed close friendships, with such classic jolie laides as Blow and Sarah Jessica Parker, why he regularly sent models of color and models with physical disabilities down his runways, and why his designs often cruelly distended more conventionally “beautiful” female forms.
His playful plundering of historical, cultural, mythic, childhood, and folkloric iconography exemplified fashion as intentional and performative art, and as dress-up. Which brings us to the next icon on my list. If Blow was a fictional character, she would headline this look.
4. Silken Floss
Specifically, Silken Floss as played by Scarlet Johanssen in 2008′s The Spirit. I’ve never read the Eisner comics, so I can’t comment on her print incarnation. When we first meet her, she’s dressed like a French beatnik: black beret, pencil skirt, Clark Kent glasses. Later, she is a vicious nurse (in black!); she is a coquettish geisha; she is in full Nazi military regalia. We never see her independent of incarnations defined exclusively by costume; we never see her as a whole character. Each costume is a facet of Silken Floss, unlike traditional comic strip heroes and villains who choose a single costume by which to define their entire selves.
The Silken Floss aesthetic is both canvas and chameleon; self subsumed entirely to style. I think I’ve only captured it once: my friend Emmet decided to celebrate his birthday with a “Martyr’s Ball”: guests were instructed to come dressed as a person whose death (or persecution) furthered—or was precipitated by alligiance to—an artistic, political, or religious cause. I went as Mary Queen of Scots, who was executed by her cousin Elizabeth for both political and religious reasons. I wore a gold tiara, enormous gold crucifix, red leather top, and a knee-length tulle crinoline under a plaid pleated kilt. I also drew gooey dark red lipgloss across my throat to evoke her beheading.
But I try to bring wearable interpretations of it into my wardrobe through accessories: from 3/4-inch “rhinestone” stud earrings to a thick bangle decoupaged with frames from an Asian comic book, a bronze necklace dangling a giant octopus, or even as outlandish as a pair of pink lucite kitten-heeled sandals that someone once dubbed “Hello Kitty stripper shoes.” I love how I feel in these crazy accessories; I love mixing them with more staid and conventional looks. When I was much younger, I would actually play dress-up in my entry-level admin assistant job: Audrey Hepburn one day, West Side Story the next, His Girl Friday the following; practicing personae within the strictures of business casual. I think approaching clothing as costuming is a crucially essential step for every young woman to develop a genuine identity.
Other “Silkens” include: If Lady Gaga were fictional (and there is an argument to be made that she is a character sprung from the mind of Stephanie Germanotta), she would be listed here. Brandy Alexander in Invisible Monsters, Esmé Squalor in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Here’s a great sample Esmé getup, in full: “The dress was made of layers upon layers of shiny cloth, in different shades of yellow, orange, and red, all cut in fierce triangular shapes so that each layer seemed to cut into the next, and rising from the shoulders of the dress were enormous piles of black lace, sticking into the air in strange curves. …there was something sewn to the bottom of the dress that made it make a crackling noise as she walked, so that the wicked girlfriend sounded as much like a fire as she looked like one.”
I’m taking Valentine’s Day off. Be sure to come back Monday for the final installment!
* “Rivers are discovered. Artists aren’t.” —Molly Crabapple
