Now, I wasn't sure whether or not to wait to do this post, seeing as the Cannes Film Festival is still in full swing, and there are still several red carpets to, so maybe I'll end up doing some special weekend posts about the rest... or maybe not. Anyway, I realized a fun way for me to cover red carpet events without it just being another runway fashion review - I'll sort the gowns I like or don't like by time period! Here we go:
1900s
Romantic lace, a soft decolletage, and the diamond collar necklace all make for a beautiful Gibson Girl silhouette on the lovely Eva Herzigova. The a-la-Draper hair is simple and elegant.
1910s
Grecian detail, a wide belt, and chiffon shoulder panel all give a dash of Lucille to Eva Longoria's gown.
1920s
The simple design, drop waist and tiered ruffle skirt all give Ms. Rossy de Palma a Flapperish Flair. This gown is also reminiscent of the Sevillanas.
Honorable Mention
1930s
A Clingy silhouette, halter top, and bangles bring back memories of Nancy Cunard.
Honorable Mentions
1940s
Woah. Who brought Gilda to life? This is 100% Rita Hayworth. Lovely!
Honorable Mentions
1950s
It's no surprise that Marion Cotillard should be chosen for the 50s when she's decked out in Dior. Gorgeous.
1960s
I find it ironic that Ms. Fonda should have been picked for this decade, as it was the decade of her youth. Her sweetheart neckline, ratted hair, and cinched waist all bring back the stylin' sixties.
1970s
I'm torn. I really can't tell how I feel about these disco era digs. They are very seventies, and very very much the color of mustard. Either way that is Charlie Chaplin's grand-daughter.
Hope this was fun! I might go through this again next week to round up some more dresses... Or I may simply update this post. Either way you'll be updated of anything I do with this. Have a great weekend, readers!
It seems that Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles-Z has decided that her entire career is going to be dedicated to providing fodder for my blog posts. I don't have a problem with that, I'm just sayin'... This time it's her new video for Countdown:
For me, the most obvious inspiration is right here:
Yes, everyone remembers that famous Gap commercial that features Audrey Hepburn dancing (but not wearing Gap clothing). Fewer people remember where that footage of Ms. Hepburn came from:
That dance comes from Funny Face, one of my all-time favorite movies, and clearly also one of Beyonce's, as she's drawn inspiration from it before. The outfits of the musicians match those of Hepburn's backup dancers, and even the layout of the bandstand shots mimics that of the nightclub set from the movie. The dancing, however, doesn't match. It clearly took me too long to write this article because just in the week or so since I began researching this article, there has been an explosion of press regarding similarities between "Countdown" and the choreography of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. To see a side-by-side comparison of De Keersmaeker and the music video, click here.
Left and right, Beyoncé is being accused of stealing the choreography from De Keersmaeker. So much so that Knowles decided to release an alternate version of the video that excluded all of the controversial footage. Even De Keersmaeker herself had some things to say about the music video, though she seems kinder than most. This is similar to the criticism rained down on Lady Gaga every time she does anything that even remotely resembles anything Madonna has done. Because Madonna has never, ever imitated anyone herself, right?
Right?
If you're like me, you were incessantly lectured about plagiarism in school (if you're really like me, you worries about being accused of plagiarizing even after taking every precaution to avoid it). What were the things we were told to do to ensure we weren't plagiarizing someone else's work?
Re-write the information in your own words.
Use multiple sources.
Credit the author(s) of the work.
Knowles has done all but one of those things- she took the parts of the dances she liked and changed the context; she set it to different music and put different bits of the choreography together. De Keersmaeker has pointed out that even though they are performing the same dance, what Knowles and her dancers are doing is distinct from the films they mimic because of their context:
"In the 1980s, this was seen as a statement of girl power, based on assuming a feminine stance on sexual expression. I was often asked then if it was feminist. Now that I see Beyoncé dancing it, I find it pleasant but I don’t see any edge to it. It’s seductive in an entertaining consumerist way."
Knowles also took inspiration from all kinds of other sources: Op art, Pop art, Mary Quant, Whtiney Houston... even Gap commercials! All of these things together created a unique work that is separate from all of its inspirations yet tied to them at the same time.
Now, I do believe Knowles and her team should have credited De Keersmaeker since they did borrow so heavily (and directly) from her, especially since they credited Boyz II Men after sampling from their song "Uhh, Ahh". However, according to a GQ interview with the video's director, Andria Petty, it was the team's intention to credit her but they overlooked this due to the tight deadline.
Can you say Andy Warhol?
This isn't the first time Knowles has borrowed heavily from others, nor will it be the last. This is also not the first time this sort of happened in the music video industry, nor in the music industry at large. Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush" is basically "Rebel Without a Cause", and Madonna's "Express Yourself" is basically "Metropolis". Music sampling has existed for decades. "Ice Ice Baby" sampled from "Under Pressure", "Rapper's Delight" sampled from "Good Times", "U Can't Touch This" sampled from "Super Freak"... The list goes on and on... If artists can't borrow from each other or imitate or build upon the work of others, then art cannot advance.
Knowles in Thierry Mugler
In addition, Beyoncé used the choreography to a different end than De Keersmaeker. The original footage was a work of choreography. It was a dance film. Knowles was presenting a video for her song. She was not presenting a dance, she was presenting a music video.
Finally, I think this whole climate of ideas as property contributes to rise of dangerous legislation such as CISPA. If we continue to consider artistic ideas as property in every context then we will be left with major corporations holding a monopoly on creativity because they're the only ones with the money to consistently defend "their" properties. We need to chill out about these kinds of things and start worrying about bigger problems.
It's been a while, but here's the second installment of "Good Ol' Dear Ol' Dad", with guest writer - My father!
"The passing of Dick Clark this week at age 82 may constitute final and conclusive proof for human mortality. In Philosophy 101, many of us were taught the most basic of logical syllogisms:
1.All men are mortal.
2.Socrates is a man.
3.Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
For several generations of TV viewers and music lovers, Dick Clark added a new twist to deductive logic by seeming never to age. So the syllogism came to read something like this:
1.All men are mortal.
2.Dick Clark is immortal.
3.Therefore, Dick Clark is not Socrates.
Clark with the A.B. audience.
Clark is probably best remembered as the host of the TV show “American Bandstand,” which earned him the sobriquet of “America’s oldest teenager.” The moniker proved to be prescient in terms of Clark’s eerie agelessness—a “fact” that it’s tempting to hypothesize subliminally convinced his mainly baby-boomer audience that they, too, were perhaps indestructible, but this is not something I’d presume to lay at the feet of the perpetually boyish Clark. And, though I clearly remember seeing “Bandstand” in the early sixties as a child, I will leave its virtues and vices to other commentators. (The program did give me an opportunity to play a puerile practical joke on some visiting teenage girl cousins one summer afternoon, circa 1962; I leaned out the back door to yell out to them in the yard where they were chatting with a neighborhood friend, “Quick! Chubby Checker is on ‘American Bandstand!’” The three screamed and ran into the house so fast that one of them lost the tip of a high heel in the grass. As penance for my prank, I was made to help in the fruitless search for the heel tip after they learned to their dismay that Checker was not in fact on Clark’s program that day.)
Collage of Clark from 1950s-1990s
Clark’s seeming changelessness became something of a national touchstone, and his name became synonymous with eternal youth. I recall my brother at a family reunion some 20 years ago referring to a cousin and contemporary of ours, who had remained seemingly unchanged in the years since we had last seen him, as, “The Dick Clark of Bedford, Pennsylvania.”
Clark, on the Pyramid
In the course of his long career as a TV host and producer, Clark emceed one of my favorite game shows, “The $100,000 Pyramid.” That program had two teams, each consisting of a celebrity guest and contestant partner, vying to guess a category of things from a list of component parts. In the lightning round, one team member had to get the other to correctly identify six progressively trickier categories in the space of a minute. (Contestants often sat on their hands, as they were prohibited from gesturing to provide non-verbal clues.) It was a good, lively, brain-teasing show. Arguably the best part, though, was when, at the end of a lightning round where a team had failed to guess all the categories in the pyramid, the suave Clark would cross over to the bull pen where the losing team was seated, perch one leg on the step up, lean on the railing, and in a kindly manner lead the contestants through a few additional clues to help them come up with the answer they’d missed—often suggesting a couple of clues they hadn’t thought of—enabling them, if not to win the jackpot, at least to save face. In that sense, Clark, ever diplomatic, taught millions of Americans the value of losing gracefully.
Clark aged only when he suffered a debilitating stroke, but then, once again, became the exception that proved the rule by fighting tenaciously back against stroke-related paralysis and speech impediments to continue as an on-air TV host, most notably as the anchor of the annual TV coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, right up to the current year. Though visibly older (but still not within binocular distance of his chronological age), measured of speech, and only a trifle frail looking, he still exuded a certain brio that made him “America’s youngest senior citizen.”
You could not help but root for such a trouper. - Good Ol', Dear Ol' Dad"
No, it's not a post about the hit television series. Today I've decided to take it easy and post some of my favorite vintage television advertisements.
Golly! Sugar from sugar cane?? This is an old advertisement!
Let Dove cream your face...
If it doesn't give her power and punch, it might at least destroy the ozone...
Before the Kool-Aid guy became a dangerous criminal. In fact, this was before he even grew legs... Why is the pitcher talking to me, mommy? Don't drink the Kool-Aid, kids!
Don't you miss the days when children's cartoons could be spokespeople for tobacco?
This commercial was actually filmed in the early 1970s. The gag being that all the cars featured in the ad (save the Volkswagen) had since been discontinued.
Why do British people sound so much more genuine when reading a script? I, too, love rubbing dish liquid all over my hands to prove to my daughter how soft my hands are.
Finally, why living in the "Nuclear Age" wasn't that great for your skin.
Use Dorothy Cosmetics in your next Nuclear Fallout emergency!
Let's start off the week with the recent hit by the British singer/producer duo La Roux:
I first heard this song through my mother, believe it or not. It was her and my sister's new favorite song, and has since become mine. Of course, this song and its music video simply ooze the 1980s, but if you're still not convinced just check out the album cover:
Seeing her perform on a great deal of variety daytime shows has really given me insight into the mindset that predominated that time period. I quite frankly used to hate the eighties. I felt the music was bad, the clothing was worse and I saw it as awkward transition between the seventies and the nineties. Recently, though, I've come to the conclusion that the opposite is true. The eighties were the iconic time whilst the seventies and nineties (though they did have their own distinct styles) were more transitional.
New Romantics such as Boy George incorporated 19th century clothing into their wardrobe, inspiring designers such as Vivienne Westwood to do the same.
The 1980s saw many great cultural changes across the globe. Calvin Klein began featuring racy clothing and underwear commercials in gigantic public billboards. Synthetic music was invented and exploded into pop culture. The punks of the 1970s would dovetail into the New Romantics and the Goths. Rap, Hip-Hop, Techno, and Rave were all subcultures that have their origins in the 1980s. Globalization began taking jobs from the United States and stores like Walmart and Kmart began to flourish under a stream of cheap products from Asian countries. The movie "Wall Street" epitomized the no-holds-barred attitude held, not only towards the economy, but also to almost every aspect of life.
Apparently Brooke Shields says she can still fit into the jeans from that controversial ad - Shields was 15 years old at the time.
When I saw La Roux perform on the Ellen Degeneres show, I was taken aback by how amazing this all seemed. I was also hypnotized by that drummer; the way he danced while he played. For a teenager coming of age in the 1980s, it must have been absolutely breathtaking... Nothing like this sort of music had ever been seen. Of course, synthesizers were used in disco, but this was not just about the music. It was a lifestyle. The music videos featured bizarre non sequitors. The bands wore crazy outfits and did crazy things. Imagine a pop culture permeated with Lady Gagas. That was the 1980s.
In retrospect, it's no wonder we all have this stigma with the shoulder pad and synthesizer culture. However, many signs indicate that the 80s are coming back. Music and fashion have reflected this, and I think the arrival of Lady Gaga has opened the doorway for other artists to help push the envelope in artistic expression.
Christina Aguilera is already getting flack for her video "I'm Not Myself Tonight" (Not Safe for Work), but she was already trying to push limits with her video for "Dirrty" (NSFW). She was completely bashed for being so hyper sexual in the 90s, but now she's following Lady G's lead and letting her hair down a bit.
Perhaps this means that we are, in fact, entering a new period like the 80s, where we will see behavior and statements that we could never have imagined. If a raw meat dress at the VMAs isn't enough to give that general impression, then I'm not sure what is. Hopefully, though, we'll learn our lessons from the past and avoid running the economy further into the ground through the near complete deregulation of Wall Street - but I promised I wouldn't get political, so I won't. In short: I'm excited for the coming decade - I hope you are, too!
As I try my hardest to get into the groove of writing this blog while juggling a steady stream of work and social activities, I'm trying to find ways to post less while not detracting from your reader experience. One of the ways I'm going to do this is through "Music Mondays". Occasionally I'll feature music videos I think have a certain nostalgic flair and talk a little bit about the artist.
This week I feature Beyoncé's "Why Don't You Love Me?"
I like Beyoncé a lot. As I talk about in my Beyoncé and Fosse post (which, for the purposes of this new post, I've refurbished with in-text videos!), she borrows a lot from the past. This video is a kick-ass blend of 50s, 60s, and 70s retro glam! Was anyone else seriously coveting her hair in the bedroom sequence?
No? Just me? Okay, moving on.
None of the clothing in this video is vintage - in fact many of the garments and accessories look very modern - yet it all has a distinct retro feel. This really shows the power of styling to steer the mood of an outfit and really create a look. It's a good example of how all of you out there can incorporate a retro flair into your everyday outfits.
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