Deep Glamour: At the Intersection of Imagination & Desire

From the Archives: North of 60 with Sarah--New Reality Show?

Editor's note: Kate originally published this post on October 16, 2008, but recent events make it worth a new look.

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic speculated about a Sarah Palin reality show, but you can tell he's not really familiar with the parameters of the genre. (Ophelia Swims came closer.) For a really successful series, you need an attractive protagonist (because they come into your home, every week), a lively and diverse supporting cast, and a location or situation in which conflict, resolution, and emotion can bloom.

North of 60 with Sarah

In this new reality series, former candidate for Vice-President, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, a forty-ish, flirty mother of 5 (!), juggles affairs of state, lost homework, disgruntled constituents, injunction-waving lawyers, wedding planning, and putting meat on the table. Think docu-drama meets C-Span, shot on location in the wilds of the frozen north.

In the first episode, spunky Sarah vetos anti-gill net legislation and an extended curfew for Willow with equal aplomb. Piper stows away on a float plane, but a quick thinking state trooper has her home for dinner.

Future episodes include a show-down between Sarah and Putin over fishing rights that's soon eclipsed by the furor raised by Bristol's determination to have a vegan wedding buffet.

Later, French premier Sarkozy shows up for a fly-fishing lesson--without his wife! Thanks to an emergency international call, the First Dude saves the day.

Sounds almost real, doesn't it? Have your people call my people. (Looks like cameras are rolling!)

(Apologies to the CBC.)

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Pet Week: Top Dogs--Pets in the Public Eye, Part 1.

 The phenomena of fashions in pets (not to be confused with pet fashions, which is a different post) has been recently pointed up by Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog, chosen by the Obamas. Cute, non-shedding, and smart, this breed hadn't been on the radar of the general public, but now, breeders are besieged by frenzied families, and according to the Wall Street Journal, being very picky about who gets a puppy. Previous First Pets hadn't set off quite the same mania, although Checkers, a spaniel owned by Richard Nixon became a household name.

Before Bo, Chihuahuas were popular, thanks to movies like Legally Blond and starlets like Paris Hilton.

And back in the '50s, Lassie set the standard for family  companionship, despite a frightening intelligence and a coat that required daily, hourly maintenance. Timmy's mom must have had a live-in groomer.

Deep Glamour Pet Week: Have Fun! Win Prizes!

Thanks to Pet Head, the new line of pet products from Bed Head (and can Pet Bed Head be far behind?),  DeepGlamour asks readers to send us photos of their pets looking glamorous, alluring, or even too cute for words.  I'll post the photos, readers will vote and by the end of the week, winners will be announced and prizes awarded.  (And feel free to post photos at the Deep Glamour Flickr pool.)

Abigail, by Jay Manifold.

Wanted: Intern for DeepGlamour and Book Research

Are you one of those bored overachievers the NYT tells us are facing "an empty summer"? Fill it up by helping me out with book research and doing some writing for DeepGlamour.

I'd prefer someone in the L.A. area who has good local library privileges, but I'm flexible. This is, alas, an unpaid position. If you're interested, send me an email at virginia-at-deepglamour.net.

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Hair Wars

Commenting on Virginia’s recent post on glamour and the multiplicity of desire, belle de ville wrote,  “Circa 1969 I saw a page teenage magazine on how dress like a weekend hippy...and I begged my mother for that outfit.” This caused Kit Pollard to wonder about the “modern hipster aesthetic,” as she felt that in some ways “it’s purposeful anti-glamour.” I confess that I’m not sure what the “modern hipster aesthetic” is or was, but for some reason her question made me think about the battles that were often fought over hair in the 60s. (At right is a photo of me and my then-fiancée, now wife, in 1968.)

My parents decided that how I wore my hair was not worth fighting about (other things were). Thus I went through flattops, a Fabian-inspired pompadour, and a James-Dean cut with little comment from my parents. To me the opinions that mattered were held by the girls I was dating or wanted to date. This photo was taken after a concert when I was in graduate school, and I’m wearing the tuxedo I performed in. A beard and mustache were uncommon for orchestral musicians, but I adored a woman (and still do) who liked me in a beard and mustache at that moment in time—so there I am. (I had probably grown the beard to try an “alienated artist” look.)

In contrast, for my fiancée and her parents, hair and clothing had for years been battle issues. Like many of her friends, she had wanted long hair all through high school, but almost none of their parents would allow it. Many parents at that time saw hairstyles as ideological issues, and, for many of them, long hair conjured up images of debauched Beatniks and hippies. To my future wife, the thought of coffee-house poetry and female folk-singers with long straight hair had seemed intellectual and exciting. Sadly, any effort to grow her hair longer had been literally cut short by a forced trip to a hair salon. Only after leaving for college could she start growing the long hair she desired. Questions of hair length, shoe styles, skirt lengths—such things had often been the cause for battles that she had usually lost while living at home. (As you would expect, her parents disliked both her longer hair and my beard.)

In this tumultuous period of history, as America divided over our involvement in the Vietnam War, some people saw hairstyles as ideological statements, whether intended to be or not. Are hairstyles no longer an issue now? Or in some households is the way that teenage children want to wear their hair still cause for household warfare?

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Glamour on the Fourth of July

As holidays go, Independence Day is one of the less obviously glamorous. Parades and cookouts lack the dramatic excitement of New Year’s Eve champagne or Valentine’s roses. But that doesn’t mean that patriotism itself doesn’t have a glamorous face. Glamour and politics have been (somewhat uncomfortable) bedfellows since long before Rosie the Riveter, and they will remain that way long after Michelle Obama’s toned arms and Jason Wu ensembles have left the White House.

The role of glamour in U.S. politics is complicated at best. Glamour, as a concept, runs counter to the central notion of our government - that everyone is created equal. The result is kind of a mess, come election time. On both sides of the aisle, politicians try to appear simultaneously down-home (I connect with you) and glamorous (I'm so fabulous; you should aspire to be like me), sending mixed messages to a public that's mostly just tired of politicians anyway.

Maybe that explains why Fourth of July celebrations since the late 18th century have been more about parades and fireworks and getting dirty in the backyard than they have been about celebratory balls or fancy parties. Is it possible that this Saturday is the one day this year that we put aside our aspirations and, instead, act like we really are equal?

[War poster by Flickr user michal hadassah. Used under Creative Commons license. Original artwork by Cyrus C. Hungerford, 1944.]

DG Contest: Win Purple Lab's "Worship Kate" Lip Gloss

Karen Robinovitz has generously offered to give one lucky DG reader a tube of Huge Lips, Skinny Hips gloss in the appropriately glamorous Worship Kate tint, a rich pink with a warm mauve-ish hue and just a hint of glitter. For a chance to win, link to her interview below or to the DG home page from your blog, Facebook page, or Twitter. Then post a comment on the interview (not here) with the URL or your Facebook or Twitter name. The winner will be chosen on Friday, July 10, using Random.org, and announced on Monday, July 13.

DG Q&A: Karen Robinovitz

When Marie Claire magazine challenged Karen Robinovitz and her friend Melissa de la Cruz to make themselves famous—defined as having their photos and bold-faced names in the gossip columns—in just two weeks, the assignment led to a book which in turn led Robinovitz to a career-shaping revelation: She knew and cared more about marketing than her publisher. A lot more. She was, in fact, “a marketing person,” born to come up with clever ways of attracting attention, not only to herself but to all sorts of paying clients.

Nowadays, her favorite brand isn't a corporate client but her own company Purple Lab and its line of stylish lip glosses, Huge Lips Skinny Hips (available online here). On her PurpleBlab blog, Karen chronicles the not-always-glamorous process of taking her venture from idea to reality, promising to “dish all the dirty secrets I learn from labs and manufacturers and what we go through to line up distribution, financing, PR, events, etc.” She kindly agreed to dish a bit with DG.

Read to the end of the interview to learn how to win a sample of Purple Lab's Worship Kate lip gloss.

DG: In blogging about your company and in How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less, you’ve taken some of the mystery out of things readers find glamorous, whether that’s starting a beauty-product company or getting your name in boldface type in the gossip columns. Do you think readers find the things you write about less glamorous after reading your behind-the-scenes depictions? Do you yourself find them less glamorous, or perhaps glamorous in a different way?

KR: I don’t really know if readers find that the true behind-the-scenes moments kill the glamour factor. I think that all of the things that seem glamorous are not ever as glamorous in reality — models always say how their lives are trying and hard and yet, they seem so full of fantasy. I am just sharing my own experience, which is sometimes glamorous and sometimes just the opposite, and I can only hope that people find a bit of themselves, something to relate to or an inside look at something they want to know more about, in my experiences.

I am anti-velvet rope so for me, the blog about the making of Purple Lab is about breaking that rope down and giving, in a sense, a blueprint of starting a business. I would hope that someone can find it useful and know the pitfalls I fell into so that they don’t.

DG: In How to Become Famous, you and Melissa write, “We have been obsessed with fame and those who are famous for as long as we can remember. We longed for attention — glamorous dresses, standing ovations, and a reason to thank the Academy.” Why do you think people (including you) long to be famous? Are those dresses glamorous by themselves, or is it the fame and attention that makes them glamorous? Has your fame lived up to your dreams?

KR: I would never say I am even remotely famous. But I can’t lie and say I don’t like a little attention! But the reason I think that fame is so addictive for everyone — and the millions of celebrity blogs and magazines are a testament to that — is because it represents fantasy, escape, the ability to have whatever you want, go wherever you want, buy whatever you want, go to the most exclusive events, and connect with amazingly talented people. Plus, there are the perks that come with fame — swag, travel, private jets! I would not say that now, as someone in her “early late thirties” I crave the same things I did when I was younger — i.e., that kind of fame. But I do still crave the fabulous dresses.

DG: Since discovering your calling as a marketing person, what have you learned about business that surprised you?

KR: I could go on and on about this. Really, the back end of the business and how much is involved was a huge surprise for me... what it takes to manufacture, ordering minimums, branding packaging, deadlines, working a year in advance to launch a product (and that is considered a tight deadline!), what goes into shipping and not just sell in with retailers — but sell through. There are so many aspects to it that it is often overwhelming, but I welcome the challenge and am excited to see where it all takes me.

DG: You write that your lip gloss/plumper, Huge Lips Skinny Hips, which contains the appetite suppressant Hoodia, is “NOT about being skinny.” What is it about?

KR: I think we all — as women — think about our hips (and our lips!). Skinny for one woman may not be skinny for another, but regardless of size, we all want to wear our “skinny jeans,” be they a size 2 or a size 20. So the name is cheeky and playful but not intended to be taken so seriously as far as a directive for women to be skinny. There is a color in the collection called “Love Your Thighs,” which is my hope for all women — we need to embrace ourselves and stop being hard on ourselves.

The fact that the gloss contains an ingredient that has been known for centuries for its appetite suppressing qualities does not mean I am suggesting that women don’t eat. The point is that this is to act as your intention setter, perhaps something that helps keep you conscious and mindful of what and how you eat. At the end of the day, it’s not good for anyone to be double fisting cupcakes when they’re full! And if this gloss is something that enables someone to feel like she has some support at a cocktail party or a trip to the bakery, that’s the point. Plus, it’s a deliciously amazing gloss that is light, moisturizing, and yummy.

DG: You spent a lot of time and money on the packaging of your products, both the “components” that actually hold the gloss and the boxes that it comes in. Why did you decide to spend a few dollars on a box when most beauty products spend 50 cents or less?

KR: I am driven and inspired by design and for me, it’s a very important aspect of Purple Lab. The products themselves have to look and feel good and every touch point of every aspect of it should too. I would rather make less money and deliver a fantastic product that women will love the look of, love the feel of and have fun buying. The price of the box will eventually drop as we order it in larger quantities — right now, we’re ordering at the minimums because we’re a small brand. As you order more, the price goes down. Besides, I wanted this to be fresh, different, and sexy. That’s worth the extra money for me — and I would rather pay for it than the buyer.

DG: I almost never wear lip gloss, as opposed to lipstick, because I don’t like the sweet flavors it comes in. Why does lip gloss always have a flavor? Why can’t I buy flavorless lip gloss?

KR: Every product is not meant for every woman. We all have different tastes. I happen to like a sweet tasting and smelling gloss. We may go into a product with no scent or flavor at some point and hearing that definitely inspires me to create that, because glosses don’t HAVE to have a flavor.

DG: You had a lot of fun naming your gloss colors. What’s your favorite and why?

KR: That is like asking a mother which child she likes better! It’s impossible to answer because I’m so emotionally attached to all of them. They are my babies and the names of each shade are tributes to what inspires me everyday.

The DG Dozen

1) How do you define glamour?

It can be understated or in your face and it is impossible to make one clear definition because ultimately, glamour is in the eye of the beholder. You can feel glamorous which is really about evoking confidence, positive energy, and eye-popping style. You can buy something glamorous — be it a crystal chandelier or a pair of python shoes — that takes your breath away. You can wear a dress that adds instant glamour to your life.

2) Who or what is your glamorous icon?

I have so many — Kate Moss for the effortlessly chic way she wears clothes, Jane Birkin for her relaxed studied casual beauty, Bianca Jagger for her va-va-va-voom 70s appeal in YSL and Halston, Carine Roitfeld of French Vogue for her hard femininity and extreme shoe choices, Warholian icons like Edie Sedgwick and Baby Jane. There are plenty more!

3) Is glamour a luxury or a necessity?

Glamour is a state of mind and I don’t believe it should be a luxury — I think every woman should have her glamour moments whether she has a red carpet life or not.

4) Favorite glamorous movie?

Rear Window — Grace Kelly makes me melt!

5) What was your most glamorous moment?

My wedding. Not only was it the happiest moment I can imagine, but it was full of love, joy, excitement, wonderful family and great friends, but perfect makeup and the most beautiful custom Zac Posen creamy silk gown, trimmed in hand-dyed pompoms and a hint of curly ostrich feathers!

Big Amazon Sales on DVDs

Anime Sale, with savings up to 50%, now through July 27

HBO Sale, with savings up to 47%, now through August 15

  Science Fiction Extravaganza Sale, with savings up to 56%, now through July 31

 Boxed Set Sale, with savings of up to 60% off, begins Tuesday, July 7 and runs through August 4

Glamour and the Multiplicity of Desire

Randall’s post on modesty as “anti-glamour” provoked an interesting discussion in the comments. “It’s funny that you should regard modest clothing traditions (headscarves, veils, etc.) as inherently anti-glamour. Didn’t a piece about the glamour of nuns appear in this space not too long ago?” challenged commenter bearing. She noted the glamour she finds in Franciscan habits, as well as her young daughter’s attraction to the clothes worn by some Somali playmates.

In his post and subsequent comments, Randall seems to equate glamour with sex appeal, beauty, or opulence, while Bearing has something more emotional and multi-faceted in mind. Their back-and-forth raises fundamental issues about glamour and desire. And, much as I admire his thinking, I have to disagree with Randall. Modest dress is not intrinsically anti-glamour. It all depends on the audience.

One of the central themes of my book-in-progress is that glamour is not a style but a quality that stokes desire—of many different kinds—and inspires imaginative projection. Glamour concentrates what the Japanese call akogare: desire, longing, aspiration, and idealization, with a suggestion of the unattainable. Its promise of transformation and escape taps longings for whatever the audience finds absent in real life. The common desires to be beautiful, wealthy, or desired are particularly amenable to glamour. But there are many forms of desire, and thus of glamour, besides luxury and sex. The desires glamour expresses—for love, wealth, power, beauty, sex, adulation, friendship, fame, freedom, dignity, adventure, discovery, self-expression, or enlightenment—vary from person to person and culture to culture. Many of those desires are quite compatible with modest dress.

It seems obvious to me, for instance, that the nostalgic dress of Renaissance Faires and other historical re-enactors is all about glamour, however modest the attire may be. (And, as Randall notes, it is not always modest.) Here’s my version circa 1968 (don’t you love the crooked bangs?), wearing the antithesis of the miniskirts that were my normal school attire. My mother made this “pioneer girl” dress for me as a Halloween costume, and it was my favorite. I wasn’t exactly nostalgic for the 19th century, but the difference between that dress and ordinary life did make me feel special. As a child in the 1960s, where short skirts were the norm, I found long skirts glamorous. Reserved for the past and for adult special occasions, they appealed to my desire to escape the everyday.

Bearing’s comment about Franciscan habits reinforces my book's most controversial argument about glamour: It can take religious form. One can yearn for unity with God, for righteousness, for a special spiritual state just as one can yearn for wealth or fame. And, just as glamour can be used to sell movies or fashion or beach holidays, it can be used to sell religion. Much, though by no means all, traditional art traffics in glamour. It uses mystery and grace to encourage viewers to project themselves into the scene, where they might witness in person the exemplars of their faith and feel their own spiritual yearnings satisfied. The simplicity of a Franciscan habit can thus be glamorous to someone who sees in the garment the fulfillment of spiritual desires, overlooking the drawbacks and the quotidian practicalities of Franciscan life.

Finally, and most trivially, within a culture where modest dress is the norm, a given outfit may be more or less glamorous, depending on how the viewer imagines feeling in it. A woman browsing the Sharah Collection of clothes for Muslim women is clearly meant to imagine herself transformed by its offerings every bit as much as a woman browsing any other fashion catalog.

The obliteration of identity created by a full burqa may be incompatible with glamour, but other forms of modest dress are not. As Randall himself notes, veiling may increase glamour by fostering mystery and grace. Just check out the cover photo on Len Prince's About Glamour.

[Stained glass window from the convent of San Francisco in La Paz, Bolivia, by Flickr user jimcintosh, who has a set of Franciscan images here. Used under Creative Commons license. Woman in scarf from Sharah online catalog.]

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Aging Gracefully

Sir Paul McCartney is now 67 years old. If as a teenage girl you screamed at a Beatles concert in 1964, you are now in your late 50s or early 60s. If you go to hear Sir Paul perform now, you probably hope that he still will look relatively young and healthy, and that he be able to perform much like he did when he was 22.

We wish that the icons of our youth would never age, and certainly not die. If virile, young Marlon Brando can become fat, old Marlon Brando, then so can we. If young Elizabeth Taylor can become matronly Elizabeth Taylor, than so can we. If Elvis Presley can die at 42 as an overweight, drug-addicted caricature of his younger self, then so can we. And if Farrah Fawcett, a visual symbol of outdoor healthiness, can succumb to cancer at 62, then so can we.

As a public we obsess over signs of aging in our youthful icons. We seem shocked when we see sex-symbol singers like Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson perform in public looking heavier than in the past, even though as a society we have never looked heavier. We are grateful when a actor like Mickey Rourke, whose return to boxing in middle age ravaged his face, can find a role suited to his appearance, but we are nonetheless shocked by how he now looks.

We long to always have a youthful, desirable face and body. But at some point as we age, we discover that achieving or maintaining a fit, healthy body is going to require discipline and work--such as significant amounts of regular exercise, getting enough sleep, eating restrained amounts of healthy food, and avoiding unhealthy addictions. Otherwise years of unhealthy habits will eventually leave us looking unhealthy. How could it be otherwise?

Thus it is inspiring to see Michelle Pfeiffer looking stunningly beautiful and healthy at 51 on the July cover of InStyle magazine. She was, of course, stunningly beautiful as a younger woman, and it might be that she has had some plastic surgery—if so, it was masterfully done. Her face looks older now than in side by side comparisons with her younger self, but in some cases she looks even more beautiful and glamorous now. Her figure is extraordinary, and achieved in her own words, by working at it. “I’m doing all the right things. I do cardio and strength training, a little bit of weights. I mix it up, but I can’t push myself the way I used to.” This last phrase reveals that she has been working at maintaining her figure for a long time.

And she has been smart about style. She has worked with Giorgio Armani for more than 20 years, realizing that outfits suitable for 20-something women might eventually no longer seem age-appropriate. In this she sets a good example, perhaps partially because she has a long-established history of wearing fashionable clothing.

The dangers of aging ungracefully are perhaps greatest for sex symbols who gain fame wearing more garish, tasteless attire. Though Cher still looks good for her age in her Bob Mackie gowns, there is something odd about dressing like a showgirl into your 60s. Is this what fans of Britney Spears and Rihanna (shown at right) will expect them to do decades from now? If so, it seems rather pathetic. Wouldn’t it be healthier to hope to see our icons mature into individuals who look and dress like healthy, fit, fashionable people relative to their age? Otherwise we can end up with icons who dress like people trying, sometimes almost desperately, to look exactly like the same somewhat tawdry sex-symbol they were when they were decades younger.

[Paul McCartney photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Rihanna by Gemma Mary licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.]

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Men's Jewelry 50% Off at Amazon

Amazon is having a Big Sale on Men's Jewelry, including a large selection of cuff links, from the whimsical to the classic.

Farah, Michael, and the Tyranny of the Tan

I've been contemplating a post on the tyranny of the tan ever since a well-meaning PR person sent me this photo of Marcia Gay Harden sporting a Fake Bake Airbrush Tan at the Tony Awards. I don’t think the fake tan looks particularly flattering. Natural, but not flattering.

Like dark-skinned women ranting against skin whiteners, I hate fake tans on principle. I have what is known elsewhere in the Anglosphere as an English Rose complexion. My porcelain skin would have been a great hit in the 18th or 19th century. During my insecure my teenage years in the 1970s, however, it was considered hideously pale. If you were a blonde like me, you were supposed to be tan like Farrah. But no amount of sunbathing would give me tawny skin. I didn't even burn all that easily. My legs in particular seemed to reflect rather than absorb sunlight.

In my situation, a normal teenager would have slapped on more baby oil and roasted her skin in the feeble hope of overcoming genetics with persistence. (They still do.) Fortunately, I was a nerd and bored silly by sunbathing. So I didn’t bother and thus arrived at middle age with few wrinkles and a low risk of skin cancer. As an adult, I even came to enjoy my unfashionably pale skin. No fake tans for me, or my blog.

Michael Jackson, of course, never came to terms with his own natural pigmentation. His pursuit of whiteness has been endlessly speculated about and analyzed, with a mixture of condemnation and pity. It had obvious political overtones. (Just Google "Michael Jackson" and "black self-hatred".) But looking at all those beautiful photos of Farrah in her youth, I couldn’t help remembering how it felt to be too white.

Guest Blogger Sean Kinsell: Farah Fawcett and the All-American Illusion

Guest blogger Sean Kinsell can usually be found at WhitePeril.com, where he writes about popular culture, Japanese politics, the gay marriage debate, and other topics. Visit his blog for current thoughts on Michael Jackson and Madona's inevitable old age tour.

When I was living in Tokyo, a Japanese buddy of mine complained that Americans were hard to get to know. I found that strange, given how famously guarded the Japanese are when they meet you. But his point was that what made it hard to navigate with Americans (and Australians and Canadians—“Maybe it’s a former-colony thing,” he giggled) was that we seem completely open. We’re friendly and inquisitive and forthcoming about things Japanese people would never discuss in a million years with someone they’d just been introduced to. You can walk away from that first meeting thinking you know everything, a misjudgment you’d never make after a single conversation with a Japanese person. You think everything’s on the surface, my friend explained, and only afterward do you realize that your gabby, fun-loving American friend’s personality actually has hidden spaces.

That was the kind of image Farrah Fawcett embodied when she became famous: frankness rather than reserve. Quick action rather than contemplation. Playful sass rather than misgivings. The impression of full visibility. She conveyed the sense that she had nothing to fear from letting you see all the way in because her coolness and sexiness and confidence went all the way down. It was the illusion of no-maquillage attractiveness, the opposite of the geisha who has to spend years of training and a half-day of being dressed before she’s ready to walk out the door. Women saw her as a woman who could look pulled-together and radiant even while wearing a basketball uniform or sprinting in a ball gown. Men saw her as a woman who would be ready to look great on their arm at dinner without spending an hour in front of the mirror; they could touch her wonderful hair without feeling sticky hairspray and her cheeks without getting blusher on their cuffs.

Michael Jackson: The Glamour of the Myth

[Editor's note: With this post, DMC, known to DG readers for his Diaries of a Groomzilla (posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, finale, photos) rejoins our lineup.]

When DG editrix Virginia Postrel queried her contributors about the glamour factor of the late Michael Jackson, I was surprised by the tepid response. Some acknowledged that MJ had some glamorous moments in the Thriller era, while others found it hard to see the King of Pop as a glamorous icon. I, of course, struggled as to where to begin my dissertation on the glamour of his royal highness: the elaborate clothes? The sparkling glove? Neverland Ranch? The names of his children (Prince Michael, Paris, and Blanket) - or more fundamentally, their entire myth-like existence? The fact that every child of the ’80s had at least one recess where someone had a moonwalking contest? One could write volumes on the engrossing, transformative world in which Jackson seemed to live without a tether to normalcy, without ever having to comment upon his undeniable contributions to music.

The one image that keeps coming to mind, and perhaps the highest exponent of Jackson's mythopoeia, is Jeff Koons’ 1988 ceramic sculpture, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, one of the three copies of which is on display at the BCAM in Los Angeles. The subject matter alone speaks volumes: Bubbles, a chimpanzee that Jackson adopted from a cancer research center, regularly appeared in images of Jackson in the late 1980s and was a target for public mockery. By coating the sculpture in gold paint, Koons undescores the role of Jackson as a pop idol and cultural fetish object, while the inclusion of Bubbles in a matching military jacket is simultaneously heart-warming and, if contemplated too deeply, slightly unsettling. (In later years, Michael's iconography seemed to acknowledge his fans’ idolatry of him, such as my favorite image below from Mark Romanek’s masterful video for Scream, a single from Jackon’s 1995 album HIStory (the cover of which features another sculpture of Michael towering over the horizon).

In retrospect, there is an almost refreshing innocence to the “Bubbles phase” of Jackson’s eccentricity, a time when he was seen as a modern-day Peter Pan and not an accused pedophile shrouded in mystery. Koons was once quoted as saying, “If I could be one other living person, it would probably be Michael Jackson.” While undoubtedly a far less popular wish among his fans in Jackson’s final years, his legacy as the ultimate glamour icon remains.

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Contrasting Glamour: Halston vs. Yves Saint Laurent

This week's Fashion Show challenged contestants to design an outfit based on the work of one of eight fashion icons: Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Gianni Versace, Madame Grès, Emilio Pucci, Halston, or Yves Saint-Laurent. It was surprising to see how little fashion history many of these designers have absorbed, since a little web surfing or the occasional visit to a museum or bookstore is enough to give you a basic education—no formal schooling required. The episode also demonstrated how much the show could be improved by a tie-in with FIT (a rival to Project Runway’s Parsons or FIDM), especially its outstanding museum. It would be great to see the brainy Valerie Steele replace deadwood host Kelly Rowland.

The contestants who wound up in the bottom two, Haven and Reco, were assigned Yves Saint Laurent and Halston, respectively. Although Haven professed a great admiration for YSL’s work, she failed to capture its feel, while Reco knew nothing about Halston. Unfortunately, as judge Fern Mallis noted on her blog, the samples provided by the vintage shop—just one per design icon—"were not in all instances great representations of those iconic designers' most important or influential looks." Better than a poor vintage selection would have been a tour of the Met’s current Model as Muse exhibit (see earlier post here). Haven and Reco in particular might have learned from this recreation of a Studio 54-era “VIP Room.”

In the Either/Or section of DG Q&A interviews, we ask, “Armani or Versace?” In the 1990s, those two designers represented contrasting aesthetics, both associated with but not the same as glamour: the elegant, understated luxury of Giorgio Armani (who, unlike Fashion Show's icons, is still living) and the flash and sexuality of Gianni Versace. Each is glamorous in the eyes of some audiences, not so to others. The Met’s ’70s tableau offers another contrasting choice: Yves Saint Laurent or Halston. It’s a great demonstration that glamour can take many different stylistic forms, even in the same historical context. (The tableau also reminds people like me, who tend to think of ’70s fashion as a glamour-free zone, that those who associate the decade with glamour aren’t entirely nuts.)

Here we see two contrasting, but equally glamorous, visions, both offering escape and transformation. YSL’s plays with exoticism, ornamentation, and idealized peasant forms—mythical historicism. Halston, by contrast, promises to make the wearer streamlined and modern. Both aim at seduction, YSL with flowing fabrics that brush the body but don’t display it, Halston with elegant but body-conscious fit. In keeping with the times, both styles appear to require few undergarments and permit easy removal. (The bizarre head gear is part of the museum display.)

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Art at the Beach

The Art Production Fund's "Works on Whatever" project offers beach towels with designs by fine artists. The Alex Katz design has the most glamour, but I'm a big fan of Ed Ruscha and love his nerdy take here. (Hat tip: Liquid Treat)

Farrah Fawcett, 1947-2009

As Linda Stasi of the NY Post pointed out in this documentary about Charlie's Angels:

The other ones looked very nice-girl-next-door. She was a babe. She didn't live next door to anyone you knew.

The NY Times obituary reminds us that her poster was probably the last of its kind, now that images are digital. It sold 12 million copies, and was a dorm room staple. Looking at it today, I'm struck by her hair, her teeth, her vitality, and her lack of DDs. Farrah was probably the last accessible sex symbol without breast implants, tattoos, or lip injections. She looks fresh, playful and young.

Being Comfortable with Style

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln made a famous speech at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg that began: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The phrase “four score and seven years” was not normal speech for the time. This was a momentous occasion, and Lincoln used it to deliver a short, highly-poetic speech that would cause many people to rededicate themselves to winning the war. His use of the words “our,” “we,” and “us” throughout the speech is masterful.

In Sin and Syntax Constance Hale wrote that, “When occasions call for eloquence, you need poetry, not Plain English.” But using a high style requires preparation, work, and the ability to be comfortable with style. At the moment we have a president and a first lady who are comfortable with eloquence and style. This is not always the case.

Dwight Eisenhower used to hold rambling press conferences with what might be called the “well-meaning, befuddled-uncle” style. Oliver Jensen, a reporter who covered the White House during the 1950s, suggested that if Eisenhower had written the Gettysburg address it might have begun: “I haven’t checked these figures but 87 years ago I think it was, a number of individuals organized a governmental set-up here in this country, I believe it covered certain European areas, with this idea they were following up based on a sort of national independence arrangement...”

I can imagine George W. Bush, in his down-home style having said something like, “A while back our folks decided that in America we ought to treat other folks as if they were just as good as us.”

All his life Lincoln understood that he was not handsome man, and frequently mocked himself as being ugly. But as he aged, he understood that he could look presidential. As Harold Holzer wrote for U.S. News and World Report about the image at left, a portrait done by Mathew Brady:

There, Lincoln discovered the power of his own image. At Mathew Brady's plush Broadway gallery, he posed for a brilliantly arranged portrait that softened the harsh lines in his face and emphasized his powerful frame against the evocative backdrop of a classical pillar and a pile of thick books. Brady transformed the prairie politician into a statesman. Widely copied and distributed during a presidential campaign in which, true to the tradition of the time, Lincoln did no campaigning of his own, the picture became his surrogate before image-starved voters. Months later, the victor acknowledged: “Brady and the Cooper Union speech made me president.” He had come to understand that images, no less important than words, could make or break political reputations.

In Analyzing Prose Richard Lanham wrote:

We all want to put on the style. It is part of presenting our public self, like getting dressed up for a party. Often, when we actually get to the party all gussied-up, we’ll take great pains not to act that way, to show that the high style hasn’t really changed us, that we’re still just folks....We are, we like to think, what we are, whether in public or in private. No back-stage/front-stage difference divides our lives. This is an illusion, but we cherish it.

Unless we are used to it, we can have difficulty with style. I have often noticed the unease that many women seem to demonstrate when accepting a compliment on their appearance when they dress up. Instead of gracefully thanking whoever told them that they or their outfit look great, they often deflect the compliment by saying things like “Oh, I got this on sale,” or “I’ve had this for years,” or (to a close friend) “Does it look too tight right here?” Or you see women relentlessly adjusting their shoulder straps or frequently tugging at some part of their outfit. Such responses and actions seem to imply either that they themselves don’t feel their outfit is all that special, or that they are insecure about how they look and feel in it. Such demurring and fidgeting can greatly undermine the effectiveness of an outfit.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg address has been much studied, and it’s effectiveness was not accidental. As Civil War scholar Shelby Foote remarked, “Lincoln was highly intelligent. Almost everything he did was calculated for effect.” Some suggested sources for various aspects of Lincoln’s address have been Pericles’ famous Funeral Speech (431 BC), Lincoln’s mastery of the language of the King James Bible, a sermon by Theodore Parker, and a speech by Daniel Webster.

Lincoln was used to making such speeches. He had been making remarkably eloquent speeches for years. So when he spoke at Gettysburg, he did so with assurance. When you’re going for high style, appearing comfortable and assured is a vital aspect of the overall effect.

[Tina Fey arrives to present at the 81st Annual Academy Awards® at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA Sunday, February 22, 2009 airing live on the ABC Television Network. Michael Yada / ©A.M.P.A.S. Used with permission.]

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What Is the Story?

Weddings are often occasions for mixed emotions. This photograph was taken after a wedding in Somerset, England. The photographer informed me this attractive young bridesmaid did not know he was taking her photograph, and he doesn’t know the reason for her mood.

Some photographs capture a human mood so well that we long to know the story, but here the mystery can never be solved. We can only guess. This occasion was clearly not going well for her at this moment, and I find it hard to look at this photograph without wondering why. Why has she gone off by herself? Why is she downcast? Does her age factor in? What is her relationship to the bride?

In trying to understand her mood, we may go back into our own history, or the history of people we know. We may try to remember if there was an occasion when in the midst of a celebration, we found ourselves wanting to be alone because we did not share the celebratory mood. The photographer has frozen one such moment for us, and we invite our readers to speculate on her mood. What do you imagine the story to be?

[Photograph used by permission of Flickr user .Hessam.]

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Glamour with a Twist: Martinis

About eight years ago, just as the Sex and the City-fueled cosmo craze was starting to quiet down, I went on my first date with my now-husband. We went to a cool (for Baltimore) restaurant that boasted of an extensive “martini menu.”

After seating us, the hostess handed each of us a tall, skinny paper menu listing all of the bar’s martini options. As she walked away and we started reading, we both started laughing – the drinks had about as much in common with martinis as Manolos do with Old Navy flip flops. Yes, they are both shoes. But that’s about it.

Our favorite was nothing more than Southern Comfort and lime juice, shaken with ice and served in a martini glass. A pretty far cry from 007’s regular cocktail.

Since that night, bars’ and restaurants’ desire to put absolutely anything, regardless of ingredients, in a martini glass seems to have died down a bit. But the definition of “martini” has definitely loosened up since the cocktail’s beginnings. Originally a simple combination of gin and vermouth, vodka martinis gained popularity in the 1960s and James Bond himself took some liberties with the recipe when he requested a combination of vodka, gin, and Kina Lillet (now called a Vesper) in Casino Royale.

Reckless as he may be, though, it’s awfully hard to imagine Bond ever ordering an appletini or anything involving chocolate liqueur. A flirtini for the special agent? Somehow I doubt it.

In business school speak, what does this free-for-all expansion mean for the core martini brand? So far, it doesn’t seem to have suffered that much. The traditional martini – gin or vodka – maintains its glamorous image despite its many unworthy imitators.

But why? Is it the drink’s history? Its Bond associations? Its pristine clarity? Or is it because drinking a martini without ending up on the floor demonstrates a certain type of strength – alcohol tolerance – that’s associated with the glamorous men and women of earlier eras?

All of the above, most likely. And let’s hope that’s all enough to keep defending the martini from its imitators. Special Agent Bond will thank us.

[Photo: A gin and pickle juice (yes, pickle juice) martini that I couldn't quite finish last week.]

Dear Publicist: Real Housewives of New Jersey Are NOT Models of Glamour

 

I received the following unironic pitch from a publicist who shall remain nameless:

New York is out, and New Jersey is in—or so the viewers seem to say. Bravo has hit ratings gold with its latest reality show Real Housewives of New Jersey, garnering more than 3.5 million viewers for the show’s season finale—the highest-rated finale in the Housewives franchise history. The popularity of the show has sparked a national interest in New Jersey, and has succeeded in re-branding the state as a place in America that can be undoubtedly filled with glitz and glamour.

From the opulent mansions to the housewives’ toned, tanned bodies, this latest installment of Housewives has made Jersey hot again. And with help from [client's name omitted], a New Jersey-based plastic surgeon, anyone can get a Housewives body. Dr. [omitted] offers a full selection of services, from the minimally-invasive Jersey Mini Tummy Tuck to breast augmentation to thigh lifts.

I would love to set up a time for you to speak with [client] to further discuss his New Jersey-based services, as well as other trends in plastic surgery. I look forward to hearing from you.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think the popularity of Real Housewives is based on a longing to be like them. Alessandra Stanley's description, “a buzzkill for viewers hooked on the free-floating vulgarity,” is more apt. These women are ridiculous, not glamorous. A plastic surgeon who thinks they’re role models is a plastic surgeon to stay away from.

Real Housewives of New Jersey drinking game here.

Barack Obama: Super President

On the off chance you haven't already seen JibJab's latest satirical video, here it is.

It reminds me of a late-'60s Saturday morning cartoon I didn't believe was real when my husband first told me about it.

Anti-Glamour: Modest and Unprovocative

The photo at left comes from jumpinbloomers.com, a site advertising “modest clothing for girls of all ages.” This site is one of dozens listed at the Modest Clothing Directory. The girls in the photograph are darling, but, as with most children their age, their clothing choices were probably imposed upon them by their parents, and, in this case, by their religious community. This is a widespread practice. Under “creeds” the Modest Clothing Directory has the following categories: Islamic, Jewish, Latter Day Saints, Plain Simple Christian, Catholic, Trendy Modest Christian, and Messianic. (It’s a fascinating site.)

A few of the clothing sites listed there are not religious in nature, but nostalgic, particularly for 19th-century fashion. Those sites sometimes show slightly provocative, shoulder-baring gowns. But most sites feature clothing that conceals most of the female body. The rationale for this is often said to be modesty, partly in order to avoid the sin of pride—whether pride of hair, face, body, or even fancy clothing.

But it is worth noting that the “creeds” listed above are heavily patriarchal. I don’t question the religious sincerity of women who practice these faiths, but it is telling that the restrictions on their clothing come from traditions established by patriarchs. Thus it is likely that part of the purpose of concealing women’s bodily charms was to prevent men of the creed from being tempted by provocative women, but, more importantly, to try to insure that the women whom these men cared about personally would remain chaste or sexually faithful.

There is a biological reason for this concern. As David Buss writes in The Evolution of Desire:

Despite cultural variations, sexual fidelity tops the list of men’s long-term mate preferences. Although many men in Western culture cannot require virginity, they do insist on sexual loyalty. Even though birth control technology may render this mate preference unnecessary for its original function of ensuring paternity, the mate preference perseveres. A man does not relax his desire for fidelity in his wife just because she takes birth control pills.

Later he writes that:

Claustration, or the concealment of women to prevent their contact with potential sexual partners, provides a vivid example of mate monopolization.

Concealing women does not have to be as extreme as secluding women inside a dwelling, enclosing them in cloisters, or placing them under guard in a harem. “Veiling” can require women to conceal themselves in varying degrees, ranging from covering the entire body to only covering certain body parts, such as hair, legs, and shoulders. And the circumstances in which women are expected to veil their attractiveness can range in location from any public appearance to appearances at religious services. Even in modern Western cultures, a remnant of this tradition occurs when a bride veils her face during much of the wedding ceremony, and then lifts the veil to reveal herself to her husband. In a symbolic sense, she is promising to henceforth “lift her veil” for no one else. (The image shown here reveals that a burqa can create some sense of glamour and mystery by causing you to wonder if the rest of this young woman’s face is as beautiful as her eyes.)

Many modern teenage girls try to unveil themselves substantially sooner and more provocatively than their parents would like--a source of many arguments. Some schools, especially private and religious schools, try to use uniforms to rein in the provocative impulses of teenage girls, but those impulses remain. While on vacation in England one summer, my wife and I laughed as we passed a group of English schoolgirls headed home in their uniforms. These girls had discovered remarkably inventive ways to partially unbutton their white blouses and then tie them so as to display their shoulders or midriffs.

We Love The Manolo

The fabulous Shoeblogger is now tweeting up a storm, including this recent entry: 

The Manolo's current favorite non-Manolo blog? http://deepglamour.net One of the smartest fashion-esque blogs on the interwebs.

Our thanks to the Manolo! Read his DG interview here.

Editor's Note: Join the DeepGlamour Email List

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Naomi Wolf and the Phenomenology of Angelina Jolie

Naomi Wolf's Harper's Bazaar essay on Angelina Jolie has attracted contemptuous comment. “An absurd, overwrought, swooning love letter,” Willa Paskin called it on DoubleX. Paskin’s disgust recalls Ron Rosenbaum’s condemnation of Tom Junod’s 2007 Esquire profile of the actress, which worked a strained and inappropriate post-9/11 angle.

Unlike Paskin, I do not regard Wolf as “a serious feminist and thinker.” She’s a feminist, certainly, but neither serious nor a thinker. She is an emoter, whose work typically generalizes from her narcissistic neediness to “the female experience.” It is usually an intellectually frivolous approach.

But this time it works brilliantly, though not in the way Wolf intends. In her love letter to Jolie, Wolf has provided one of the most revealing accounts of movie-star glamour since Jackie Stacey’s Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. While Stacey, a genuinely serious feminist scholar, surveyed a large group of British women about their recollections of stars and moviegoing in the ’30s and ’40s, Wolf provides her own one-woman focus group. Her article demonstrates how glamour works by letting us inside the mind of someone as she projects her own longings onto a glamorous icon.

The magic of Jolie’s self-presentation? She makes the claim, with her life and actions, that, indeed, you can get away with it. All of it. Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill.

DG Contest: Pamper Yourself with Sothys for Summer

Congratulations to reader Alana M., who was the first to email me that What Not to Wear's Carmindy is the makeup artist who told DG that plumeria is her favorite flower. Alana will receive Pure Silk Moisturizing Shave Cream by Barbasol in six scents, along with Nouriva Repair Moisturizing Cream. Our thanks to  Alexis Fabricant at The Lane Communications Group and her two glamorous clients.

DG giveaways keep getting better and better. Thanks to Sarah Burgett at KMR Communications, we have yet another multi-product gift, this time from the luxury French skin-care company Sothys. The Aroma-Sothys relaxation line features a three-step program designed to benefit the skin and relax the mind--and one lucky DG reader will receive all three:

Step 1: Refresh and cleanse with an indulgent bath, using

Aroma-Sothys Energizing Bath Essences Tablets. These effervescent, playful, and revitalizing bath pebbles will enrich your bath with their tonic and energizing fragrance. Retail price: $26

Step 2: Pamper and awaken the senses with the beneficial virtues of essential oils, using Aroma-Sothys Energizing Essential Oils Elixir. These concentrated essential oils promise to restore and tone the skin’s natural essence. Retail price: $26

Step 3: Seal and protect to keep your skin moist and glowing all summer long, using Sothys Aroma-Sothys Massage Elixir. Massaging your body with a cocktail of ginger, nutmeg, orange, marula, and mandarin essential oils, this elixir leaves your skin with a satin-like gloss and perfume finish. Retail price: $38

Doesn’t that sound appealing? To win, be the first reader to email me at virginia-at-deepglamour.net with the answer to this question: What part of the world does marula oil come from? Please include your mailing address.

Contest open to U.S. residents only and only to readers who have not won a DG contest in the past three months. Prize will be shipped directly from KRM Communications. 

Taking the Fun Out of Driving: Who Wants a Silent Car?

Check out the mid-century architectural background for this Volkswagen ad. Along with the iconic Beetle, with its anti-establishment hippie cool, the houses create nostalgia for lost car culture. The ad thus delivers a message about a utilitarian feature—even better gas mileage with a diesel—wrapped in a more memorable emotional contrast: between the fun, playful, powerful, and, yes, noisy Jetta and the boring, dutiful, middle-aged hybrid, which sounds a lot like Darth Vader.

Bert Stern's Lost Sitting: Marilyn as Jackie

This portrait of Marilyn Monroe posing as Jackie Kennedy is from what's known as “The Lost Sitting,” because these transparencies from Monroe's final photo sessions (“The Last Sitting”) with Bert Stern were missing for decades. A portfolio of prints from the session is up for auction next week.

Despite the signature dark wig, it’s striking how little Monroe looks like Kennedy. With her barely parted mouth, off-the-shoulder blouse, and possibly sprawled (though concealed) legs, she not surprisingly appears more sexually suggestive than the first lady. Again not surprisingly, she’s also more vulnerable, and childlike. And she’s sweeter, a characteristic that points up an essential contrast between the glamour of these two icons. Jackie may have spoken in a similarly breathy whisper, but she carried herself like a steely aristocrat. Here, the clothes are less like armor, the abundant pearls less restrained (and more obviously faux), the hands unconcealed by gloves, the body language more open. Monroe was not just a sex symbol but a comedienne whose screen persona appealed to women as well as men.

Iranian Women: Glamour and Guts

Courtesy of Flickr user .faramarz, who has many, bloodier photos from the protests.

How Barbie Lost Her Glamour, and How She Might Get It Back

With this post, Ingrid Fetell joins the DG team. A designer and brand consultant, Ingrid is writing a book (and Pratt master's thesis) on the aesthetics of joy, a topic she blogs on here. We're delighted she's willing to make the occasional detour from joy to glamour.—VP

Barbie was already tacky by the time I got to know her. It was the mid-80s and she was rocking out as a doctor with a magenta stethoscope and peep-toe mules that even my mother, who could jog in Manolos, found intimidating.

She teased her bleached blond hair (that is, before I gave her a spiky crewcut) and had vanity plates on her pink corvette. Mattel thought of her as a California babe, but looking back it’s obvious she was a Jersey girl, even if they hadn’t yet figured out how to put acrylic tips on those perfect, tiny nails.

The Barbie of my youth was perma-tanned, wide-eyed, and flirty — equal parts empty-headed and full-breasted. She was as fun and unabashedly feminine as she’s always been. But you’d hardly call her glamorous. And yet glamour was Barbie’s defining feature from her launch through the first half of her existence. Barbie was invented to give girls a taste of life as a teenager and an adult woman, and in 1959, that meant a glamorous world of fashion, suitors, and parties. Everything about Barbie, from her backstory to her diminutive strands of pearls, was designed to support this ideal.

Central to Barbie’s glamour was a sense of aspiration. The doll was invented by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler, who got the idea when she noticed her daughter (Barbara) and a friend acting out elaborate scenarios of adult life with paper dolls. Handler theorized that this kind of play was a way of working through the desires and fantasies of adolescence. Recognizing that the only real dolls available to girls were baby dolls, she saw an opportunity to “three-dimensionalize” the paper doll experience with a plastic fashion model doll. So from the very beginning, Barbie was conceived as a kind of idealized future self for girls.

Establishing this aspirational quality was a mix of narrative and aesthetics. Like the most captivating movie stars of her day, Barbie’s backstory was light on details, but it was always rooted in the realm of the plausible. She was billed as a teenage fashion model and designer, and as time went on she took on other careers: flight attendant, office worker, astronaut, veterinarian, and eventually some 100+ other occupations. The vagueness of the narrative allowed Barbie to embody seemingly contradictory roles, a flexibility epitomized by the original tagline, “We girls can be anything!” Just like a Hollywood actress, Barbie could be anything. In fact, she could be everything all at once.

The aesthetics of the doll reinforced her story of adult sophistication and elegance. A critical element was a look of maturity in the design of the face and the body. Handler is famous for having said, “Girls need to play with a doll with breasts,” and hence Barbie’s most controversial feature was also her most essential. Breasts marked the distance between the girl and the doll, the gap of adolescence. With breasts, Barbie could never be an equal, an ordinary playmate. She was always a vehicle for future projection. Barbie’s body proportions, which would soon be vilified, were also critical to this fantasy. In reality her extreme shape came not from an anorexic ideal of beauty, but from the difficulties of making high fashion look elegant at 1/6th scale. Because fashion was the cornerstone of Barbie’s aspirational world, the necessary proportions took precedence over any awkwardness in the naked body.

Where Has All the Beach Glamour Gone?

I’m coming up on my annual beach trip with friends – a chaotic week of sand-covered kids and steamed crabs and guacamole and margaritas. As part of my pre-beach ritual (along with tons of list-making and laundry), I’m rereading my favorite beach book ever, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night.

The book opens on a summertime beach in southern France, where a young American starlet, Rosemary Hoyt, meets a glamorous and wealthy group of expatriates, including Dick and Nicole Diver, the book’s tragic hero and heroine. The story is based on the time Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, spent in the south of France with their notoriously fabulous friends Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Nicole Diver’s mental illness more than loosely resembles Zelda’s deterioration.

But back to the beach. In the very first chapter, Fitzgerald paints a vivid picture of an emerging hot spot – the Cote d’Azur just as it became a fashionable summertime destination – with a beach covered in characters, including a lady in full evening dress (including a tiara) left over from the night before, and the ever-sophisticated Mrs. Diver, with, “her bathing suit pulled off her shoulders and her back, a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls.”

Does this glamorous, exclusive beach exist today? It must, though it’s hard to imagine a spot that’s cosmopolitan but not yet overrun by development and tourists. And an internet search for “beach glamour” turns up with some suggestions that are more Playboy than “sophisticated expatriate.”

It seems that those in the business of branding today’s beaches value sexiness (and a possible mention on “Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches”) over traditional glamour. While glamour and sexiness aren’t mutually exclusive, they’re not one and the same, either, a fact that’s especially obvious when bathing suits are involved.

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Outfitting the Bridesmaids

Virginia’s article about the economic reasons why plus sizes are becoming harder to find in stores reminded me of a conversation I had just overheard about buying shoes. There was to be a wedding, and one of the bridesmaids wore size 10½ shoes. Every time the bridesmaids found a shoe that they all liked, it would be unavailable in size 10½. So they were starting to check out shoes at Zappos, with finding shoes available in 10½ as their first concern.

I have seen numerous bridesmaids’ dresses which were not particularly flattering, and I used to wonder if this was a conspiracy to make the bride look more beautiful. But now I suspect that it’s not easy to choose a dress style that will look flattering on a large variety of bodies.

I attended one wedding that illustrates this issue well, and I learned from talking with the dressmaker some of the problems that she can face. In that case the material chosen for the bridesmaid’s dresses was a boldly flowered print, and the finished dresses looked cute on the bridesmaids who were size 6, 8, and 10. But two of the bridesmaids were significantly larger: one had a bust line of 45 inches, and the other had a bust line of 52 inches (with a larger waist). The dressmaker actually had to have more cloth shipped in from out of town in order to have enough for their dresses, and the flowered print was definitely unflattering to the larger young women.

I realize that bridal dresses are usually intended to be a one-use outfit. But what about the bridesmaids? Do bridesmaids ever get to wear dresses that they find themselves using again for other occasions?

[Photo by Bradley P. Johnson and used under the Flickr Creative Commons license.]

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DG Q&A: Artist Kana Harada

Kana Harada says she was born an artist. "I started drawing when I was a year old, and my mother still tells me that when I was four, I announced, ‘I was born to draw.’ Ever since then, art is what I’ve lived,” she says.

Born and raised in Tokyo, with a short stint in Long Island due to her father’s job, Harada had formal training in art in Tokyo. Her husband’s Texas Instruments job brought her to Dallas in 1995 and it was there that she started to create birdcage-inspired pieces out of hand-cut foam sheets.

As she told Artistic Network in 2005, “You may never see any birds in my cages, as I imagine them to be like fairies, coming and going when no one is looking, but I hope you'll feel their joy, their songs of freedom, and the sense of enriched peace in each and every perch I have created.”

She then used the foam to create her series of hand mirrors with empty centers and intricate hand work, which evoke the magic and mystery of dark fairy tales or a woman’s hope for beauty reflecting back at her.

“I’ve always loved hand mirrors,” she says. “Their shapes, sizes, and how we look into them just to see our own faces.”

Her pieces are feminine and whimsical. Harada says she tries to convey a sense of freedom in just being yourself, “a celebration of life.”

“I’d like to convey the calming, peaceful, deep joy of being a part of the universe,” she says.

Harada, who has exhibited in the U.S. and Japan, had shows earlier this year at Mighty Fine Arts in Dallas and the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas' CADD Art Lab. Her next exhibitions will be in May 2010 at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary (MAC) and HCG Gallery.

DG: With your mirrors, is the shape of the mirror the magical/glamorous part to you, or is it the idea of the gaze? why?

Kana Harada: It's both. I see them in a theatrical sense, because they were initially inspired by Sleeping Beauty and vintage pictures of women looking into hand mirrors. I hope they're a door to other wonderful dimensions within the viewer... their stories.

DG: Some studies have said we are more narcissistic today than ever before. Do you feel that way?

KH: Not at all.In this economy, our values are definitely changing. We're relating more with others, sharing similar experiences and supporting one another. To me, this is the beginning of finding true luxury and "glamour." Enriching and deepening the beauty within us.

DG: How do you define glamour?

KH: Grace, elegance and kindness. I believe it’s a state of mind, knowing exactly who you are, being in tune with your inner-self.

DG: Who or what is your glamorous icon?

KH: The craftsmanship and design of American plastic handbags from the 50’s, and Audrey Hepburn in her later years.

DG: Is glamour a luxury or a necessity?

KH: Both.

DG: Favorite glamorous movie?

KH: Diva (1981), Roman Holiday (1953)

DG: What was your most glamorous moment?

KH: Every time I finish one of my pieces.

DG: Favorite glamorous object?

KH: The one-of-a-kind eye glasses I get in Tokyo.

DG: Most glamorous place?

KH: Home - where my husband is.

DG: Most glamorous job?

KH: Full-time artist!

DG: Something or someone that other people find glamorous and you don't.

KH: “Glamour” when defined too materialistically.

DG: Something or someone that you find glamorous whose glamour is unrecognized.

KH: The kindness of strangers. This is always SO classy.

DG: Can glamour survive?

KH: As a power that comes from a positive state of mind and kindness, of course. One of these days, it’ll be THE “bling” everyone wants.

DG: Is glamour something you're born with?

KH: In some cases yes, but it can be acquired as well. It’s never too late.

Carrie Fisher on Star Power

We’ve all heard the expression, “Star Quality”—that ineffable something that makes certain people focus pullers. It’s my theory that they shine. Something glows out of their eyes, –as though they’ve swallowed some of the spot light that follows them around onstage—and people get caught in their magnetic field and are drawn to them.  It might even be possible that one of the reasons that celebrities are called stars is because of this shine. And maybe if you hang around these beaming people, some of it will rub off on you. Whatever this thing is that glows out of them that makes them preferred above most others, if you touch them, talk to them, walk with them, live with them—maybe you can get anointed by this wattage.

Anyway, my mother had this thing, this sublime light, and it’s been spilling out of her ever since she was sixteen, shine that poured out of her and all over everyone. People followed her in the street, flocked to her shows—wanted a piece of her because she reminded them of the best version of themselves. And to get that piece they applaud her, write her, love her in all the ways they know how, and my mother appreciates it. Especially when she performs. She gives everything she’s got and in return the audience celebrates her and this makes her feel a little like she’s going to live forever. And she is. She’s going to take some of that shine of hers with her and leave the rest of it to glow out of the eyes of the people that love her.

—“Star light star bright, the rest I cant remember right”

[Debbie Reynolds mural photo by Flickr user DominusVobiscum under Creative Commons license.]

DG Contest: Pure Silk and Nouriva, Gifts for Happy Skin

Just in time for the bare skin of summer, we have skin-treating bonanza, thanks to Alexis Fabricant at The Lane Communications Group and two of her glamorous clients.

For starters, our winner will receive a full-size can Pure Silk® Moisturizing Shave Cream by Barbasol® in each of the following subtle scents:

Raspberry Mist 
Melon Splash
Citrus Zest
Peaches & Cream
Coconut & Oat Flour
Plumeria

Designed especially for women, Pure Silk is enriched with aloe to give your legs extra moisture.

But wait...there's more...

You also get Nouriva Repair Moisturizing Cream, which is free of preservatives and fragrances and contains three essential lipids.

Alexis calls it a "down-to-earth" moisturizer, but those who prefer a little science glamour will be happy to know that this book identifies it as a product using a "nanoparticle delivery system."

To win this prize package, be the first reader to email me at virginia-at-deepglamour.net with the answer to this question:

What famous makeup artist says plumeria is her favorite flower? (Hint: Use the "Search DeepGlamour" box at the top of the right-hand column.)

Contest open to U.S. residents only. Gifts will be shipped directly from Lane Communications.

Plus Sizes: The Big Picture

The malls are empty, and retailers are crying for customers. American women are getting heavier by the day. Yet stores like Ann Taylor and Bloomingdale’s, and lines including Liz Claiborne and Ellen Tracy, are slashing their plus-size offerings—turning away potential sales and generating angry denunciations of “sizeism.” What's going on?

As I explain in this article on Double X, the new women-oriented spinoff of Slate, there's a perfectly rational explanation that doesn't require an animus toward larger women. It does require graphs to explain, however, and The Washington Post, owner of Double X and Slate, has saddled the ladies with a design that can't handle more than one graphic per article, let alone multiple bar charts.

Here at DG, however, we have an ace technical and design staff. So here are the missing pictures, courtesy of David Bruner at TC[2].  (Click to see the full-size version.)

 

Height, by contrast, looks more like a bell curve.

Here are weights for the same two age groups:

Read the article here.

[Photo from iStockPhoto © Claudia Dewald]

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Nollywood Babylon

Nollywood Babylon, showing July 3-7 at the Museum of Modern Art, depicts the stars and directors behind Nigeria's film industry, the world's third-largest and fastest growing. Made cheaply and distributed as DVDs, Nollywood films have an enthusiastic audience, many of whom rely on pirated copies. Judging from the trailer and press notes, the documentary focuses particularly on the role evangelical Christianity plays in Nollywood films. The trailers at Nollywood.com suggest more-universal elements: sex, money, violence, and family conflicts.

Ballet Turnout: Open and Legible

Finding a connection to glamour in this photo of a young woman watching South Park might at first glance seem difficult, but it’s there. She normally doesn’t watch television this close to the screen or in this position. She is multitasking, entertaining herself while she does an exercise to increase her turnout for ballet. Turnout is a rotation of the legs outward from the hips (not the knees or ankles) so that the feet ideally end up pointed outward 180 degrees from each other. (Here’s a short video explaining the face-up and face-down versions of the stretching exercise this young woman is doing.)

Many ballet exercises are done in turned-out positions. This video instructs a dancer how to plié (do knee bends) with the legs rotated outward. That turnout is an example of extraordinary artifice can be seen by imagining yourself doing the stretch the young lady is doing in the photograph below.

This young lady’s body position in this stretch is hardly graceful, but these stretching exercises are only a means to an end. These students are engaged in the kind of behind-the-scenes exercises that allows ballet dancers to appear on stage and make some difficult movements and body positions look easy. By stretching her body beyond a human’s natural flexibility, she is preparing to make superhuman feats of balance and leg extension appear almost effortless.

These odd looking exercises are thus a classic example of the hard work that is often necessary for sprezzatura. This lovely Italian word was invented by Castiglione in the 16th century to signify an ideal courtier’s sense of ease in performing tasks that most people would find difficult, thereby hiding the conscious effort that was required. (Kit’s post The Work Behind the Glamour set me thinking about this.) Sprezzatura applies wonderfully to ballet, given that ballet’s origins can be traced back to the late fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance courts as a dance interpretation of fencing. Ballet’s largely French vocabulary stems from its further development in the French court of Louis XIV in the 17th century. (The Italian word “balletto” became the French word “ballet.”)

Throughout its history, as first a formalized form of court dance, and then when further developed as theatrical dance, ballet dancers have always been aware that they are being watched. Ballet studios always have one mirrored wall so that the dancers can see themselves in that mirror as others would. Castiglione wrote that the ideal courtier should always be aware that he is being observed by others.

As these young ladies lie in their less than glamorous stretching positions, perhaps they  imagine themselves leaping as part of a group in a grand jeté, as seen in this photograph. (Executed perfectly, all three dancers would be in absolute unison in their leap position, which is very difficult to achieve, and is not quite the case here.) Notice that with each dancer the leading foot is pointed toward the ground to land on. The trailing leg has been turned out so that the top of the foot is turned toward the audience, giving that leg a beautiful line. (That a turned-out leg is not necessary to do a split can be seen in this vintage photo.) Perhaps while stretching, the dancers imagine themselves doing a grand jeté in perfect unision with their courtier partner, or doing a soaring solo leap as the evil black swan Odile in Swan Lake.

As ballet developed as theatrical entertainment, the techniques were amplified to be more legible from a distance. Just as opera singers developed techniques that allowed their voices able to project into a theater without amplification, so ballet dancers developed techniques that allowed their bodies to be maximally visible in a theater. Lincoln Kirstein, one of the founders of New York City Ballet, wrote that ballet was calculated for opera-houses and that the foot positions were developed for “the greatest frontal legibility.” British art critic Adrian Stokes wrote:

...“turning out” means that the dancer, whatever the convolutions of the dance, continually shows as much of himself as possible to the spectator. When he stands in the first position facing the front, we see his feet and his legs in profile. The ballet dancer is, as it were, extended.

Turning out also opens up the body, exposing the inner thighs, and “open” is an adjective often used by writers when describing the aesthetics of ballet. Eric Stokes felt that turnout was crucial to the appearance of the lifted leg in doing arabesques. The dancer at left is practicing the arabesque penchée, a particularly difficult position. (Notice that the lifted leg is turned so that the top of the foot faces us, the audience. For those ladies whose mothers told them to keep their legs together, this position must seem astonishingly open and revealing.)

In performance there is always some awareness of the audience. As choreographer George Balanchine once chided one of his dancers, “Isn’t it selfish of you expect three thousand people to sit and watch you lift your leg if you’re not going to do it beautifully?” Assuming she can gracefully lift that nonsupporting leg, then a hard-working, extraordinarily talented ballerina might someday be cast as Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. In one scene Aurora has four courtiers to help her display her extraordinary skills, as in this video of Viviana Durante. (Notice that her costume uses the short classical “pancake” tutu to openly and glamorously display her beautiful legs, as well as showcase the extraordinary balance and flexibility that all those hours of grueling work have perfected.)

[The photo of the dancer stretching while watching TV is “I am ungroundable, per se” © by Grack Attack, and used by permission. “Dancers stretching” used by permission of DanceHelp.com. The photo of the three dancers leaping is by Jeff Medaugh, and used under the Flickr Creative Commons License. The “Arabesque penchée” image is also from DanceHelp.com, which has numerous informative articles on dance technique.]

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Visual Acoustics: Julius Shulman's Modernist Glamour

Architectural photographer Julius Shulman created some of the most glamorous images of mid-century architecture and mid-century Los Angeles. In his most famous photo, of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22 in 1960, two young ladies converse in a glass-enclosed living room that thrusts out toward the sprawling city grid of tiny lights. The architecture critic Paul Goldberger called it “one of those singular images that sums up an entire city at a moment in time.” Commentary on the photo often describes the women as models or dressed in the height of style (“elegantly dressed,” wrote Goldberger). In truth, they were neither, as Shulman explained to me when I was reporting this Atlantic column. The girlfriends of two architects who worked for Koenig, they were wearing ordinary, comfortable summer dresses. The photographer’s art made them, the house, and Los Angeles itself glamorous—symbols of the ideal life.

Now 98, Shulman is not only a great photographer but quite a character, and the perfect subject for the new documentary film, Visual Acoustics. Alissa Walker interviews director Eric Bricker about the film, which will be screened at the Dwell on Design conference in L.A., June 26-28.

Thanks to Alissa,  Dwell is offering discounts to DG readers who'd like to attend the conference:

Up to 60% savings on Exhibition Plus - Save $15. Code: DWELL22C

Up to 33% savings on Dwell Conference Plus - Save $50 (not valid with Early Bird). Code: DWELL982U

The film's trailer is here. A list of future screenings, including one in Miami this coming Thursday, is here. 

Hats, Smoke, and Androgyny: So Why So Little Glamour?

Our mystery woman didn't generate the 10 possible captions required for prizes, but eight readers did contribute some excellent ones. So we've decided to let you pick a winner anyway. Vote below.

Readers were split on whether the photo is glamorous, but a majority thought not. Seven out of 25 voted it not at all glamorous (1 out of a possible 7), with 13 out of 25 giving it a 3 or less.

Given the stylistic elements--a hat, a cigarette, and an androgynous face--this is an interesting result. These are all traditional markers of glamour. Take this photo of Marlene Dietrich, for instance, or this more feminine one. Head coverings, cigarettes, and androgyny all create an intriguing bit of mystery, drawing us to look more closely. In the right hands, a cigarette will not only produce a veil of smoke--at once concealing and calling attention to the smoker--but also amplify the smoker's grace, another essential component of glamour. So why doesn't La Femmina here appear more clearly glamorous?

One reason, I suspect, is that the photo is too calculated. It's obviously a pose and, hence, lacks the effortlessness associated with glamour. But the main reason is that it doesn't arouse projection or longing. She does not draw viewers into her world. The photo inspires humor, not desire. Longing is as essential to glamour as mystery or grace, and it cannot be created merely by assembling standard props.

Design Your Own Ring

Yes, this is an ad. But it's also fun to play around with even if you're coming up on your 23rd wedding anniversary (June 22!) and have no intention of replacing your engagement ring. Click the graphic to get started.

Astronaut Glamour

As the 40th anniversary of the moon landing approaches, Louis Vuitton has hired a trio of the most famous astronauts—Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, and James Lovell—to pose for this glamour shot by Annie Leibovitz. (Advertising commentators have fixated on the absence of Neil Armstrong, apparently unaware that he has spent decades shunning any and all publicity.)

The campaign, which includes both print ads and this online video, is aimed at baby boomers, who are old enough to remember the moon landing and to respond positively to the mid-century glamour of space flight. But the slogan, “Some journeys change mankind forever,” with its evocation of escape and transformation, has a poignant resonance (and not just because mankind seems a bit retro). Communications satellites aside, how much has space exploration really changed human life? The adventure is long past, and I’m still waiting for my favorite kindergarten reading to fulfill its title’s glamorous promise.

Fashion of the Future

Nine years ago, as seen from the 1930s. [Hat Tip: Megan McArdle]

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James Bond for the Kiddie Set

Men and women, being from Mars and Venus and all that, often perceive glamour in different ways, and seek glamour in different types of stories. However, one type of tale that appeals to both sexes is that of international intrigue – dashing men, beautiful women, dazzling jewels, high-tech tools and exotic locales. These elements have been incorporated into thousands of stories, from The Thomas Crown Affair to the entire James Bond collection.

We’ve written a lot here about princesses, fairy tales, and the roots of little girl glamour. Little boys construct their own worlds full of glamour, often drawing on cars and buildings and superheroes to tell their stories. Like their grown-up counterparts, the two narratives have things in common–they share themes of self-reliance and aesthetic beauty and the joy of escape–but they look pretty different from the outside.

It's not surprising then that children’s programmers, in an effort to develop shows that appeal to kids of both genders, turn to 007 himself for inspiration. A few years ago, the creators of the Nickelodeon show "The Backyardigans" produced an hour-long movie called The Backyardigans - Super Secret Super Spy. It came complete with a dramatic villainess and juice boxes that are shaken–never stirred. My son was a baby when it aired, too young for TV, but I loved it.

Recently, The Disney Channel has picked up where Nick left off, with “Special Agent Oso,” an animated series chronicling the training missions and “special assignments” of Oso, a stuffed bear who moonlights as an international special agent, helping kids solve problems like learning how to play hopscotch or tie their shoes.

Every element of the series draws from Bond, from episode titles (“Carousel Royale,” “Live and Let Dry” ) to swirling graphics and classic “spy” music to Oso’s reliance on cool gadgets. The show’s creator, Ford Riley, was inspired to create Oso after his young son was entranced by his first glimpse of a real James Bond movie, making me wonder if we’re all hardwired to be thrilled by certain types of glamour.

Special Agent Oso and other kids’ spy shows bridge the gender gap, but they also span another gap that might be just as important–the generational one. Most parents I know have a fairly low threshold for kids’ TV. There’s only so much Dora one adult human can take. But Oso is somehow different. Even as a grown-up, I connect with that little stuffed bear.

Sean Astin, who voices Oso, says, “I should probably be embarrassed by the fact that I feel that by some extension, secret agent status has now been conferred upon me personally.” I know my son, now 2 1/2, feels the same way. And, come to think of it, so do I.

[Special Agent Oso images ©American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (Disney Channel), used with permission.]

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Painful Glamour: The Quest for Pointed Feet

Virginia Postrel’s recent post on the advertising for Smuin Ballet featured one poster that said, “Ballet but sexy,” a slogan that suggested somehow that ballet is usually not sexy. Since male and female ballet dancers are in incredible physical condition and ballet costumes are often highly revealing, I have seen numerous ballet performances that were remarkably “sexy.” In New Orleans I attended a ballet performance that began with soloist Jorge Dunn rising from the stage floor wearing a smaller costume than the one he wears in the photo at left. I vividly remember hearing more than a thousand women (including my wife) gasp for breath.

If you study this photo you will see that all of the dancers, male and female, have stretched their back leg into a straight line that extends all the way through their feet and toes. This creates the ultimate pointed foot, and a ballerina’s pointe shoes are constructed in a way that to allows her to stand on an extended foot. In a recent DG interview Philip Gardner of Oberson’s Grove said, “This may seem odd, but I think the glamour of the ballet comes from...toe shoes! Yes, the satiny pointe shoes have their own mystique and give the ballerina an elegance that is quite unique.”

If we look closely at the cleverly executed photo used for the Smuin ad, we can compare the shape of a woman’s foot wearing pointe shoes versus high heels. As it happens, this dancer in her toe shoes has exquisitely shaped legs and feet. She has increased the flexibility of her arch so much that the curve of her calf and the curve of her foot combine to create a beautiful s-curve. Developing this kind of arch is hard work. This site shows how to do it. Look at the expressions on the young girl’s face as she moves past pointing her feet to stretching to increase the curve in her arch.

Pointe shoes were gradually developed to allow ballerinas to rise from standing on the pads of their toes to standing on the tips of their toes, increasing the illusion that they are weightless. Contemporary pointe shoes have a toe box which becomes a small platform that the highly trained dancers can balance on, even during turns. (This article details their construction.) In pas de deux work the male dancer often serves to display the ballerina balanced in impossibly beautiful positions. (You can see photos of Wendy Wheelan supported by Albert Evans in a few amazing positions positions here.)

High-heeled shoes can accentuate a woman’s calf muscles, and add curves to her back and buttocks, but her toes end up bending in the opposite direction from the arch of the foot. Women’s feet and legs can look wonderful in high heels, but if the desired effect is for the feet to point, then pointe shoes have a distinct advantage.

Another approach to having a pointed foot is to wear pointy toe shoes. Naturally this is hazardous to the foot, since five toes don’t naturally taper to a single tiny point. And constantly wearing very high-heeled shoes of any kind can create foot problems for many women. Ballet point work is hazardous as to the feet as well. This site gives advice on wrapping your toes to prepare for ballet pointe that is brutal in detail. And this article on point work includes a long list of common injuries associated with pointe work.

Nonetheless, the pointed foot remains a sexy ideal and is characteristic of pin-up art and photography. (Here are links to two Alberto Vargas pin-ups using toe shoes:  1 2.) In pin-ups high-heeled shoes are most often used to achieve the flexed calves and pointed feet, but it is particularly revealing to look at images that include bare feet. In this situation when standing the woman often rises on her toes. But if not standing, the ideal is have her feet pointed and her toes placed in line with her arch, as in this site’s photo of young ballet-trained Brigette Bardot on the beach. And in the photo shown at left, we see famed 1950’s pin-up model Bettie Page, “playing” in the water with her foot pointed beautifully. In an interview late in her life she talked about enjoying “playing in the water” photo sessions in Florida. Her biography makes it unlikely that she had ballet training, but she certainly learned to point her feet and toes. No one ends up in this position without being aware of the effort required to maintain that pointed foot.

While researching this article I discovered that there are quite a few blogs by young women who aspire to a figure that is as sexy as those of the pin-up girls of photos and drawings. (Here are links to a couple of those blogs: 1 2 . ) Weight loss and fitness seems to be a frequent theme, but the aspirations seem to involve a more hourglass-shaped than rail-thin figure. Pin-ups date back to the 1890s, and I have no doubt that throughout that history many women have aspired to have pin-up figures. Given that high heels and pointed feet are characteristic of pin-ups, as well as high fashion, it’s little wonder that women are sometimes willing to suffer some discomfort to have those shapely calves and pointed feet.

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Caption Contest: What's Happening Here?

DeepGlamour Flickr pool member dariya1 simply calls this portrait "Femmina." What caption would you give it? What's the backstory? Post your ideas in the comments below. If we get at least 10 responses, we'll award a prize to the best.

Rate the photo's glamour:

Glamorous Ideals: From Paris to the Night Life

In her post on the evolution of prom fashion, Kit asks, "When did it become OK to stop looking like a little girl and start looking like a woman?" The Costume Institute's current exhibit, "Model as Muse," offers some high-fashion perspective on the question. At the exhibit's outset, in the late 1940s and 1950s, no one aspires to look like a little girl but, rather, like Sunny Hartnett at the roulette wheel or Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.

Glamour is sophistication, Paris is its capital, and the exhibit's soundtrack is "C'est si bon." Everyone looks quite grownup.

Then comes the Youthquake, and the wide-eyed, long-legged childlike Twiggy ideal. 

Hairstyle aside, that's the look behind Kit's mom's 1967 prom attire, with its shift shape. (Paco Rabbane's dress here is from 1967, but kids aren't going to wear metal plates to the prom.) Glamour lies in youthfulness.

Museums deal in high fashion, and the youth culture that shaped clothes through the '60s and '70s didn't always make it to the runways and history books. So, to answer Kit's question fully, I need to deviate a moment from the museum tour and introduce my own prom experience.

Ours was a junior-senior prom and, thanks to older boyfriends, I went every year from 1975 to 1978. The first two years I wore a Gunne Sax dress and a Gunne Sax knockoff I made myself. This hippie-influenced prairie-romance style isn't represented at the Met, but it was huge at the time and still remembered fondly in prom-related blog posts. (There's a lively Ebay trade in vintage Gunne Sax dresses.)

Dressing in Gunne Sax style didn't exactly make you look like a little girl. Rather, it created a feminine ideal of the romantic past--very Renaissance Faire, but with lighter fabrics. This dress from Ebay is a good representation of what I wore to the prom in 1975 and 1976. (The style is, as I remember it, almost exactly like my 1975 dress, while the color mimics my 1976 creation.) This nostalgic glamour celebrates not youth per se but innocence: a "simpler time," concocted from Victorian Medievalism and American agrarianism. Like all historicist fashion, it also traffics in the glamour of escape.

The style that ended my own romance with romance--and that led to the stable grownup prom look Kit noticed--came from Halston: simple, sleek, sexy forms in great, often synthetic, fabrics, perfect for a night at Studio 54. The Met shows them in a reconstructed "VIP Room," along with contrasting styles from the same period by Yves Saint Laurent.

As the oldest baby boomers hit 30, the styles they influenced finally reached adulthood, defined differently from the polish of the 1950s. Halston-influenced styles did away with bras, making them the complete repudiation of the foundation-dependent garments of the 1950s. A Halston woman might not be a lady, but she definitely wasn't a little girl. (This black halter Halston dress from Decades would be right at home at Kit's prom.) Here, glamour comes from sexiness and celebrity--the glamour of being noticed and desired.

Studio 54 was a transient institution, but Halston's styles proved classics, continuing to inspire dressing and design three decades later. (Check out this post on what this influence suggests about the foolishness of strengthening copyright protections for fashion.)

[Gallery and exhibition photos courtesy of the Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Anna-Marie Kellen. Twiggy in dress, spring/summer 1967, by Yves Saint Laurent (French, 1936-2008), Vogue, March 15, 1967, Photograph by Bert Stern (American, born 1929). Photograph by Bert Stern/Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery, New York. Paco Rabanne (French, born Spain, 1934), Dress, 1967, Metal chain-linked armor-plated mini dress formed from square metal plates linked by metal loops, Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gould Family Foundation, 2008]