Title : "Billie Eilish wants you to know she is in charge, brash and self-assured enough to scrap the raffish image that helped garner her a world of fans in favor of something a little more … adult....."
link : "Billie Eilish wants you to know she is in charge, brash and self-assured enough to scrap the raffish image that helped garner her a world of fans in favor of something a little more … adult....."
"Billie Eilish wants you to know she is in charge, brash and self-assured enough to scrap the raffish image that helped garner her a world of fans in favor of something a little more … adult....."
"The singer... swapp[ed] her trademark sweats for a style more domme than deb: pink Gucci corset and skirt over Agent Provocateur skivvies, accessorized with latex gloves and leggings. The choice was her own, Edward Enninful, the magazine’s editor in chief, wrote in the June issue. 'What if, she wondered, she wanted to show more of her body for the first time in a fashion story?' Mr. Enninful recalled. 'What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved? It was time, she said, for something new.' To that end Ms. Eilish embraced the shopworn trimmings of female allure, offering the camera, without apparent irony, a nod to the sirens of golden age Hollywood and some of more recent vintage: Taylor Swift, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion among them."
Writes Ruth La Ferla in "On That Bombshell Billie Eilish Cover for British Vogue/The pop star known for defying gender stereotypes got a glamour makeover with a corset. Not everyone is happy about it" (NYT).
First, "garner" — she garners her fans. Doesn't just get them and doesn't quite win them. She garners them, so picture her storing them in silos, like grain.
If you've already garnered a "world of fans," what do you do next? Maybe offload some of them. Offend. Disappoint. She was the girl who covered up her body with big, heavy tracksuits — which she said she wore so people wouldn't focus on her body — so the opportunity was there, inside the suit, to put the body on show.
Enninful's quote challenges our credulity. It was all her idea. And it was "play"! Oh, was it? The NYT critic, La Perla, says she went for "the shopworn trimmings of female allure... without apparent irony." If it was play, why does it look so unplayful? Maybe the photographer's attempts to make it seem playful looked staged and creepy, and the glum face — hostage face — seemed at least arguably sophisticated.
Let's break the Enninful quote in half. The second half is believable:
"It was time, she said, for something new." The first half is a question, not an assertion: "What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved?" That sounds like what the fashion editor would say to her. What if you played with corsetry? She's 19, and she's invited to play, play with this junk we've been playing with for years and years. And when she accedes, they can say it was her idea. She's playing, she's reveling. But there's no reveling in the photographs. There's the opposite of reveling. There's just standing there, putting your various limbs into positions, and looking sad.La Perla writes:
Still, some may well question her agency.... Consider Tavi Gevinson, the fashion blogger turned writer and actress once known for her bulky layers and granny glasses. Writing in The Cut recently, Ms. Gevinson described doing a photo shoot at 18. Prompted to pose on her bed, she dressed in a skimpy romper, “pouting,” she recalled, “with heavily lined eyes and straightened blonde hair.” Sure, she was eager to sass up her image. And, she wrote, “if anyone who was there told me the whole setup was my idea, I would believe them.”
Yes, exactly. That's how it's done.
Something else that bothered me: "the sirens of golden age Hollywood and some of more recent vintage: Taylor Swift, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion among them." How about the siren of less recent vintage — Madonna? Madonna is so obviously the one who took the old looks — including corsets (which weren't the look of the golden age Hollywood) — and made them feel like her own expression and a statement by a strong woman of her own time.
But Madonna makes an appearance at the end of the article:
... Eilish is content these days to abandon her formerly maverick stance in favor of a fetish-tinctured bombshell look that seemed hackneyed when Madonna was a girl. If her reinvention poses a risk, it is that of becoming just another cliché.
Insufficient respect for Madonna! The cliché is in redoing Madonna, and the real failure is in not projecting the strength and fun and genuine feminism that Madonna brilliantly performed.
Here's what the Vogue cover — for discussion purposes:
***
There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.
"The singer... swapp[ed] her trademark sweats for a style more domme than deb: pink Gucci corset and skirt over Agent Provocateur skivvies, accessorized with latex gloves and leggings. The choice was her own, Edward Enninful, the magazine’s editor in chief, wrote in the June issue. 'What if, she wondered, she wanted to show more of her body for the first time in a fashion story?' Mr. Enninful recalled. 'What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved? It was time, she said, for something new.' To that end Ms. Eilish embraced the shopworn trimmings of female allure, offering the camera, without apparent irony, a nod to the sirens of golden age Hollywood and some of more recent vintage: Taylor Swift, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion among them."
Writes Ruth La Ferla in "On That Bombshell Billie Eilish Cover for British Vogue/The pop star known for defying gender stereotypes got a glamour makeover with a corset. Not everyone is happy about it" (NYT).
First, "garner" — she garners her fans. Doesn't just get them and doesn't quite win them. She garners them, so picture her storing them in silos, like grain.
If you've already garnered a "world of fans," what do you do next? Maybe offload some of them. Offend. Disappoint. She was the girl who covered up her body with big, heavy tracksuits — which she said she wore so people wouldn't focus on her body — so the opportunity was there, inside the suit, to put the body on show.
Enninful's quote challenges our credulity. It was all her idea. And it was "play"! Oh, was it? The NYT critic, La Perla, says she went for "the shopworn trimmings of female allure... without apparent irony." If it was play, why does it look so unplayful? Maybe the photographer's attempts to make it seem playful looked staged and creepy, and the glum face — hostage face — seemed at least arguably sophisticated.
Let's break the Enninful quote in half. The second half is believable:
"It was time, she said, for something new." The first half is a question, not an assertion: "What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved?" That sounds like what the fashion editor would say to her. What if you played with corsetry? She's 19, and she's invited to play, play with this junk we've been playing with for years and years. And when she accedes, they can say it was her idea. She's playing, she's reveling. But there's no reveling in the photographs. There's the opposite of reveling. There's just standing there, putting your various limbs into positions, and looking sad.La Perla writes:
Still, some may well question her agency.... Consider Tavi Gevinson, the fashion blogger turned writer and actress once known for her bulky layers and granny glasses. Writing in The Cut recently, Ms. Gevinson described doing a photo shoot at 18. Prompted to pose on her bed, she dressed in a skimpy romper, “pouting,” she recalled, “with heavily lined eyes and straightened blonde hair.” Sure, she was eager to sass up her image. And, she wrote, “if anyone who was there told me the whole setup was my idea, I would believe them.”
Yes, exactly. That's how it's done.
Something else that bothered me: "the sirens of golden age Hollywood and some of more recent vintage: Taylor Swift, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion among them." How about the siren of less recent vintage — Madonna? Madonna is so obviously the one who took the old looks — including corsets (which weren't the look of the golden age Hollywood) — and made them feel like her own expression and a statement by a strong woman of her own time.
But Madonna makes an appearance at the end of the article:
... Eilish is content these days to abandon her formerly maverick stance in favor of a fetish-tinctured bombshell look that seemed hackneyed when Madonna was a girl. If her reinvention poses a risk, it is that of becoming just another cliché.
Insufficient respect for Madonna! The cliché is in redoing Madonna, and the real failure is in not projecting the strength and fun and genuine feminism that Madonna brilliantly performed.
Here's what the Vogue cover — for discussion purposes:
***
There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.
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