Fall 2009/10 season
The way the woman on the left is grasping the lapel of the woman on the right seems intimate, to me. Their faces are too close together for them to be friends. I think they have been together for a long while.
This is scanned from a recent issue of New York Magazine.
Lesbian imagery in fashion photography is one of my pet loves, so I was thrilled with Missoni’s Fall 2008-09 ad campaign.
Elle doesn’t use the word “lesbian” in their blurb (page 292, I forget which issue), but it’s pretty clear what the source material and Missoni were doing. According to Elle, Missoni was referencing the 1970 movie The Conformist.
I haven’t seen the movie, but from this still it looks like a humdinger.
Incidentally, Threads Magazine has an article recently featured on how to make the wrap in Missoni’s ad. See issue April/May 2009 page 78, entitled “Envelop Yourself,” by Fred Bloebaum. I can’t find it online yet, sadly.
A friend passed me a copy of Artforum May 2009 XLVII Vol 9. It was filled (surprise!) with lesbian imagery. My favorite is this painting, First Love by Mike Cockrill.
This guy is full of pre-pubescent lesbian images. A tiny bit disturbing, but mostly beautiful and full of memories.
If I ever wax rhapsodic about romantic friendship, please slap me and set me right down in front of Notes On A Scandal. This is the real thing. This is the reality of the past, of heteronormativity. Think of the millions of women who have suffered in silence, in confusion, in loveless lives, because they could not know who they loved.
Long before lesbian imagery was accepted in pop culture, fashion photographers published in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar got away with publishing suggestive photographs of women together. Who was the photographer who denied that there was any lesbian implication, he just wanted to be able to photograph two dresses at the same time?
This image is from a March 1981 Versace advertising campaign. I got it from a New York Times video slideshow on Richard Avedon. The International Center of Photography in Manhattan will have an exhibit of Avedon’s work on display from May 15-Sept 6, 2009.
Photographed by Richard Avedon
I just came across this engraving from the digital collections of the New York Public Library. Women in 1873 would have seen this as simply a charming image of close friends, but from the vantage point of 2009 I see it as having a real romantic undertone. If I imagine a man in the exact position of the darker woman, the picture would clearly be an image of courtship. Perhaps the artist had in mind a schoolgirl wooing; a practice which was tolerated, if not actually encouraged, in Victorian culture.
"Toinette"
I don’t think this advertisement from 1920 Vogue for stationery features lesbians, but I can’t help thinking that there was some- just a little- homoerotic intent. Ok, maybe just romantic friendship. But still.
My favorite non-fiction book about the concept and flourishing of female romantic friendship is Surpassing The Love of Men by Faderman. I don’t have a favorite fiction because there are just too many. What is yours?
Vogue, 1920. Romantic friendship persists, despite the sexologists' best efforts.
As promised, here are the two photos that went along with the article from Rags 1971.
Jill Bray, gay girl in 1971
Susan Walsh, furniture refinisher and gay girl
The girl in the hat has a pretty groovy look, don’t you think?
I searched for all the women online to see if any were still around. The only one I was able to find information about was Wanda Van Dusen, who committed suicide in 1995.
If you have information about any of these women, please let me know. A retrospective interview would be a most amazing project.
Continued from last post…
“A lot of gay women,” says Michelle, “would like to change, but they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to dress in the first place, so they go down to Macy’s and buy a pantsuit. Ugh. I like a woman to look natural. Her clothes should suit who she is and how she feels.”
For her part, Susan Ellard doesn’t dig “anything that makes women look weak– frills, flimsy fabric, high heels she can’t walk in.” Feminine (or at least what the word has come to mean) is a negative concept. “It’s been used against me too much,” Susan explains. “Like: ‘Why can’t you be more feminine?’”
To Dixie, feminine is “like some super-Nellie queen posing and drooping. That’s not what a woman is. It’s just what he thinks a woman is.”
The new emphasis on womanliness makes it increasingly difficult for gay women to recognize each other, a source of frustration.
“You just can’t tell who’s gay anymore,” Jill laments, “It used to be you could tell a dyke by her hair. A lot of European gay people wear pinkie rings.” Jill keeps her hair short and likes short hair on other women.
“There ought to be a law,” says Susan Walsh, “that gay people have to identify themselves in some way.”
Wanda is doing her part. She wears her Odd Fellows button just about everywhere. ~~
