Irina Lazareanu and Freja Beha Erichsen in Elle, May 2008

Elle. May 2008

I spent much of my two years in the Costume Studies MA at NYU flipping through 80 years of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, so I can tell you with absolute certainty that the big fashion mags don’t give queers even a cursory glance.  Sure, an occasional nod for bringing trucker hats and boy’s suits for girls to The Fashion Community, but that’s about it.

That is what makes this image so astonishing.  Two women.  Hot queer women.  In a fashion spread.  Kissing. And enjoying it.

Bravo to Elle, it’s about f$%*ing time.  Now let’s get some articles on queer fashion.  Perhaps they should take a cue from DapperQ.

Recommended Blogs

I just found two cool blogs, so in addition to adding them to the links at the side, I’m going to highlight them here.

Susan Herr of Brooklyn, an obviously stylish and fabulous woman of Park Slope, Brooklyn, has just started DapperQ: Transgressing Men’s Fashion.  I’m already a big fan.

And then there is The Queerest Places: A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historical Sites. You know I’m a sucker for data-gathering and  pre-gay-rights history.

I’m also a regular reader of Genderfork.  Sarah Dopp & Co. post several times daily; a mix of photographs, reader interviews, and reader comments and questions.  I’ve learned a lot about the trans community from this blog.  Plus, the eye candy never hurts.

Pop-culture commentator Dorothy Snarker provides a seemingly endless stream of witty writing and photos of hot gay women.  Dorothy Surrenders.  Read it.

Chanel, Fall 2009-2010

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.

Missoni Fall 2008-09

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.

Mike Cockrill

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.

Notes On A Scandal

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.

Versace, 1981

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

Hidden, but still there

As the social history dilettante that I am, I come across little tidbits of lesbian history all the time.  It’s all just too great not to share.  I hope you enjoy, and if you have anything of your own, please do submit it.

Romantic friendship, 1873

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"

1920 Vogue: “Now do write!”

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.