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Let´s celebrate men in dresses
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Meryl on May 14, 2011, 10:03:08 pm ---You bet! ;D
I'm amazed at the pics on this thread, had no idea rock bands had such a history of skirt love. 8)
--- End quote ---
Now I have a huge urge to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show again. I haven't watched it for quite a long time. Am feeling a bit of nostalgia.
Yeah, there's a huge history of an interest in androgyny in rock music. There are a lot more examples of that kind of thing that don't necessarily involve specifically wearing dresses. But, the dress/skirt-wearing phenomenon is definitely not un-common. Many of the folks I've posted (NIN, Placebo, The Cure, Indochine, even Nirvana since they covered "The Man Who Sold the World") are pretty much direct descendents of David Bowie. Bowie for a huge category of rock music is a bit like Bob Dylan, in that he's inspired subsequent generations of major bands that came after him in terms of lyrics, sound and image (and for what it's worth, Dylan inspired Bowie in the early days). Even the guitar in the Indochine song I posted is pretty directly inspired by Robert Fripp's style of guitar on Bowie's Scary Monsters album. And, of course Bowie has always been interested in androgyny.
Here's a YouTube of Bowie's video for his song called "Boys Keep Swinging" from his album Lodger that he produced with Brian Eno in the late 70s. It involves him in drag in a number of ways.
I'm quite sure that Bowie would say that in relation to this kind of thing, wearing his suit and tie (conventional male attire) is its own form of drag.
It's actually a very poignant video in surprising ways if you watch to the end. And it's a very important video to be aware of in relation to Bowie's more famous video for "China Girl" (with the smeared lipstick).
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i1faAqJZtA[/youtube]
Brown Eyes:
Bowie c. 1997
Or, put another way, he helped subsequent generations of men (male musicians) who wanted to break out of the constraints of a gendered box as far as dressing goes.
It's clear that this speaks to a lot of musicians (and boys, men generally) looking for ways out of social conventions. It's so interesting to me that women fought so hard to be able to wear pants. And men (who in some ways hold much of the "power" in terms of social control) have kept themselves confined when it comes to choices in clothing. Clearly there are a lot of men who like the idea of wearing skirts/dresses. There's something going on here in terms of sociology that's way beyond my ability to understand. But, if nothing else... it's really interesting.
And, in general I salute most anyone who fights against convention.
Also, in all of this there's a really interesting aspect of empathy with women... that comes up occasionally with some of these musicians in interview, etc.
Sason:
--- Quote from: Meryl on May 14, 2011, 10:03:08 pm ---You bet! ;D
I'm amazed at the pics on this thread, had no idea rock bands had such a history of skirt love. 8)
--- End quote ---
I agree, had no idea either.
(it probably goes to show how much little I follow these things.... ::))
Andrew:
Last week Boston Ballet did a modern program which included Jiri Kylian's Bella Figura, from which dance these images come. In this section of the dance men and women have the same costume. So instead of a man/woman dichotomy you have above and below the waist for all the dancers - bare above, while below is a version of an eighteenth century skirt with panniers, rather appropriate for the Baroque music used. The dancers used these to great advantage in sections when groups of them zigzagged upstage and when they shook their hips from side to side. I really loved this dance. These pictures are from various performances in Europe and the US. In the second picture the women are wearing bodices - possibly just for the purposes of that particular company's publicity shots. The last picture is actually from the Boston Ballet performance which just happened.
Sason:
^^^^^^^^
Beautiful pictures!
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