I often feel genuinely disgusted by the fashion industry. While I do believe there are beautiful and interesting aspects worth exploring in fashion, such as art and craftsmanship, I find it difficult to reconcile them with the way an industry that could be used to empower women, too often does the opposite, putting too many pressures on young girls, suggesting them they must be thin, stupid, tamed, silent and buy expensive designer clothes and accessories to become socially acceptable. It is indeed sadly true that appearing is what’s important in this industry.
In a final attempt at looking cool and attract a younger readership towards the dark forces of fashion stupidity, the editor of Vogue Italia Franca Sozzani recently accepted to be in the jury of the next edition of America’s Next Top Model.
In one of her recent posts in her blog she recently stated she was surprised to see how many girls turned up at the main selection for the programme, adding that most of them weren't actually beautiful and - while one of the main requirements to work as a model is actually to be photogenic rather than beautiful - these girls actually looked rather, erm, ugly.
Yet, Sozzani, suddenly highlighted, a real fashion model doesn’t need to fit the traditional canons of beauty, but she must have a slim body and a lot of personality.
After reading such contradicting and rather banal remarks (that could be summarised in: try not to be beautiful, but it would be advisable you weren’t ugly…you should have told them the truth, that is, they must also have a double-zero size body, eat almost nothing and pretend they are “naturally” thin to really make it in this industry), I seriously hoped the author of these posts is actually an incoherent ghost writer Sozzani keeps under her desk, because I refuse to believe the editor of an esteemed fashion monthly can write such crap.
I mean, why not addressing girls who want to be models saying "we are looking for strong and powerful women who can prove their physical and mental strength against tremendous odds” or encourage new readers telling them “we want our magazine to reach out to strong-willed and aggressive women in control?"
For a long time now I have been longing to see in women’s magazines a different type of woman, of the Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!-type rather than a silent, tamed, fragile, almost suicidal woman.
Occasionally, this film actually provided some inspirations for fashion photoshoots, like the one that appeared on Vogue Paris in May 2009.
In this case, though, the film was more an excuse to show some colourful bikinis and summery looks in a desert landscape and the toned up body of Daria Werbowy (pretending of beating up a few men). But the essence of the film – truly homicidal women with curves on a rampage – was essentially removed from the shoot.
You could argue that Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a bizarre b-movie with some horror and thriller elements thrown in, shot by “The Father of Softcore Porn”, Russ Meyer, a man with a fixation on big-breasted women, big cleavages, wasp waists and a pin-up aesthetic, in a nutshell somebody more interested in sexploitation than treaties about sex equality.
Yet, what I really hate nowadays is the way we have all fashioned in our minds a new kind of woman, perfect, sensual, tamed, silent and not so "beautiful", though definitely not "ugly".
So, while I’m not condoning gratuitous violence and the behaviour of the homicidal and violent go-go dancers starring in Meyer’s film, there are moments when I truly wish women would have different role models such as statuesque Varla (Tura Satana) in mind when they get up every morning rather than more vapid icons of style.
I often find myself thinking, wondering what would happen if Varla ended up in our days and our times, in a different set than the bare, dry, arid and inhospitable desert. What would happen if she ended up clashing with the fashion industry? Who would she unleash her fury against? Fashion designers, editors or PR agents? Men or women? In which ways would she act and react to the industry's hypocrisy?
I guess that, in a world in which we push young girls to look at icons such as Kate Moss and Lady Gaga, and tell them they can become like them, while warmly reminding them they are too ugly to do so, we desperately need a new breed of women keen on action and on a new kind of uninhibited feminism that doesn't believe in beauty or ugliness, but in intelligence.
Who knows, maybe Varla & Co, tired of dancing for their vulgar male audiences, will embark once again on a wild rampage of violence in future and, hopefully, they will be looking for a new outrageous team of women to do so.
As an inspiration, I’m embedding Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! at the end of this post. A final note for the fans of this film: there is a new book coming out in September (you can already pre-order it here) about this cult film, it’s entitled Killing Machines (Creation Books) and it features rare publicity photographs, production details and an illustrated filmography of director Russ Meyer. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to violence...
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