Fashion history video sequences such as the Mode en France one I posted a while back seem to be mighty popular with the clip having garnered over 50,000 views. So, I wonder what will people make of this short film ‘The Phenomenology of the Body’, directed by Daphne Guinness which premiered on NYTimes T Magazine today and will also be presented during Paris Couture Fashion Week at the Hotel Crillon. It features 13 historical female figures/roles, including Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette (played by Guinness herself), the flapper, the commissar, the housewife all spinning on a turn table in the dark to an LCD Soundsystem soundtrack and finally ends with a veiled woman stripping of her red burka. "It’s about the body and the soul, concealing and revealing, empowerment; clothing has always been so political," said Guinness.
It’s a somewhat evasive piece but as Guinness says herself,
"Really, the piece is a revolving passage, a voyage of the female form canceling or revealing. Is it a birth, a death, an arrival, a departure? I don’t really know."
Then the message isn’t entirely clear but for me, it’s interesting that a peak and trough cycle develops in the film as womens’ attire becomes more and more shackled with weight and heaviness and then that slowly ebbs away until we are hit with a striking image of a completely veiled woman. It’s a commentary on East-West divisions as well as development with time.
In relation to Guinness herself who was told by a journalist "You are no longer a person; you are a concept!", whilst she presents these historical feminine identities that are heavily defined by the way they dress, does she see herself in the same way, defined by the way she dresses or does she embody the spirit of freedom seen in the last few second of the film, the freedom to dress as she pleases, wear two different coloured shoes, silver armour on her hands and don haute couture like no other? Again hard to say…
16 comments
Francis Girard
2008-06-27 at 2:12 PMI think this is a lovely concept. If I could pick one I’d be the flapper – the bob sold me. xf
Cate
2008-06-27 at 2:23 PMsounds like an interesting film. is it featured on youtube? do you know?
fashionherald
2008-06-27 at 3:54 PMthat was simple yet eerie, I kind of got chills at the end – the burka is such a powerful image. liked it best when the characters weren’t modeling.
Biba
2008-06-27 at 3:57 PMDo not like the video. What’s the point?
Thank you for posting this though.
The Fashion Assistant and her Camera
2008-06-27 at 7:04 PMwow they look interesting!!
lady coveted
2008-06-27 at 7:23 PMhmm… i like the concept, but it has more to do with outfits than it does the female body, the models all have what’s considered the perfect female body at this point in time, which we all know is a mutable opinion.
also… this is just a thought i just had… about the birka… i’m not sure if i feel comfortable how it’s portrayed as a costume of restraint. it seems to me an easy judgment made by a western woman. in all honesty, sometimes i feel like i’d rather be wearing a birka, free from the judgments/constraints of age and figure. mostly on the days when i’m tired and am retaining water.
😉
selina
2008-06-27 at 8:10 PMthe pictures are pretty eerie! I love the concept of the film, as I was reading I though it would just be style throughout eras but the message is quite a modern one yet dates back so far. The point lady covetted made me wonder, is the message a negative one of a birka? i feels like it could have been a taken a little further than all spinning though too imo.
Austere
2008-06-27 at 8:32 PMThis sounds really simple and interesint. I wish I could see it.
Danny Daily
2008-06-27 at 8:56 PMi think that this is an interesting concept and DG is the perfect person to do it. i like her mad librarian style very much, because it illustrates that with money, you can act as you like. i mean if i walk down the street in shoes of two different colors from target, there will be stares but she can walk down the street in two different shoes from couture house and it’s considered style. so the question is–who are we and all of our socio-economic trappings in relation to what we wear and i think that in this presentation, it’s what we are seeing. my only gripe is that it is shown during couture week at the crillon. forgive me but all the folks in attendance will all the sharing one point of view…
love
danny
http://dannydaily.typepad.com
susie_bubble
2008-06-27 at 9:36 PMI knew the video would have mixed reactions…oh and guys, it’s up on T Magazine to watch like I said:
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/06/19/style/t/index.html#videoId=1606785747&pagewanted=0&pageName=tvideos1&
headmistress
2008-06-27 at 11:39 PMvisually it’s an interesting video, definitely very evocative and fun to watch, if only for the moody colours and costumes. it reminds me of the artist (can’t ermember who) who did the slo-mo film portraits of figures in movement… But I agree with Lady coveted – the portrayal of the burka is a really tired, lazy one – it was a bit of a letdown to see the film end on such a reductive and clich√©d note. It would have been good to see more original explorations of the title concept, not just of the burka role but in some of the other figures too…
Lady Smaggle
2008-06-28 at 1:37 AMI do love a bit of Daphne. It is amazing how definable historic figures are by the way they dress. It makes you wonder if fashion bloggers will be so definable in 50 years?
arline jernigana
2008-06-28 at 5:58 AMI think that the message is unclear too.
Is it about becoming liberated, or defined by a culture?
I agree with Lady coveted, that the video has more to do with clothing than the body. There were definitely some beautiful images (but the title deceives). Also, it i true that we as westerners, have no earthly idea what it means to wear a burka, so we could not possibly begin to assume that it is oppressive, and that removing it to be exposed would mean liberation.
Flatbrokefab Ashleigh
2008-06-28 at 3:06 PMAfter reading the other comments my own views seem like they’re being forced into reading into the film more. When i watched it, i watched it from a purely aesthetic point of view. I enjoyed the visuals, and i didn’t try to delve into the meaning. Perhaps the meanings behind the visuals weren’t appreciated by me, because as a young western girl i don’t (in my view) suffer any kind of ‘restraint’. I can wear/do/say what i like and enjoy doing so. I wouldn’t like to comment on whether or not the clothing of the past were restraining or if the burka is nowadays, because i have no idea. Different cultures, different times…they all create different people with their own views…I suppose the idea of being completely veiled does horrify me because its not part of my culture, but it doesn’t horrify me to think that other women do it. It was nice to see all the clothes though, really inspirational.
Vintage Clothes
2008-06-28 at 4:07 PMinteresting boot quite erie and spooky!
Mimi
2008-06-30 at 2:22 AMYes, I agree with the other commentators here that images of the burqa are far too often used as a condensed shorthand for oppression, deindividuation, deprivation, Muslim backwardness, et cetera!