Portrait d'Une Négresse

Michelle Obama Nude Portrait
[This is one title I can find for the work.
Another is simply First Lady Michelle Obama]
By: Karine Percheron-Daniels

[I cannot find a date for this work, and even Percheron-Daniels doesn't give a date on her site. I would assume it is from midway into Obamas presidency, which could make it between 2011-2012]

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A Spanish magazine has a crude portrayal of Michelle Obama on its recent cover (see above image). It is after a nineteenth century painting of a slave woman titled Portrait d'Une Négresse by which is on display at the Louvre in Paris. The painter of Portrait d'Une Négresse is Marie-Guillemine Benoist, whose paintings are mostly of female, and feminine, figures both domestic and political. The famous characters she paints are related to prominent male figures, and their prestigious positions are often due to these associations.

Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist
Portrait d'Une Négresse, 1800
Oil on canvas
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Benoist also paints many domestic scenes, mostly of mothers with their young children. So, although a female painter, her subjects were very much feminine (and not feminist).

Benoist's painting is "interpreted" by Karine Percheron-Daniels, another female artist, although a 21st century post-modern one, whose repertoire is re-interpretations of paintings and works of famous figures whom she unclothes in various levels of nudity.

I thought that perhaps Percheron-Daniels actually paints her "parodies" but true to the mediocrity of post-modern artists, she is described in many sites as a "mixed-media" artist. Wherever I find works of hers that look like they were drawn (or painted), it is clear that she is a mediocre painter and drawer.

Here is how this site describes her technique:

The photo was created by photo-shopping or super-imposing Mrs. Obama’s face onto a black female drawing from 1800 entitled “Portrait d’une negresse” by Marie-Guillemine Benoist who was a French artist. The combination of altered artwork and cover photo is part of a “Famous Nudes” series created by artist Karine Percheron-Daniels.

Is it surprising that this "artist" (albeit one whose repertoire is unclothing famous personalities) might some day be tempted to paint Mrs. Obama with her upper body exposed? Although Obama has never shown us any crude, half-exposed breasts as some kind of fashion statement, she has given us plenty of shots of her bare shoulders with intimidatingly large muscles. Perhaps that is one of the reasons Percheron-Daniels chose Michelle Obama as her subject, and in that particular pose (notwithstanding the "blacks and slavery" angle, which she uses to demonize America, and particularly white America).


Perhaps this is the model that allowed Percheron-Daniels to depict the First Lady in semi-nudity. The photo above is from a post I did on Michelle Obama's "off-one-shoulder" style which she wore at the State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011 (I describe the gown as "some kind of modern tied-dye African costume" so there's another angle Percheron-Daniels might be following). Mrs. Obama has no qualms about pulling down her bodice as far as possible without causing a national scandal to show us her toned muscles which she cultivates in the gym.

So far, there's no news on how the First Lady is taking this depiction of her.

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Balenciaga! The Old Master is Still Ahead

1950s Balenciaga coat inspired by
Goya's Cardinal Luis
Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga

Left: Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke
Right: Francisco de Goya's Cardinal Luis Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga, 1800

Left: Balenciaga "Infanta" evening dress, 1939, inspired by
Diego Velázquez' 1653 painting of the Infanta Margarita
Right: Balenciaga's illustration of the dress

Left: Diego Velázquez, The Infanta Margarita, 1653
whose dress Balenciaga used as an inspiration
Right: Picasso's Version
Shameless art destroyer and fellow Spaniard (who
went to art school) did his own version of the Infanta

Charlotte Gainsbourg modeling modern Balenciaga,
whose designer, Nicolas Ghesquiere, calls her his muse.
Ghesquiere is another one of those contemporary
designers who cannot see beauty if he was given the moon.
Ugliness is his curse.

Balenciaga's Spain: Bullfighters, Boleros and Flamenco Dancers

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While looking for a Gardenia perfume, a salesman at the Bay's general perfume counter suggested I try Balenciaga's eponymous scent. It is really very good, with a delicate, yet enduring floral/powdery scent. He gave me two samples. The usual salesman I go to had been promoted to the Givenchy counter. I usually show him my latest finds from various magazines. He is often impressed that I know more than him about perfume, at least for that day.

A pleasant saleswoman at Eaton's also gave me a sample bottle. And at Sephora's, my favorite perfume store, the salesgirl "prepared" a sample tube for me. I told her that I was really glad that perfume makers are creating stronger scents with distinct floral overtones, unlike the insipid fruity concoctions that are so popular these days. I said that this means that women want to be like women, rather than like adolescent girls. I said that I wished that would transfer into fashion, which is now a disaster with all the shorts and flip-flops that women are wearing.

"Think of the beautiful, well-constructed, clothes of the fifties. How daring were they, with those amazing color combination! Now all we have is grey, beige or black, with slivers of color mostly in the ugly prints on t-shirts," I said.

"I wouldn't want to go back to the fifties. They were really restrictive on women," replied this nice woman.

Feminism rears its ugly head in unexpected places. I thought this woman, who works in a perfume store, would have some appreciation for beauty and beautiful clothes. Yet all she sees is that feminine clothes are "restrictive." In her eyes, women should dress like androgynous blobs since feminine clothing makes them suffer.

Actually, she has it all wrong. The cellulite-baring skirts and shorts that are a couple of sizes too small which women wear these days surely leave them unable to walk or sit comfortably. And on the other extreme, I'm noticing a reaction to all this lost femininity, where women are wearing such high heels that I'm afraid to look at them in case of the inevitable fall. Fifties heels were much lower, and much more feminine.

I think this nice lady felt bad disagreeing with me (she was a little emphatic), and gave me ah handful of samples, including Tom Ford's and Marc Jacobs' Gardenia scents.

Of course, true to our postmodern world, Balenciaga's perfume is being advertized by the androgynous (and ugly) French celebrity Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is the daughter of the French Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg (the Leonard Cohen of France), and the awful English actress Jane Birkin, whose breathy songs in heavily accented French somehow made it into the French song charts.

Still, the perfume is lovely. The perfume designer is Olivier Polge.

I have to add, though, that Balenciaga is of the "gay fashion designers" group. Valentino, who does equally lovely feminine clothes, was another homosexual prominent in women's fashion design. Both, at least to give them some credit, were of the old school, and didn't flaunt their homosexuality, unlike a stream of contemporary "gay" designers that thrust their egos at us. And not surprisingly, Valentino and Balenciaga spent their energy designing beautiful clothes, while the Gallianos and McQueens (what an apt name) of our time give us their distorted egos instead. But, as many high level designers show us, gayness is not a prerequisite for a male to have have a career in fashion design.

Here are the main notes for Balenciaga:
bergamot, spices, violet,
carnation, oakmoss,
cedar, vetiver, patchouli

And as this perfume blogger writes: "it's quietly elegant...[and] modern and grown-up."

That best describes the classic Balenciaga fashion design as well.

Several books have come out on Balenciaga since 2011. And there was the 2010 exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York which

examines the influence of Spanish culture on the late, great couturier. Conceived by designer Oscar de la Renta and curated by Vogue’s European Editor at Large and vintage couture authority, Hamish Bowles, the spectacular show examines how Cristóbal Balenciaga was influenced by Spanish royal court––and regional––dress, religious ceremony, dance, art, and bullfighting.

Below are some of Balenciaga's (the original) designs, mostly from the 1950s.

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Will Vera Wang Wear Black for Her Divorce?

Wang and Becker, on May 15 2011
at the Museum of Modern Art's 39th
Annual Party, with Wang in her hippy
costume while her husband is in
full black tie attire

Here's is a high profile divorce of an Asian woman and a white man. My intuition has been that Asian women/white men marriages are more fragile than they seem. Since this type of union is relatively new (as far as the human species is concerned), I think we're beginning to see the beginnings of the fall outs.

I was never impressed with the Wang/Becker marriage. I wrote about the fashion designer and her husband last January intuiting some kind of marital discord:

[Wang] doesn't talk about her husband in the article [January 10, 2012 Harper's Bazaar]. Does he travel from one side of the country to the other on Wang's schedule?

Wang had recently bought a home in California, and relocated her business from New York, where her husband still lived at the time, to Los Angeles.

And about Becker, I wrote:

He looks like another one of those insipid, disconcerted spouses.

Later on, I found that he actually quit his job in 2010 to work with Wang's fashion conglomerate. I wrote:

A 2010 headline at the NaviSite website informs us that "Arthur P. Becker Steps Down [as CEO] and is Succeeded by R. Brooks Borcherding," which implies that Becker has retired. This leaves him ample time to follow his wife around to satisfy her yins and yangs.

People Magazine confirms Becker's beck and call to his wife with:

Though Becker reportedly had his own business ventures, he was also involved in Wang’s company, which has expanded into makeup, fragrances, mass market, juniors, home goods and a lower-cost bridal line in recent years. However, a friend of the designer tells WWD that the couple “will not let this impact the running of the company. They have worked too hard to build it up.”

A cheeky blogger writes:

Some suggest the divorce from Arthur Becker had some clues in her Fall 2012 Bridal Collection (view gowns 7-13 here), known for Wang's penchant for all things dark.

This may be a joke, but I have written about Wang's funereal wedding gowns, where I comment:

Wang's flashing bride in black is a negative statement on weddings, and life, in general. In our culture, white is for purity, whereas black is often for death, the mysterious (and evil?) underworld, darkness and obfuscation. And if the bride wears black, it is as though the she went to her own funeral. Or is a widow executing a vengeful act...And what real-life bride wants to be dressed in black, even with the modern woman's dearth of cultural knowledge and sensitivity?

And the bride wore black:
Wang's Wang's black wedding dress
from her Fall 2010 collection

Appearances matter. A black wedding dress, however much a fashion statement, is a black wedding dress. Of course, besides the macabre color Wang chose for the most important day in the union of a man and a woman, she also produced mediocre gowns which I call mounds of chiffon, which were exaggerated piles of gauze to detract from the mediocrity of her designs.

Becker plans to continue working with the Wang enterprise (at the other end of the country from Wang's California base). There is no doubt that Wang is a savvy and aggressive entrepreneur. But eventually, young women will catch on, and demand more from the dress they will wear at an important milestone in their life. What will Wang concoct next? And what will Becker do?


Above is a 1995 photograph of Wang and Becker. I describe the photo thus:

Fashion designer Vera Wang coiled, Eve-like, around her husband.

Even insipid white men eventually untangle themselves from life-threatening situation.

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The Adoration of Michelle

Honoring Military Wives and Mothers

[Images from:
- the Daily Mail
- the Obama Diary
- Pro President Obama]

Michelle Obama was at the White House on May 11, "In honor of the upcoming Military Spouse Appreciation Day...and in support of military families celebrating Mother’s Day this Sunday, May 13." Jill Biden, who was also present, stands placidly, and adoringly, behind Michelle, as Michelle makes her speech with gesticulations and forceful expressions. The young "military boy" who greets Michelle (in the above photo) is taken in by Michelle's exuberance, which is something that would scare most kids away. He must be responding to all the glowing adulation he hears about her at school, on T.V., and surely at home. I don't think I would have liked having my head clasped in that manner, but the young boy seems enthralled, as does the "military wife or mother" behind him.

The Daily Mail informs us:

In the spirit of spring, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden colour co-ordinated this morning while honoring military mothers and wives at the White House.

The first lady and the wife of Vice-President Joe Biden, who both have distinct signature styles, came together in what was either a grand coordinating coincidence, or clever sartorial satire.

While the first lady bared her arms in a yellow cowl-neck dress which had a contrasting textured gold skirt, Mrs Biden wore a simple yellow cardigan over a bow-detailed shift dress, in front of a matching White House curtain.

The Daily Mail, perhaps because it is a British publication, adds subtle, disapproving remarks about Michelle bare arms (no U.S. publication that I know of has tackled Michelle's bare arms so far, and even the Daily Mail doesn't quite go there), while quietly praising Jill Biden's outfit.

I don't think the yellow was a color coordination between the two ladies, but what their stylists probably thought would fit well with White House's East Room decor of those lovely canary yellow drapes. And Jill Biden's outfit is a canary yellow, fitting well with the gold yellow drapes, while Michelle Obama's is the puce green/yellow she seems to have an affinity for.

Michelle Obama (or her stylists) cleverly recycle her outfits. Above, in the bottom image, she is wearing the same skirt and top for a similar function in 2011 (and her stylists love to dress her in that same puce green/mustard yellow). Jill Biden, who was also at this 2011 military function, opted for a lovely red suit, albeit with those spiked heels. And forget about Michelle's arms, it is her foreboding shins that overshadow them.

Let's Move Michelle, in lime green for energy,
and with sympathetic on-lookers.

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How to Wear a $990 T-Shirt

A spiteful blogger at the Washington Post writes:

Ann Romney has been coming under fire for wearing a $990 Reed Krakoff t-shirt on the air recently. Never mind that Reed Krakoff sounds like a rejected Hunger Games character. This is a Serious National Issue.

My biggest objection to the shirt is that it looked like a disembodied fish-bird was squinting at you off Ann Romney’s right shoulder.

That is a nightmarish vision with which I would as soon not contend. That someone would pay this amount of money so that a disgruntled yellow creature could give TV audiences the stink-eye is the sort of thing that makes even the staunchest Reaganian rethink his stance on trickle-down economics.

Of course, this comment is directed at the "99%" who cannot afford $990 silk shirts. In the usual fascistic and dogmatic manner of liberals, everyone has to wear the $9 t-shirt that caters to the lowest common denominator. And all those who can afford to buy $990 t-shirts have to hand out their money to those who somehow got behind in buying designer shirts, and wear the $9 t-shirt uniform in solidarity. Never mind those 1% (i.e. the Romneys) who bought their shirts with their hard-earned money.

Never mind that the t-shirt (or silk shirt, as what it really is) has a print of John James Aududon's Gyrfalcon, which is an illustration of a large falcon native to North America.

Audubon's book of illustrations, Birds of America, was an ambitious project of,

435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 [North American] bird species, made from engraved copper plates...[which] contains just over 700 North American bird species.

The books also features the gyrfalcon.

So how "un-American" can Ann Romney be, with her instinctive ability to wear a shirt featuring an American illustrator's American bird, while accompanying her husband on a campaign interview at CBS This Morning a few days ago? Michelle Obama also likes to wear large prints, yet I have never found any of hers to have cultrual significance other than to promote "designers of color."

That said, Reed Krakoff, the designer who created Ann Romney's shirt, took the liberty of adding extra colors to the print on Ann Romeny's shirt, since Audubon's bird is mostly white, black and with touches of color, as are the colors of the actual bird. Krakoff's website says:

The bird painting was inspired by John James Audubon' s iconic painting of gyrfalcons, recolored and manipulated to a larger-than-life scale for a bold and modern effect.

Detail of Reed Krakoff's gyrfalcon

Still, good design is a reinterpretation of what is out there to fit the item on which it is displayed (a piece of clothing, a furniture), and I'm sure Audubon would have found it an honor to be part of American political history.

Gyrfalcon
By John James Audubon (1785-1851)
From: The Birds of America; from original
drawings by John James Audubon
Publication date 1827 - 1838

About the gyrfalcon:

The Gyrfalcon is dispersed throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, with populations in Northern America, Greenland, and Northern Europe. Its plumage varies with location, with birds being coloured from all-white to dark brown.

The bird's common name comes from French gerfaucon; in medieval Latin it is gyrofalco. The first part of the word may come from Old High German gîr (cf. modern German Geier) for "vulture", referring to its size compared to other falcons; or from the Latin gȳrus for "circle" or "curved path"—from the species' circling as it searches for prey, distinct from the hunting of other falcons in its range. The male Gyrfalcon is called a gyrkin in falconry. The scientific name is composed of the Latin term for a falcon, Falco, and for a countryside-dweller, rusticolus. (More here)

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Dressing Up For Easter

Sasha's floral/leafy themed dress just in time for Spring

I wrote previously that I've always liked Sasha Obama (as much as one can like a ten-year-old). Something in her seems to rebel in a "good" way, and I see this in her public appearances lately.

I'm sure that she has something to say about what she wears, being the modern girl that she is. Above is what she wore for the Easter service this past Sunday. She didn't wear an above the knee mini-skirt like her true rebellious sister Malia. Nor some strange skimpy sweater which her mother has made into a "fashion statement," although Michelle seems to be the only one making that statement (along with the flashy, tight dresses), with no followers.

Sasha has on a flowing dress that falls below the knees, in a pretty yellow floral theme (although the darker leafy patterns on her dress match with the formless black prints scattered on her mother's dress), topped with a yellow sweater, all contrasting with the attires of the other Obama female members. And I don't think her decisions are subconscious.

Close-up of Sasha's dress shows
a floral/leafy themed pattern

Oddly, Malia mimics her father, with the light blue belt that matches his tie, and the navy jacket and dress similar to his suit.

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The Wife of the President

Michelle Obama, wife of the President of the United States, recently came out in public looking like this.

She was at the Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards to present an award to country musician Taylor Swift (who is a little old to be at this event, but she did receive the award for her charity work). I saw the photograph in the Daily Mail, and was shocked at how she was dressed. I think this is the worst I've seen her yet.

I wonder how she decided on this outfit? Perhaps she thinks that "letting it all hang out" is a teen thing. Yet Sasha looks infinitely older (and wiser) in a dress and jacket, and more stylish too (granted, the dress could be a little longer). I can't help noticing that Sasha looks a little sad in these photos. Perhaps she's tired of all this publicity. Maybe she' a little embarrassed by her mother's outfits, and doesn't know how to react to them, or to her.


Malia is another story. Here's the daughter of a president who shows up at a public function in some type of t-shirt/sweat shirt dress. And her arrogant air is such a contrast to Sasha's more demure look. Perhaps she's mimicking her father, as children are wont to do, who for all his "niceness" has been photographed with some cold, arrogant expressions. Yet, I feel sorry for Malia too. I wonder what will happen to her once all this presidency thing is over?


Below is Michelle Obama with Taylor Swift, who says as she receives the award "I'm freaking out!" according to the Mail article. I'm sure she's overwhelmed. The photograph below subliminally captures Taylor's "freaking out" moment, as she instinctively gathers in her prize, and seems to be running away from a stalking Michelle. I would be terrified too, with this imposing woman standing so close behind.

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Is the New York Post Reading My Mind?

Giambattista Valli bow-embellished
two-tone satin slingbacks

Giambattista Valli

showed his very first haute couture collection in Paris [in July 2011]. The show met profound critical acclaim from the fashion community, being hailed by journalists as a significant achievement. On October 26, 2011, the designer's exclusive limited time collection for Macy's will drop.

No online source either for the Donna Karan shoes I was looking for at the bay (I could have been imagining them), and the Gibambattista Valli is the closest I can find.

But I changed those stilettos, and gave them a more subdued cream lining - :-).
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Here's a tongue-in-cheek post Cupcake Mania: Let Them Eat Cupcake where I ask, "Is the New York Post reading my blog?" I had commented in my blog post on the odd cupcake frenzy of middle-aged women and exclaimed, "Let them wear cupcake!"

Now, the NYP has an article (a series of photos, actually) in its Fashion section titled: Hot Spring Trend: Ebony and Ivory.

Just yesterday, I was at the Bay looking for an ivory pump with black tips (Donna Karan has one out), and couldn't find it. A woman was trying on bright yellow sandals, and I said to the shop assistant, "That's out! It's black and beige for Spring!"

Well, here is the NYP with it's list of black and tan, which it calls Ebony and Ivory. They mean black and cream, but it's close enough, although I think the lower contrast tan/beige looks better with black and is less dramatic (they should hire me as their consultant!).

The NYP has no shoes in its Ebony and Ivory section, though, so I'll have to keep on looking.

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Going to the Other Side

Going to the Other Side
(Lanvin's Spring/Summer fashion ad)

[Notice that the image on the right looks like a mirror image of that on the left (or vice versa)], but it isn't. I tried to do a mirror image match of the woman in pink with photoshop, but couldn't. And the light reflecting on the snake's head on the right isn't on the snake's head on the left.

Lanvin is literally taking us to the "other side," the alternate reality, where things look the same, but aren't.]

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Eve seems to be a recurring theme in fashion magazines (and fashion) these days. Recently, I blogged about the fashion house Blumarine, and its use of a female model in close association with a snake, from the snake skin attire that she was wearing to a strange conversion of her persona into that of a snake.

Lanvin seems to be on a zealous mission to bring Eve and the snake to the forefront, even more so than Blumarine. The March 2012 Vogue issue has a three-page Lanvin fashion ad where snakes are everywhere. Some (a few) are cleverly incorporated into the women's clothing and accessories, not as patterns nor their skin as the material for the clothing, but as sculpted three dimensional forms, almost alive in their sinewy presence. Most of the snakes, though, are crawling through the pages.

The writhing snakes are always in close proximity to a woman, and their relation to the males seems to be dictated by the women. For example, the complete version of the Eve/Snake shoots, available online here, has a sado-masochistic bondage scene. A man is lying down with his hand tied down with a snake while a woman threateningly brings a snake close to his face, as though to release the snake's poison on the man.


Where the man is holding a snake, he seems to have less control over it. Some snakes wrap themselves around a man's wrist or arm, acting as handcuffs or ropes to tie him down. Others slither across men's bodies (shoulders, arms, legs).


The women are sinewy and active, while the men are sitting or standing stiffly, like lifeless mannequins (a role reversal, since we are used to seeing female mannequins). And the men are often positioned lower than the women, reinforcing the female dominance.

The women's faces in all the photos are fully exposed. And despite their similar looks, with sleeked back hair (to resemble the snake), they still have distinct, strong personalities. The men have stunned expressions, and their hardened features are not as strong or as confident as the women's. In the image at the beginning of the post, the men are anonymous, their faces covered with masks to erase their identity and individuality.

[Close-up of the top image, showing men's masked faces]

The women are not interested in seducing the men, despite their provocative, aggressively female dress and posture, but in subduing them.


The sinewy, domineering women seem to have become snakes themselves. And having stunned the men into wooden passivity, they crawl all over them at their pleasure.

The snake has made woman his ultimate accomplice. And she has taken her complicity to the final level, where she is renouncing herself to become like, or be one with, the snake.


The Lanvin ads, with their clever associations, have made woman the protagonist in their images. This is easy to accept since women are always dominant in fashion shoots, fashion is about women. In the imagination of fashion photography, and in women’s fashion fantasies, modern sex relations can resume where the Garden of Eden ended. Eve finally does take over.

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Afros For the Revolutions

Angela Davis' afro is now just a fashion statement for the unrevolutionized modern black women, who colors it red or blonde, depending on her mood
(and her song).

Left:Davis in prison in 1972 being interviewed for the Swedish documentary
The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-75
Middle: Pop/jazz singer Esperanza Spalding
Right: Beyoncé! in the movie Austin Powers

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PBS had a documentary titled: The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975, which I thought was on black music of this period, so I tuned in to listen to post-60s black music and instead I was viewing the Revolution Being Televized.

What I found the most fascinating about this documentary on the Black Panthers was Angela Davis. She looked beautiful with her full head of afro, and her surprisingly mild voice (even when she gets into her speeches, she seems to lament rather than yell).

Of course, she went on trial for murder and served 18 months in prison. Once out, she resumed pretty much a middle class black life, teaching in a university, which was pretty much her family's black middle class background when she was growing up in Alabama. Her parents were university graduates, and both teachers at one time. She is now a professor in a respectable university, although she can't keep away from "revolutionizing" and teaches in the "Women's and Gender Studies" department at Syracuse University.

What happens to a Black Panther at middle age? She lives a safe middle class life (albeit tinged with memories of exciting revolutions), in an all-American university town.

Davis isn't quite that bland a middle class. Her biography states that she is a lesbian. But, aren't homosexuals the most conventional of couples these days, where so many of their "rights" have been recognized, and they no longer need their exciting revolution?

Below is photo of a 68-year-old Davis taken this year. What happened to that strong, fearless face, with the bold features? And where did the fist go? So much for revolution.

Professor Angela Davis giving a lecture on
"Feminism and Activism" and "how far we have come
and how far we have not come" on February 7 2012.
The revolutionary fist thrust in the air to fight
the racist system is replaced with a gentle raise of a
hand to make a point within the safeguards of that system.
And going blonde helps?

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References:

Wikipedia biography on Davis
Review of The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-75

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