back to basic black

I'm not a fashionista. Never have been, never will be. I could never figure out all the names of all the fashion designers, there are so many. I could never figure out all the names of all the trendy models, there are SOO many. Besides, my weight is twice the average for fashionistas. So there are several points against me. The thing is, however, I love art, all kinds of it, and I consider fashion to be a form of art when it dares to be diferent, when it uses dramatic elements that we would normally see on the runway rather than on the streets, when each and every outfit is like canvas moving (can look but can't touch unless you have the benjamins to buy them). I'm not an authority in fashion as far as I'm concerned, but I can tell good fashion when I see one. It's about open mind and open heart about all sorts of crazy ideas. That's the core of it.

That brings me to this next post. Not about music, but about fashion. Fashion and movement. Fashion and short movies. Fashion and the swinging sixties! I once thought the only people that could capture that era so well were Twiggy, Lauren Hutton and Edie Sedgwick. Their looks were out-there, so much that they've made little girls in that time fall in love with them and emulate their poses and makeup. In recent days, i've added a new/old girl to that bunch, miss Peggy Moffitt, another seminal 60s chick.

Though originally an actress, Moffitt's breaktrough was when she met photographer William Claxton, whom she later wed, as well as fashion designer Rudi Gernreich (inventor of the monokini and pubikini). When the trio began working together, the muse was in action, modelling Rudi's bold designs with an even bolder mood, enhanced by her distintive haircut (the five-point), fake eyelashes and heavy makeup, inspired by current trends as well as Japanese Kabuki theatre. The pinnacle of their collaboration was the short movie "Basic Black". When asked about the experience, William Claxton wrote:

In 1967 Peggy and I had just returned from ’swinging London’ and Paris to work in New York. We were commissioned by a small commercial production company to come up with something which would serve as my ‘reel’ in order to get hired to direct TV commercials. While sitting on our bed at the Algonquin Hotel, we collaborated in writing a shooting script that would show fashion, makeup, and hair on three beautiful models wearing the fashion designs of avant-garde Rudi Gernreich’s collection for that fall. We shot the film on a weekend, had original music composed for the sound track and ‘Basic Black’ was born. It was very well received, won several awards and has been referred to as the first fashion video

It's so nice to know these types of things will never go out of style nor they will parish through the course of time. It's ageless even if it seems dated, it's ageless.




MP3: Tommy James & The Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion