"It used to be that the holiday brought out dad jeans and cropped tops and everyone looked slightly embarrassing, but the atmosphere was good-hearted and welcoming."

Writes Robin Givhan in "I Used to Love the Fourth of July" (NYT). 

That's a gift link, so you don't have to guess about what went wrong with the 4th of July for Givhan. It's Trump. Right?

But this year, I can barely tolerate the sight of red, white and blue. When combined into a maximalist display of nationalist cheerleading, the colors make my heart ache. The flags on federal buildings are grand, but they hang alongside banners featuring President Trump’s scowling face.... It’s a wonder to see water dance in a fountain that had been dry for nearly 20 years. But that pleasure comes with the knowledge that the repairs were orchestrated by an administration that sees itself more as a regime than as the caretakers of a democracy....

I thought it was just me, but apparently it's a big, sad trend.

I don't like shopping. I can't make myself go (other than food shopping). Occasionally, I consider forcing myself to go shopping — find some clothes to try on and buy at least something — but I'm beset with boredom, and I do not go. Have I even set foot in a clothes store in the past year? Somehow I pictured other women going into the shops, getting excited about clothing items, and splurging on things.

But here's Robin Givhan — in "Why Is Shopping an Abyss of Blah?" (NYT) — "Shopping has become a drag. A bore. An obligation. A thing you do alone on your phone, not out in the world.... Shopping should be about lust. Instead, shopping has become a slog.... Our senses are flattened, our appetites dulled. Nothing seems quite right.... Shopping has become a grotesquerie of commodified consumerism and environmental waste.... Retailers became more corporate and mimed soliloquies on status and trends. Shoppers’ aesthetic discernment grew weak and flabby. A once lively conversation between sellers and buyers quieted. Shopping lost its fizz...."

"How much empathy can the country muster for Biden? In both red states and blue ones? In the well-lit spaces on social media and in the darkest corners?"

"Among his supporters and those who voted for his rival? Biden doesn’t have the benefit of having been out of office for years. And while he has been on a redemption tour of sorts, only history can define his presidency. Nostalgia hasn’t had a chance to cast him in a warm glow. The scars of a political dogfight haven’t even begun to scab over. The old ones are still raw and weeping, even as the country accumulates new ones. Vice President JD Vance argued that it was possible to have two thoughts about Biden at once: to wish him good health while also, essentially, calling him a terrible president in the same breath."

Writes Robin Givhan, in "Biden was empath-in-chief. Can a divided country offer him empathy? In the face of Biden’s cancer diagnosis, does the country have the capacity for empathy despite the political rancor, distrust, alternative facts and lies?" (WaPo).

Shame on us for wanting to know the truth about what happened? Who was President these past few years? We're supposed to sink into a pool of respectful silence and not demand to know? We're not supposed to be skeptical about the timing of the cancer news, which seems so perfectly aimed to shut us up about Tapper's book and the Hur recordings?

And what is this "redemption tour of sorts"? I had not noticed. I had to ask A.I., which pointed me to his "paid speeches, interviews (e.g., his appearance on The View), and international trips (e.g., attending Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome)." He wasn't waiting for years to pass, wounds to heal, and nostalgia to set in. He and his enablers were doing positive propaganda. Why should we shut up? Answer: because he has an aggressive cancer. Of course, we feel the silencing power.

What ugly people we are to still want the truth! Who was President these past few years?!

"She doesn’t look around for others to join inasmuch as she simply reflects the moment: the thrill, the fun, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all."

Robin Givhan is writing about Kamala Harris's notable laughing, in "Kamala Harris’s powerful laughter in the face of weirdness/Her guffaws speak to a moment: the thrill, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all" (WaPo).

There's that word "weird" again, in the headline. I checked to see if maybe Givhan resisted using it herself. Givhan is a wordsmith. You can tell by that one sentence I put in the post title. She went with "inasmuch," and she made one of those long adjectives that hyphens let you construct out of any string of words: "you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall." But she's not a got-to-avoid-using-the-word-of-the-day wordsmith. 

I'd hoped "weirdness" was a just-in-the-headline word, inserted by one of those nameless headline writers, but it's in the body of the essay:

How weird is it to deride a person for laughing? Not for laughing inappropriately, in the middle of a funeral, for example...

The link goes to the "Mary Tyler Moore" Chuckles the Clown episode, not — how could it be?! — Bill Clinton laughing at Ron Brown's funeral (laughing, then fake-crying). 

... but simply for enjoying a good chuckle?

But sometimes it is inappropriate — and quite mystifying — as in this widely shared example:

 

Givhan acknowledges the word-of-the-momentness of "weird":

"The culture has little patience for the damaged thug in a T-shirt and jeans who’s lucky if his power extends the length of a neighborhood block..."

"... but it has the stamina to dissect the psychic pain of a mogul in a made-to-measure Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo. It has the wherewithal to pause and consider the complexity of a powerful Black man who says that he was protecting his powerful Black wife, when society too often doesn’t have the patience to deal with anonymous Black folks just trying to get by...."

Writes Robin Givhan in "Will Smith, spit-polished thuggery and disrespect" (WaPo).

Reading the next 4 WaPo articles on Joe Biden's press conference.

Let me continue with the links I found in the top left corner of the front page of The Washington Post this morning (at around 6):

1. 

"Analysis: In news conference, Biden made some incorrect statements and claims lacking context." On the inside the headline is: "Fact-checking President Biden’s first news conference." 

Biden's claim that the U.S. has given far more vaccination shots is a distortion, because some other countries have given shots to a larger percentage of the population. Biden repeated a claim about GOP tax cuts that WaPo has already "often" given 2 Pinocchios. Biden claimed credit for school re-openings that were based on work done before he took office. Biden apparently completely made up the story of children at the border starving to death. Biden claimed that "the vast majority" of families caught trying cross the border are sent back, but only 41% are. Biden was wrong to claim that the surge at the border is the same as what happens every winter. Biden made the completely bizarre claim that the U.S. is 85th in the world in "infrastructure" (but he later corrected it to 13th). Biden misstated how much tax Fortune 500 companies pay.

3. 

"'The art of the possible': Biden lays out pragmatic vision for his presidency." 

"[Pragmatism explains] how he can describe some Republican policies as 'sick' and 'un-American' while not doing everything in his power to immediately stop them. He called the filibuster a racist relic of Jim Crow, while also insisting that he wasn’t ready to remove it entirely in the hopes there would be some compromise."

4. 

"Analysis: Takeaways from Biden’s first presidential news conference." Headline inside: "4 takeaways from Biden’s first news conference." 

"There wasn’t much truly groundbreaking news in the news conference.... Members of the media have been waiting a while to directly question this president.... There was also a distinct lack of deep questioning on the biggest current challenge facing our country and the world: the coronavirus threat. Other critiques of the questions were more overwrought.... These news conferences are difficult. Not every question is going to provide a ton of insight. And everyone thinks they can do better. But that doesn’t mean the media can’t actually do better." That's Aaron Blake.

5. 

"The many languages of Joe Biden: President switches between cryptic and casual conversation." 

This is a Robin Givhan column: "Biden, with an American flag pinned to his lapel, maintained a tone and volume that was both calm and reassuring as he spoke to a nation that remains skittish and uneasy. He only brought up his volume as a form of righteous indignation. He’d periodically move closer to the microphone and his eyes would get wide and his gaze fixed whenever he wanted to convey outrage."

ADDED: Robin Givhan's prose sounds like a description of the lead male character in a romance novel. It's quite humorous if you think about it that way.

"Biden lifted some — not all, but some — of the sadness and anger that hovered over the Black community, immigrants, Jews and others..."

"... as they’d watched the current administration allow white supremacy to grow freely and thrive. Biden was willing to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism not in theory, but in reality..... Black voters raised up Biden because he was the tonic they believed a divided and exasperated nation could accept and he was the reliable partner they could trust. He was a pragmatic choice, but that doesn’t lesson his value.... He didn’t come to this race with revolutionary goals that would fundamentally remodel this country. Perhaps there will be time for that. Biden promised to focus on the urgent need to right this country’s course. And in doing so, to give everyone the space not just to breathe — but to safely, thankfully and blessedly exhale." 

From "Biden picked up the weight of the presidency and much of the nation set down its burdens" by Robin Givhan (WaPo).

ADDED: This column has been up since 6:37 last night, yet no one has corrected the homophone typo "lesson" (for "lessen"): "He was a pragmatic choice, but that doesn’t lesson his value."

What is the "lesson" here? Givhan is saying that Biden's "value" is not lessened by his having been selected because he could partially alleviate the suffering of black people and that was, pragmatically, the best you could realistically hope for in systemically racist America. If that is the theory of his election, then what was he elected to do? If he just gives us a rest — a long gentle absence of badness — will he be regarded as a big success? Or is the suggestion that he got in on low expectations, but somehow he does owe the people something more in line with "revolutionary goals that would fundamentally remodel this country."

AND: Speaking of pragmatism, who exercised the pragmatism and at what point? We're invited to see meaning in the pragmatism, but whose pragmatism was it? Biden "was a pragmatic choice." Does Givhan mean that Biden was the pragmatic choice of Democratic Party insiders, who needed to find the best path for stopping Bernie Sanders and who put Jim Clymer forward to endorse Biden and leverage the black vote to give Biden some momentum at long last? Or does Givhan mean that black people were pragmatic in accepting Biden as the best chance they had in this systemically racist country?

"... Ivanka. Always Ivanka. She stood tall on her stilettos. She rose, golden-haired, above the group."

"She was dressed in black cropped pants and blazer. She was toting a very large white handbag and later was wearing a matching face mask with tiny metallic stars.... and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany... was in a closefitting double-breasted blazer with gold metallic buttons and skinny trousers. She was perched atop a pair of stiletto pumps — a style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation."

From Robin Givhan's fashion-and-politics account of Trump's Bible-laden procession to St. John's Episcopal Church.

It wasn't a terribly far walk...



... but I was struck that the women had to — or chose to — wear stilettos. It made me think of those traditions of crawling to church — deliberately taking on pain and suffering as you make your way to the sacred destination. There are similarities and differences...



The look is not meant to say I am suffering. The idea is to walk fluidly alongside the men as if it's completely natural and perfectly comfortable. There's no visible expression of humility or sacrifice. If anything, the expression is of pride in the prettiness, the extra height, and the complete hiding of any difficulty.

So, it's a bit like a hair shirt, which is a hidden item of clothing that inflicts suffering and is worn as penitence. And yet the stilettos are not worn in secret. They are quite conspicuous and that is the point. And the suffering is merely endured, not undertaken for a higher purpose.

Have stilettos gone out of fashion? Robin Givhan — whose work requires her to keep up with fashion — calls them a "style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation." That has to mean they are passé. Maybe it's like the way right-wing women in the 1960s continued to wear teased, sprayed bouffant hairdos long after other women had moved on to what was called "the natural look."

"The Hasidic Jewish community, in which men have a tradition of wearing fur hats or shtreimel, has also supported the fur industry, along with a group of African American ministers who described fur as a unique cultural symbol of achievement."

From "Fur is under attack. It’s not going down without a fight" by Robin Givhan (in WaPo).

Givhan quotes Kitty Block, president of the Humane Society of the United States: "I really take issue with the culture argument. Cruelty is not culture, and I think it’s kind of insulting."

Givhan adds: "Does culture have legal standing? Perhaps. Both California and New York have laws banning racial discrimination based on natural hairstyles."

If Hasidic Jewish men and African American ministers have a special cultural need for fur, should laws — like California's new law banning the sale of fur — be denounced as discrimination? Obviously, these laws are not intended to target Jewish men and successful African American ministers, so it's hard to picture a successful legal challenge.

It tends to be more effective to say that a law puts a burden on a religious practice, but the Hassidic shtreimel is perhaps not an obligation and as for African Americans and the outward display of success... well, you know what? I will get out of your way! Go ahead and argue that's religion.

But I doubt that Givhan means to hint that lawsuits against these anti-fur laws are plausible, only that the political push to get these laws passed can be met with a political argument that the urge to protect furry animals is outweighed by the interest in protecting the subjective preferences of people in minority groups that have experienced oppression.

"Footage appears to show world leaders joking about Trump at Nato summit" — ha ha ha... what a letdown!

I clicked on that Guardian headline and watched the video...



There isn't one audible/subtitled line that can be characterized as a joke. It's just Princess Anne, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau, and Emmanuel Macron talking — bellyaching? — about how he was late because he did a press conference.

Anyone running with the story of "world leaders joking" is taking a prompt from Russian government-owned media, Sputnik News, which is where the video was originally posted.  Fake news.

It's interesting that Princess Anne is in that group. In other Princess Anne news, she screws up getting in line with the Queen to meet Donald Trump. Now, this is the funny clip from The Guardian:



Side note: I love the colors Melania is wearing — a brilliant mustard cape-coat with magenta sleeves poking out. The idea seems to be to absolutely sear all eyeballs while being entirely dignified and elegant.

And as long as I've mentioned that, I need to give you this (so that you don't feel you have to show it to me): "Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations are lovely, but that coat looks ridiculous" by Robin Givhan (WaPo). The coat, in this video, is white, and what's "ridiculous"?



Givhan watches that video and sees a woman with "little affinity for the occasion" and "cold, dismissive aloofness."

Like the "jokes" among the world leaders, the "ridiculous"ness is in the mind of the reader.

That's The Washington Post, where the #1 most-read story right now is: "Candid video appears to show Trudeau, Macron and Johnson joking about Trump." No mention of Sputnik news. No quotation of anything that anyone neutral could label a "joke," but you do see these characters laughing, and they had said something that was probably about Trump, so there's circumstantial evidence that somebody said something that made laughing the socially lubricated thing to do.

"Ew. That’s really the only way to describe the experience of reading 'All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the Making of a Predator,' a deep dive into..."

"... the many allegations that depict Trump’s relationships with women as vulgar, misogynistic, demeaning, sometimes violent and always puerile. The accusations wash over a reader like a tidal wave of sewage until you are thoroughly caked in muck and light-headed from the stink."

So writes Robin Givhan in "A thorough, revolting history of Trump’s behavior toward women" (WaPo). It was interesting to read that right after immersing myself in the meaning of "human scum."

Are we in a new age of squeamishness? Or are we just pretending to be disgusted?

Givhan writes:

Somewhere between the descriptions of casual groping and the lengthy investigation of Trump’s possible involvement in a threesome with an underage girl, you long to scrub your memory bank with bleach, to douse yourself with disinfectant.

Do you? Personally, I am revolted by the idea of putting dangerous chemicals on my body. I'm never so disgusted with others that my impulse is to attempt to clean myself in some crazily exaggerated fashion.

Givhan goes on to say the book isn't shocking, because we've heard the main things before: "the affair with Karen McDougal, the sex with Stormy Daniels, the sexual intimidation of Ivana Trump, the gutter talk with Howard Stern, the ogling of half-dressed Miss Universe contestants, and the personal insults hurled at women ranging from Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell to former beauty queen Alicia Machado."

Gutter talk with Howard Stern. This is America in 2019? Disturbed by conversations with Howard Stern? I hope this is pretend offense. I've read Howard Stern's collection of interviews, which has lots of Trump, and it's lively and funny, and everything that's said is said for a reason. I wouldn't call it "gutter talk."

Givhan informs us that "All the President’s Women" has "a 70-page appendix filled with truncated tales of lascivious behavior — bonus nuggets of lechery." A fashion photographer calls Trump a "predator" because "He was always chasing models." The book says that in the presence of models, Trump "liked to paw their shoulders, cup their bottoms, grab at their breasts and plant sloppy kisses on them when they least expected it."

Paw, cup, grab, plant — How would your gestures of physical affection be described by your worst enemy? Every playful, tender move you make would be disgusting.

Givhan faults the book for collecting the stories but never analyzing why Trump is the way the stories, as told by the authors, make him look. What made him "a lecher"? Something about his childhood, his mother? Some "cultural forces"? "Was he created by some collision of generational, social and demographic storms? Is he a volatile result of a tectonic shift in gender roles?"

And what about us? What makes anybody want to read a compilation of all the scurrilous sexual material about Trump? What kind of result of a "collision of generational, social and demographic storms" are you?

"So while in the past it might have been applauded and seen as almost an honor to have... your culture absorbed by some rarefied French fashion house..."

"... I think today people - you know, they don't see that as an honor. They see that as insult. They see it as, how dare you? Like, I own this. You don't."

Said Robin Givhan, quoted in "Mexico Calls Out Carolina Herrera For Appropriating Indigenous Groups' Patterns" (NPR).

No pictures there. (It's "radio.") Here are some pictures of the offending clothes at The Daily Beast. The fabrics will look very familiar. Herrera isn't the first designer to appropriate them. It's more like she's reappropriating the stuff of decades of hippiewear.

View this post on Instagram

LATIN HOLIDAY Sunrise in Tulum The light of Lima Strolls in Mexico City The waves of José Ignacio Dancing in Buenos Aires The colors of Cartagena The Carolina Herrera Resort 2020 collection takes on the playful and colorful mood of a Latin holiday. Inspired by the House spirit of alegria de vivir that is synonymous with the resort season, this collection is about visceral reactions of delight—eclectic patterns, unexpected silhouettes, pulsating energy. This is my favorite collection that I have ever been a part of and I am so grateful to my amazing design team and the brilliant patternmakers and seamstresses who tirelessly brought it to life. And an especially huge thank you to the genius that is @tabithasimmons. These are just a few of the gorgeous images by @dariocatellani. Go to vogue.com to see the rest ❤️💙💚🧡💛

A post shared by Ｗ Ｅ Ｓ Ｇ Ｏ Ｒ Ｄ Ｏ Ｎ (@wesgordon) on Jun 6, 2019 at 8:35pm PDT

Vanessa Friedman at the NYT validates cultural appropriation (but not completely):

"[A]longside the statuesque Mrs. Obama in her head-to-toe gilding, [Sarah Jessica Parker] looked like an elfin wallflower in an eggplant-colored sequined dress."

Writes Robin Givhan, in "Michelle Obama can wear whatever she wants now. What she wants is sparkly thigh-high boots" (WaPo).

Is it really okay to use one woman's looks to put down the other woman standing right next to her? Because there are lots of other ways to play that humor-writing game:


Let me make a neutral, moderate, non-humorous observation. This is a very striking case of comparative size. It's sort of mind boggling. Which one is making the other look much smaller/bigger than we remember her? Or are they both doing it to the other.

And those are some strange never-ending boots Michelle is wearing. I think the women coordinated their outfits and had an idea of dousing themselves in glitter for the holidays.

Obama’s dress is from the brand’s spring 2019 collection. The boots are from spring 2018. Both are very, very expensive. Together, they represent the transformation of Balenciaga, a storied Paris-based fashion house....

Very, very expensive? I guess I have to look it up myself, but with the 2 "very"s, I'm expecting something like $50,000. Oh, they're only $4,000. Cheap! They're just some metallic stretch-fabric, right? It's flashy, but a less expensive material and easier to sew and fit than leather. And $4,000 is only slightly more than the highest-priced ticket to her show ($3,000).

Was the ensemble appropriate? Sure. Obama’s book tour is the equivalent of a literary rock concert....

I'm trying to think what kind of rock star would wear boots like that. I thought of KISS.

Whether the ensemble is flattering is beside the point. Taste is subjective, and what might be one person’s glamazon coup is another’s ostentatious faux pas....

And that's how you say something without saying it and really, really say it. I used 2 "really"s so you'll feel what I'm saying.

Remember when we talked about Hillary's shoes? That was in April 2017:



Was she like an elfin wallflower in an eggplant-colored sequined dress?

ADDED: I thought Tom and Lorenzo (my favorite fashion bloggers) would track Robin Givhan and say Michelle Obama can do anything she wants, but I was wrong:

[T]he boots are fierce.... But that horrible choir robe is quite frankly one of the worst things she has ever worn. The color is harsh and unflattering, the satin is unforgiving, and the shape and design of it completely distorts her body... Just look at her body language. Any time a non-pregnant woman spends that much time and energy touching and covering her mid-section, it’s a dead giveaway that she’s not feeling comfortable in her garment....

They love SJP's look.

"I felt enraged. I felt flabbergasted. I felt confused... I can’t say that I’m a loyal customer of Prada. I don’t think I would have gone into the store had I not been assaulted by the images."

Said Chinyere Ezie, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, quoted in "Seriously, Prada, what were you thinking?: Why the fashion industry keeps bumbling into racist imagery" (by Robin Givhan in WaPo).

But she went in. She took pictures. And then she did “a reality check.” She showed the pictures she’d taken to her mother and her co-workers. “Am I missing something?” she asked them. No. They saw racism, too.

Ezie juxtaposed her pictures from the Prada store with historical images of Sambo and shared them on Twitter and her Facebook page. “I didn’t want to have to grieve in silence,” she says. “I didn’t want to have to swallow this bitter pill of racism alone.”

Her post made its way through the social media biosphere, stirring outrage....

Here's Ezie's photo, showing the shop window in NYC with the enlarged display figurine:



And here's Prada's photo of product that's for sale, a small charm in a set of fanciful characters that mostly seem like aliens or robots:



I can think of 3 questions:

1. Did the designer of the charm intend — sneakily and with deniability — to insert a racist depiction of a human being in this collection of characters? or...

2. Is this only a case of imagining something like a monkey from outer space and never noticing that other people could see a resemblance to old-fashioned racist cartoon images intended to demean black people and could feel offended? (That is, no one, anywhere within the company in the entire process of manufacturing this $550 gift item ever said Wait a minute, some people might think....), or...

3. Is this a case where the only racism is in the mind of the beholder who looks at a silly fanciful space monkey and decides that it looks like a black person? (Isn't that a little like Roseanne Barr looking at Valerie Jarrett and getting the idea that she looks like an ape?)

Oddly, all 3 options seem implausible. Yet something happened! I guess #2 is the least implausible, but why would a big company like Prada not be more savvy commercially? I'll break that down into 3 theories:

A. They really are dumb about things that are not strictly in the domain of fashion, or...

B. There is great deference to the designer and a culture of not expressing doubt once a design is conceived. (That is, people within the company noticed but understood their role to be to demonstrate faith in the product and not naysay), or...

C. The problem was noticed but the idea became: Let it go. If anyone — maybe some sensitive constitutional rights lawyer — gets offended, we'll say oops, sorry, and withdraw that one, but we'll get so much press for these charms, and people will look at the whole set and see that they really are delightful and buy the others and anyone who's already bought the controversial and now withdrawn monkey will have an extremely valuable item, perhaps to sell on eBay to a real racist or to one of those black people — like Henry Louis Gates Jr. — who collect racist memorabilia.

If Theory C works for you, rethink the plausibility of Theory 1 — it really was intentional.

"But the one-hour TV special was such a nonevent of excruciating cliches and non-sexiness that it’s not worth a cultural renovation. It’s a teardown."

"Or we could all just get out of the way and let it rot until it falls down on its own....  You’d think Victoria’s Secret would have made sure this show was exciting and captivating — a sort of good-faith argument in favor of its stubborn commitment to marketing-as-usual. Instead, executives produced a show in which the models paraded down the runway like dusty showgirls blowing kisses and drawing hearts in the air, with one model practically indistinguishable from another... If the show is all about empowered models, why not identify them by name when they appear onstage? Or is anonymity part of the fantasy? If some of these women can attract millions of Instagram followers just by posting selfies from elevators, imagine the thrill Victoria’s Secret might be able to gin up if it really made the show about connecting with these women — not in some earnest, substantial way, of course, but in a gleefully superficial, faux-intimate, social media-enhanced way that would be perfect for television. It takes an extraordinary amount of ineptitude, laziness and sheer disregard to make a show as stultifying and lifeless as the Victoria’s Secret one. It may be that the company was so focused on defending its casting against those who call it anachronistic that it forgot that the whole argument becomes moot if the show is so boring that it’s unwatchable."

Writes Robin Givhan in "The Victoria’s Secret fashion show is too boring to even argue about" (WaPo).

I've always assumed the show is unwatchable, and it seemed anachronistic to me all along. When did it begin? I have to look it up, because Givhan didn't mention it. I was not back in the days when bras and panties were called "unmentionables." It was 1995. The middle of the Clinton administration. The first season of "Friends." The Oklahoma City bombing. Mississippi ratified the 13th Amendment. "Forrest Gump" won the Oscar. O.J. Simpson went on trial. Maybe much of America saw this as a time to watch tall, fit women prance around in bras and panties from a mall store, but it seemed hopelessly old fashioned to me. It's boring and unwatchable now, Robin Givhan says, and I don't doubt it. But why was it ever watchable?

"What exactly is Saint Laurent saying about female sexuality and empowerment here?"

I'm reading Robin Givhan in the Washington Post. The post title is the headline. There are lots of photographs of glamorous clothes with an edge of trashiness. I clipped out part of one photograph. Not randomly selected. It's what caught my eye as I scanned the page with the idea of "female empowerment" foremost in my mind. I've left out what Givhan calls the "teeny-tiny shorts" (which are what we used to call "hot pants").

Let's see how Givhan answers the question posed in the headline:

Yes, the female form is beautiful, but is it made more beautiful by borrowing clothes from the boys, by wrapping it in a cloud of debauchery, by having parts exposed in a way that makes a woman “all legs” instead of full human?

This is not to say that the collection was bad or offensive or improper, only that it raised questions. And raising questions is good, particularly in this moment when the culture, both here and in the United States, is considering its male and feminine norms....

I guess I'm not going to get an answer to the question, only more questions. Questions good. Why not a column full of questions? Maybe we women writers should be all questions, just like the runway models are "all legs."

[Male designers at Saint Laurent] have told women that it is empowering and satisfying to wear teeny-tiny snakeskin shorts with towering heels, to splash through shallow waters with breasts bared on a night chilly enough that guests were swaddled under blankets. They have told them that the ideal female form has the spindly legs of a filly — so immature and scrawny that one half expects the model to collapse in a heap from the sheer exhaustion of having to walk upright....

Yes, the female form is beautiful. It’s inspirational. But what has it inspired? And has that been empowering to women or simply satisfying to men?

So, yeah, we do end with more questions. I was going to say it's the same old questions I've always seen about fashion designers, but really the questions have evolved. What I used to see (half a century ago) was the question whether the designers hated women. This idea was typically tied to the observation that they didn't sexually desire women at all: The designers are gay and that's why the clothes are hostile to women. What we see in this new column is the idea that male sexual desire for women is driving the designs. Are the designers not gay anymore? Why would expensive clothes be designed to "satisfy" men? The women are the clients. What's the logic here?

Oh, I see I'm doing questions, even as I want Givhan not to proceed in the form of question-asking. All right. I'll posit some answers to her questions. Why shouldn't I take the power to say what's what? I will! The clothing is designed to call out to women. It looks the way it does because that has been working to sell clothes. The women who buy those clothes think those clothes will benefit them, and the perception that this is what heterosexual men desire in a woman is a perception that needs to take place in the mind of the woman, and that is the perception the designer is trying to stimulate. If the woman buys clothes that she perceives as satisfying male desire, she is seeking sexual power over men.

And I suspect that one reason Robin Givhan doesn't say that is because it criticizes the woman. The question "has that been empowering to women or simply satisfying to men?" leaves women in the down position, where we can muse MeTooishly. That's a politically advantageous place to stop. And how much of the advertising in The Washington Post comes from the fashion industry? That's another reason to end with musing questions and not rough critique — economic interest.

Raising questions is good, particularly in this moment....

"When she was performing, she didn’t slither out of her mink or her chinchilla as though she was doing a flirtatious little striptease for her audience’s pleasure."

"Instead, she discarded her fur coats as though she was shedding bothersome earthly shackles in order to commune directly with the Holy Spirit. The coat drop was a signal that Franklin... was ready to loose her full vocal power in a transformative sermon of gospel, soul and rhythm and blues. That voice was more lush and valuable than the coat. Still, she did not want to sweat out her coat. She threw it off. The coat was dismissed."

From "Aretha Franklin, secret style icon: With the drop of a fur coat, she proclaimed her worth" by Robin Givhan.

What about the usual criticism of wearing fur? Givhan refers to it but only in passing:

Franklin had earned [the furs], and they were worn with pride and pleasure and in spite of all PETA’s begging and bullying. So, so many furs. Worn against the cold and worn in the face of adversity. Worn with hauteur. Worn because she was a star, and furs are what stars wear.

In the comments at WaPo, I see:

Having a good singing voice is no justification for deplorable behavior. Flaunting big, gaudy fur coats is insensitive to the animal torture that it is.

And:

Does your "religion" or "church" have anything to say about torturing and killing other sentient beings?

And:

Aretha was able to wear fur because she was grandfathered (grandmothered?) in. Mad about a legendary black woman being allowed to do something no one else is allowed to do today, black or white? Tough. Watching that move was like watching living black and feminist history. Until the 1980s or so few people thought much about wearing fur. By the 2000s virtually no one in polite company wore fur any longer. Aretha was at heart an old fashioned church lady through and through. As Robin alludes to, those in the church community with enough means definitely wore furs and wore them proudly. Aretha pulling off her fur coat mid-performance was similar and perhaps even more powerful than James Brown shedding his coat (which in his performance was more a cartoon statement of need and desperation). Hers was a statement of shedding oppression and gaining freedom.

Another thing that happens in the comments — because it has to happen everywhere — is Trump. Someone drags in that Trump wrote that Franklin "worked for him" and others add things like "Trump is a cockroach" and Trump (unlike Franklin) "has made nothing and has shared nothing, his entire life," and — this is good, dark humor:

I think that what the Trumps did to those animals should be done to them. Satisfied?

"The Kate Spade brand was like a ray of sunshine — an antithesis to pessimism, self-conscious ennui..."

"... and even the sarcastic humor of her brother-in-law David Spade during his “Saturday Night Live” heyday. The company’s calling card was unabashed optimism."

Robin Givhan writes (in WaPo) about how Kate Spade's designs (handbags, etc.) were so nice at "a time when much of the highbrow fashion industry was fixated on minimalism and the washed-out, dour aesthetic known as heroin chic."

And then Kate Spade killed herself. Was the fashion always a facade, some desperate grasping to climb out of horrible darkness? Were the women who wore "heroin chic" happier than those who went for Kate Spade's clear colors and happy shapes?

It's interesting to think of these questions after blogging about Miss America's effort to get away from "outward appearance." What are other people really like on the inside? Well, the inside is private. We get to choose how much access to give to our inner selves, and to show what's on the inside, we need to let it out — by actions and gestures and by words but also by how we look. We've got to wear something, and we can choose to reveal what we are inside through what we wear, but we don't have to tell the straightforward truth.

You can wear yellow-and-white polka dots when you are gloomy and nothing but black when you're doing just fine.

This made me think of the Teri Garr character in "Afterhours":

"Wolfe’s white suits didn’t make him look cool; they made him look odd. And what he seemed to understand was that odd was far more intriguing than cool."

"Odd is full of shadings and contradictions, frustrations and delights. The odd man fascinates. His personality must be unpacked; he is worth considering. But he also must be approached with caution and care. Who knows what he might do? Cool is overrated. People recognize cool when they see it, but once it’s witnessed and documented, it’s finished. To be cool is to be part of an era or a movement. But Wolfe surpassed his times. He stood apart..... A white suit... suggests control and order. It doesn’t hide a thousand sins; it reveals every dropped crumb.... Wolfe is said to have been a disciplined writer, one who sat daily at his desk with the goal of producing 10 pages, no matter how long it took. Writing might be an art, but producing a steady output of legendary work is a science. He was the white-coated new journalist: experimenting and researching. He was a clean slate heading into subcultures and reporting back...."

From "The genius of Tom Wolfe’s white suits" by Robin Givhan (WaPo).

The meaning of whiteness. I realize my "whiteness" tag is something I use for everything about white, including the racial, "whiteness studies" things. Givhan does not overtly say anything about race... and yet... White isn't "cool," white is about order and discipline, white can only sojourn into the "subcultures" and report back...

"A hat is a celebration of oneself. It is about presenting one’s most adorned, spit-shined, upright self to God, social media or, in this case, the history books."

Writes Robin Givhan (at WaPo) about the hat Melania wore yesterday at the greeting ceremony for French President Macron. These days, hats are not "about fashion," but "more of an affectation, whether it be the religiosity of Sunday church service or the self-conscious flamboyance of the Kentucky Derby."

The hat was a "magnificent halo of pure white light perched atop first lady Melania Trump’s perfectly groomed head."

Nothing else mattered. There was nothing else.

That hat, broad-brimmed with a high, blocked crown, announced the first lady’s presence as boldly and theatrically as a brigade of trumpeters. It was the bright white hat of a gladiator worn on an overcast day, a kind of glamorous public shield when sunglasses would not do at all. That hat was a force field that kept folks, the wrong folks, from getting too close.

It was a diva crown. A grand gesture of independence. A church hat. The Lord is my shepherd. Deliver us from evil. Amen.

So, I'm seeing 3 things the hat does: 1. Showing off (yay, me, trumpets!!!), 2. Creating a religious aura (looks like a halo, like a lady in church), and 3. Keeping everyone away (force field!).

As to #3, the first thing I think of is the kissing. I saw Macron and Trump kissing. This was the greeting ceremony. Was none of that cheek kissing to be aimed at Melania?

But Givhan emphasizes independence from Trump: "A grand gesture of independence." And she combines #2 and #3 by continuing: "A church hat. The Lord is my shepherd. Deliver us from evil. Amen."

Remember, according to Givhan, the hat says everything: "Nothing else mattered. There was nothing else."

Silent, stoic, statuesque Melania cries out to the Lord. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death — the White House, with my satanic president-husband — I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.



ADDED: Of course, hats were huge in Trump's campaign. No one ever made as much headway through a hat as Trump. And when Hillary wore a hat, Rihanna wore a picture of it — Hillary + hat — on a T-shirt. And Hillary very famously wore a hat — a big blue hat (presaging a blue dress?) — at the first Bill Clinton inauguration.

ALSO: Is that first line quoted in the post title an intentional reference to Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"?

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

But Melania could not have felt at ease on the grass at that tree-planting ceremony (where Brigitte Macron grasped Trump's shovel shaft). She along with Madame Macron was wearing stilettos. In order not to sink completely into the sod and get stuck, they were both tasked to walk and stand entirely on their toes.