You've Got To Earn Your Leather In This Part of Town

Lady Gaga - Born This Way - 2011

Lady Gaga certainly earns her leather with her third record Born This Way. It comes in the form of a straitjacket, but then, most geniuses happen to also be total nutters, so you know, no holds barred. Born This Way is perhaps the most eclectic mix of songs since Madonna's greatest hits. The Elton John-esque rock ballad "Yoü and I" started making its rounds last year, you've heard the "Express Yourself"-inspired title track a million times already, and the schizophrenic tug-o-war that was "Judas" caused religious rallies from coast to coast. More recently, Gaga unleashed the power-pop perfection of "The Edge of Glory", which featured Clarence Clemons with a face-melting sax solo. Fashion fans might also remember Gaga's promotion through Nicola Formichetti's Thierry Mugler fashion shows this season, with the Berlin "Scheiße"-show and a remixed "Government Hooker" both featuring in Paris this season. 

Thankfully (or not, depending on how open you are to variety), the remaining tracks on Born This Way are no less consistent in their genres. "Americano" is the update of The Fame Monster's "Alejandro", but perhaps from Alejandro's perspective this time around, featuring Spanish guitars and brass instrumentation, as well as some great harmonizing and gunshots. I could see it fitting in nicely with a modernized rendition of Dirty Dancing. "Bloody Mary" is fittingly named, with the sound of the song indicating a virgin with blood on her hands, clearly going mad, with priests singing in chorus in the background. "Black Jesus + Amen Fashion" is sounding kinda 80s, "Highway Unicorn (Road To Love)" is sounding kinda 90s. Surprisingly, "Heavy Metal Lover" is not a heavy metal song (this role is filled by "Electric Chapel"), but is perhaps the sequel to The Fame Monster's "Dance in the Dark" (My favorite off that record, by the way. "Americano" stole my heart here. And then "Heavy Metal Lover" ate it). Oh, and let's not forget, on the two-disc edition, you also get the country version of "Born This Way".


There are a number of themes threaded through the record, with the strongest ones being no big surprise: religion, love for yourself and others for their individuality. But the religious message is not quite what the American Catholic League seems to be interpreting it as (is that even what they're called? I'm snatching at straws here). Judas isn't actually Judas, Mary isn't actually Mary, and Jesus isn't really Jesus. In fact, they are metaphors (surprise!). So what is the not-so-Virginal Gaga preaching to her loyal following of Little Monsters? In all it's non-sacrilegious, uncontroversial glory: Pop culture as religion.

Kind of anticlimactic, right? Well, at least given all those vehement haters claiming she's an Illuminati who's trying to take over the world with the power of Satan or whatever. I mean, yes, she is taking over the world. But she's promoting love, sax solos, and freaking unicorns. (Regardless of what religion you're following, are you seriously going to mount the claim that God hates unicorns? Ke$ha even had to put a disclaimer in her music video for "Blow" to assure everyone that "No unicorns were harmed in the making of this video". There's like, laws against this shit, they're an endangered species, you know.) Before Gaga, I'd never been religious about anything but the Spice Girls, so perhaps I'm a little biased. But in all honesty, take your holy books, discrimination, and halos. I find the image of an honest nutcase bottle-blond in a meat dress riding a unicorn with a disco stick sceptre and a lobster hat while preaching peace and love way more appealing.

Song order is quite pivotal here as well, I think. You get the sense of an actual journey, whereby Gaga traverses the roads of love and hate, peace and rebellion, failure and success, life and death. It is the final three tracks that bring you the most positive feelings though. In "Heavy Metal Lover", she heartbreakingly sings "I could be your girl girl girl girl girl girl, but would you love me if I ruled the world world world?" questioning whether she can have both true love and true greatness, or if they are mutually exclusive paths. With "The Queen", we see Gaga finally embracing the fame and love that is given to her freely by her fans (not to be confused with the fame she has manufactured for herself), and promising to be for them what they want her to be. "Yoü and I" brings hope for the lonely queen in the castle, and challenges the notion that you can never go home again. This all culminates in "The Edge of Glory", wherein Gaga has reached a point of near self-actualization as it were, achieving her fame, the adoration of her fans, and the individual love that she worried she might never receive. 


I'm not sure if one can make the judgement that Gaga isn't already glory manifest, but if she still has doubts, I don't want to abate them. Everytime I hear "The Edge of Glory" this image pops into my head of a dock built many years ago. The wood is old, but not well-worn by any means. Suddenly, you reach a point where the dock clearly ended at one point. Through the mist, you can see a sign that reads "The Edge of Glory". Carved into it are random things like "Elvis was here. Uh huhhhhhh". But the dock continues after this point. It is not well-made anymore, it is rickety, falling apart in places, the roughly cut boards hanging on by single nails. There are massive rocks leaping from the water on either side of your path. You keep following it into the fog, careful not to fall off the crooked, narrow path. Eventually you hear a strange pounding noise. It throbs in your head, faster than your resting heartbeat, and you are urged to "hurry up, Franklin". The mist starts to clear a little, and in the distance you see the source of the noise: a minuscule blonde woman relentlessly sledge hammering a mountain that stands directly in the way of her fragile but determined path. There is a standard tied to her back, flailing in the occasional breath of wind. It is bright red and declares "The Edge of Glory".

Lady Gaga is a perfectionist, which ironically carries with it the fact that she will never see herself as perfect. She may reach the edge of glory time and time again, but in her own mind, this concept of glory will forever be a carrot hanging on a string just beyond her reach. What is great and entertaining for us though, is that despite perfection being unattainable, perfectionists will continue to strive for it, so Lady Gaga will be reaching, and clawing, and stretching for it until the end of her days. Which will make for all manner of ridiculously wonderful things on which to feast our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds ( And other bodily orfices. I mean this seriously. Lady Gaga's bluffing with her muffin no longer. She wants your whiskey mouth all over her blond south.).

If you look at each song individually, it looks almost as if they don't fit together at all. I mean, who in their right mind would put a sax solo on the same record as an industrial Berlin club thumper? What kind of artist makes the cover of their record a picture of themselves melded into a motorcycle? What sane person would writhe about in what looks like a mass of colourful unicorn bogies in a music video? Well, no one. Which strengthens my overarching point here, being that Lady Gaga is a complete mental. But the day this woman goes to see an effective therapist is the day I lose all faith in pop music.

Psychosexual, pseudo-religious brilliance, for the win.

Peace, love, and floating,
Gill Ford

The Tale of a Fairy: A Study in Frejanomics and the Catherine McNeil Effect

There is little else in the world of fashion that is more exciting than the Chanel Cruise collections, which are shown in wealth-laden/fantastic/breath-taking locations each year. But this event is not anticipated for the clothes so much as for the inevitable euphoria that comes in the form of Kaiser Karl's endeavours into the world of cinema. Last year, he took us to St Tropez with the gripping feature Remember Now. But for 2012, he has really given it his all, travelling down the coast to the Antibes for The Tale of a Fairy (Part 1, Part 2), starring a frighteningly high-strung Kristen McMenamy, a gorgeous-as-ever Anna Mouglalis, and a curiously talkative Freja Beha Erichsen. There's some pretty boys as well.

Karl's filmmaking skills have certainly improved since last season; in terms of the cinematography, it was very well done, and the acting wasn't quite as horrendously embarrassing and discomforting as it was last time around. Of course, nobody really payed any attention to any of that sort of thing. I mean, I would totes magotes have found those facets interesting. I might even have paid attention to the clothes if Anna's numerous admirers were ever wearing any. As it was, I was distracted by the same thing as everyone else, being the Sapphic shenanigans that completely dominated the final 25% of the film, during which 90% of Freja Beha's fans sighed with cathartic satisfaction.

I mean, as scandalous as it is, who really gives a shit that Kristen McMenamy is apparently carrying on with Baptiste Giabiconi, who is apparently her godson? Who cares about how 'pretty' the film looked, or how 'creative' the collection was, or how 'improved' Karl's cinematic skills are? Keeping in mind that we have not been enticed to look forward to this annual event in the expectation of anything Oscar worthy, one would think that the latter might have been noted more by all the highly educated, realistic, and critical viewers who turned up for the affair. As this was not the case, The Tale of a Fairy will be from hereafter referred to as The Time Where Freja and Anna were Pashing in the Lou. Or, for a multitude of others, The Time Where Freja Was Pashing Someone I Didn't Know, But Imagined was Me, in the Lou. 

I don't know what Chanel herself would have to say about all of this, but I have a feeling that it's not really a good sign when the clothes you have made are not just overshadowed, but entirely ignored because you've filmed FBE enjoying the taste of another girl's cherry chapstick. I read an article a few days ago that I found rather interesting, and actually quite relevant to this case here. Under the title "Skinny Again, Crystal Renn," David P Dykes (the irony is killing you all right now, I know) of fashionising.com muses over the famous anorexic-turned-plus-sized model's recent shoot for TUSH with Ellen von Unwerth, and the concept of the "celebrity model," pioneered by (who else) Kate Moss and attempted by various others, none of whom have managed similar success. He notes that "the Catherine McNeil effect" (a.k.a., when the celebrity of a model takes precedence over their work) is one that a number of models have unfortunately fallen victim to as models become ever more interesting to the public. Renn, who is perhaps the most well known plus sized model in fashion right now (seriously, Tyra, shut the fuck up), is remarkably un-plus sized in the shoot. I would particularly like to draw attention to the final part of the article:

[...] when you're a model your career is dependent on helping fashion houses sell clothing and accessories but their target market sees your photos and take in solely the shape of your body, there's a danger for your career.

In the same vein, I am wondering whether Freja's personal life may threaten the longevity of her career. There are many brands making money off of her at the moment (Georg Jensen and Harry Winston, to name a few), and I am curious to know what about her appeal appears to be driving the sales (assuming that there are no confounding variables in the correlations between her being the face of a brand and that brand's sales spikes). Does Freja sell because of her 'look', or does she sell because of the asterix note that reads "lesbian"?

I find it hard to believe that enough people are aware of the numerous rumours surrounding her personal life for there to be any reason but the former. She is (in)famous across the fashion industry and it's followers, but I think it would be ridiculous at this point to suppose that the majority of the general public even know what her name is, let alone what team she purportedly bats for, and that seems to be the best thing for a model. But with Freja's ever-rising popularity and notoriety, I fear that she may find herself falling victim to a similar fate as her rumoured ex (Side note: if this ends up happening, how incredibly tragic is the tale of McBeha? Someone tell Karl. Sure, a tragic film might get you a SAG award, but a tragic film about lesbians? Charlize Theron and Natalie Portman will be the first to attest that those ones win freaking Oscars.). What happens when people do know her name, and even more dauntingly, care enough to investigate what's going on behind the scenes? How will designers (other than Karl, obviously) react to a model who the public views increasingly as "the lesbian model"?

If the most recent pigeon-holing of Freja as "the androgynous model" is anything to go by, labels are hard to shake in an industry where models are meant to be blank canvasses. The boyish cut Freja sported for a couple of years resulted in a drop in her workload that rattled her loyal fanbase. But hair grows back, and once hers did, the pigeon-holing began to happen less frequently, to the point where she is now garnering more attention from designers with more feminine aesthetics. It is my hope that the growing publicity surrounding Freja and her sexuality does not become a limiting factor in what is an already stellar career, but as Dykes so eloquently indicated, fashion is not supposed to be about the model, but the clothes and the message of the brand that model is promoting. Freja is a good model to be sure, but is she good enough for designers to risk including the (sometimes dangerous) term "lesbian" in their list of attributes? I certainly don't care, but then, I am not a market scientist.

Cometh the Catherine, cometh the Freja.

Peace, love, and floating,
Gill Ford

Top HF Runway Model Ranks

I've added a new page to the Not So Swedish blog, which will house the new Top High Fashion Runway Model Ranks. I know very few people who understand the system behind the models.com rankings, so I decided to devise my own. The details of how points are awarded are all on that page now, along with the preliminary rankings after the first round has been completed. For anyone interested, the top 10 is presently:

1. Julia Saner
2. Mirte Mass
3. Monika "Jac" Jagaciak
4. Anja Rubik
5. Ruby Aldridge
6. Arizona Muse
7. Daphne Groeneveld
8. Freja Beha Erichsen
9. Frida Gustavsson
10. Kasia Struss

I stress that these ranks are based on runway ONLY. Points are earned on the basis of how many shows a model walks, the quality of those shows, and whether they open or close. Bonuses are also awarded for certain milestones.

At the present time, I have no intentions of incorporating print work (magazine covers, editorials, advertising campaigns, etc.) into this, as such a task would be enormous, and one that I am incapable of completing on my own. In the future, this may change, but for now, I hope this new system is helpful!

Peace, love, and floating,

Gill Ford