my ultimate dresses

just look at these beautiful dresses. are they not things of wonder? they are by visual artist yinka shonibare. i think they're brilliant. they really sums it all up for me, in a strange way: cultural assimilationism, colonialism, victorian/edwardian style and all of the restrictiveness -- sexual and otherwise -- that's implied with that. combining the african and the european. there's something subversive and dangerous and weird about them, which excites me in a way that contemporary visual art hardly ever does. this one is on exhibit at MoMA right now, along with the two others below: they stand there, headless, endlessly free-floating in this wide open white space, like they're drifting around at some tea social or something and i just so happened to glimpse them before they put their appendages back on. i loved this one the most for its impossibly gorgeous train. check out that bustle. everything layered and tucked just so. i love it. these dresses are so me, it's dizzying.



that's another thing. i couldn't get over how beautifully tailored these dresses are. really, so detailed and intricate, it's exhaustive. when i first saw them at the studio museum of harlem a few years ago, i felt naked. all i could do was stare and stare and stare. if i had to dress up for the academy awards or the grammys or something, this is what i'd wear. if i could, i would dress in some variation on this theme every single day. only i'd want it in different kinds of denim. maybe that would be the african american combination.



i wonder if i could talk someone into making me a dress like one of these?