6B — Thursday, October 31, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
It’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of Bob Mackie.
While his legacy is intractable from that of Cher (being responsible
for her most iconic looks), his work spans from his sketch work
for Edith Head and Jean Louis in the early ’60s (including the
dress that Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to President
John F. Kennedy in), to assisting his future lifetime partner, Ray
Aghayan, on “The Judy Garland Show” and “The Carol Burnett
Show,” to his work with Cher and just about every celebrity of
note over the course of the mid-to-late 20th
century. His career spans almost 60 years, but
his eponymous ready-to-wear line, Bob Mackie
Originals, was comparatively short-lived and
failed to fuel him in the same way as the work
he’s done designing for studios, Broadway
shows and world tours. Unlike other designers
considered to be a household name, Mackie
didn’t build a brand that was marketable to the
public — he’s never stepped out and done the
creative direction for a massive conglomerate,
designed an it-bag or even thrown his name
upon a storefront. Even during his years doing a
ready-to-wear line, he has never been that guy.
Bob Mackie has spent his years in pursuit of
the costume, stitching together an endless sea
of paillettes and Marabous, creating marvelous
and fleeting moments that live on in history
through photographs.
Part of what draws people to special events
is their temporality. There’s a special brand of
allure that comes with only being able to wear
or see something once, and one of the central
tenets of the costume is that it’s meant to be
frivolous. The visual arts have historically been discredited due
to their political feminization — high fashion is often viewed as
wasteful and gluttonous, with little regard given to its greater
societal impact or its role in the economy. Red carpet looks and
garments used for tours and on sets for TV shows are at the most
unlucky intersection of perceived inaccessibility, wastefulness and
feminized discreditation. This may be why Bob Mackie never had
the opportunity to brand himself the way that, say, a longstanding
leather goods company with a high fashion line already has built
into it. He never fought to turn his name into a behemoth. He
didn’t capitalize on the media frenzy that his work has created
time and time again. There were perfumes, sure. There was
a ready-to-wear line and a QVC collaboration. There’s even a
limited collection of Barbies. But Bob Mackie is a tried and true
dressmaker. He is a costumer who has undoubtedly helped shape
how the world considers what is possible in fashion.
To commit oneself to the costume, either through embodying
it over the course of a night or, in Mackie’s case, a lifetime, is to
commit oneself completely to a fantasy and throw caution to the
wind. Excess and unadulterated flair have external validity in a
capitalist marketplace (if that’s your thing) when they become a
source of inspiration, but the point is that cannot happen if any
mind is given to whether or not bits and bobs can be reinterpreted
into something consumable. Bob Mackie may have (mainly)
worked for pop stars and production studios,
thus needing in some way to interact with the
notion of acceptability in his work, but he has
spent the majority of his career unbeholden to
retail sales. References to Sontag’s 1964 essay
“Notes on Camp” have reached their saturation
point, but she refers to the concept of visual
camp in this way, arguing that camp turns its
back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic
judgment. Camp doesn’t reverse things. It
doesn’t argue the good is bad, or the bad is good.
What it does is to offer art (and life) a different
— and supplementary — set of standards.
To realize a concept with the purest intention
possible, as Mackie often did, is not to concern
oneself with what’s considered to be in good
taste, or possessing the proper ingredients
to achieve a certain level of popularity. It
is to pursue a vision to its fullest extent,
communicating an idea with the greatest level
of efficacy that can be achieved. Bob Mackie
took the absurd and brought it to the eyes of
the mainstream, and we’ll be forever grateful
for it.
Bob Mackie and embodying the fantasy ... also Cher
SAM KREMKE
Daily Arts Writer
FACEBOOK
In the last week, even the least bothered of us have considered some of
the angles we may take with our costumes this year. With three years of
Halloween in Ann Arbor in the bag, the following is what I’ve solidified as
the categories that encompass 95 percent of costumes on show and they’re
the spooky truth.
The Nostalgic Costume
The shrieks and sobs produced by a nostalgia-inducing costume are the
reason for the popularity of this category around campus. As we’re all from
different places, we seek the ties that bind us — nationally-televised ’00s
cartoons, the club hits that played at elementary school birthday parties,
the earliest memes of 2011 or 2012. Finding the Cosmo to our Wanda or the
milk to our Reese’s Puffs or the Brad to our Angelina on a night out instantly
elevates such an interaction to one of predestiny. Whether as points of
shared love or sharp contention, nostalgic costumes carry emotion without
much conceptual or executional heavy-lifting.
The Sexy Costume
The thirst trap has been so fully integrated into university costume
culture that it could almost be a costume in itself. For a few years only
certain costumes were sexualized — cats, nurses, Freddie Mercury. But
now, it wouldn’t be so radical to conceive of a sexy Cheerio. When people
asked me for costume advice this year, I reminded them that the point of
Halloween is to look good. This can’t, however, be at the expense of the idea
itself. If you go as a mafioso just because you look good in a white button-
down and want to fiend cigarettes all night, your costume is actually not
that great.
The Scary Costume
Being scary on Halloween just doesn’t have the same appeal it did as a
kid. At this point, completely unwillingly and regretfully, I’ve seen actual
beheadings online. Costumes in this category these days are therefore either
terrifying or trivialized by an undeniable layer of sex appeal. A costume that
attempts but fails at scariness should either adapt to satirizing/sexualizing
itself or it should go home.
The Niche Costume
The thrill of the arts, baby. Some of us ride or die so hard for particularly
influential figures in our respective fields of interest to the extent that we
forget their existence is known by maybe 10 percent of our peers. When it
comes to the big day, we prep for hours putting the finishing touches on a
representation that channels this character or person’s very soul. But the
night only breeds disappointment and demoralization as our peers don’t
even know who Rick Owens is and we get guesses from Keanu Reeves to
Steven Tyler (that’s just bad).
The Pregame-Decided Costume
While some of us workshop costumes in our phone’s notes app for
months before the actual events of Halloweek, others of us couldn’t be
bothered to think critically enough about it until the big night itself.
Thankfully, though, some girl at the pregame needs a boy to complete her
Taylor-Swift-in-the-“You Belong With Me”-music-video look.
The “Number of Friends You Have” Costume
If you’ve got one friend, you’re good for Batman and Robin, maybe a
pair of boobs. Two guys and a girl? Harry, Ron and Hermione. Four Mean
Girls. Five Spice Girls. Incestuous squad of six? Friends. Conceive of this:
going as the seven continents! Or maybe the eight directions on a compass.
Nine ladies dancing? Ten beer pong cups. Eventually you can just be
Brockhampton.
The “Just Abstract” Costume
Many of us have likely seen the Buzzfeed concept of going with a t-shirt
that says “life” on it and a bag of lemons to give people. I did this my senior
year of high school. But with an internet culture that hybridizes and layers
references more than ever before, as well as new generations of students
who spent a larger percentage of their formative years within this culture,
Halloween has begun to reflect such thinking. You could go as super-
thicc, but specifically the distorted Photo Booth “Twirl” effect version of
this. You could go as the hissing cat meme itself. You could go as “Bort,”
the poorly drawn meme version of Bart Simpson. You could ironically go as
the tapestry and Christmas lights that your roommate put up because they
don’t represent you. You could go as the video-game screencap of “Ah shit,
here we go again.” You could go as the generic vaporwave mannequin in a
suit with a big “stonks” sign, or better yet you could go as a bar graph of our
national debt with block text over it that says, “Honestly I’m just fucking
vibing rn.”
All angles have the potential for success, but only in their purest form.
The only thing worse than a bad costume on Halloween is not going all-
in. So even if you’re Taylor Swift’s boy-toy from that music video every
else seems to know, you’re gonna take photos with her and the signs you
supposedly have to flash one another from your windows, and you sure as
hell are gonna get that slow dance at the end of the night.
Categorizing and calling out classic Ann Arbor costumes
BEN VASSAR
Daily Arts Writer
B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
B-SIDE: STYLE NOTEBOOK
‘Orphans’ & ‘Arabesque’
Coldplay
Parlophone
SINGLE REVIEW: ‘ORPHANS’ & ‘ARABESQUE’
After
nearly
five
years,
Coldplay has emerged from
musical stagnation with two
singles off their upcoming
album, Everyday Life. The
album’s title seems to be the
exact
premise
of
the
singles, celebrating the
small moments in life
with a blend of saxophone
solos, bluesy guitar riffs
and dynamic horns.
“Orphans” sounds like
the Coldplay we’ve heard
on past albums, with
its bubbly “woo-woos”
and Chris Martin’s passionate
chanting
throughout
the
verses. The lyrics are nostalgic
in nature, walking through the
loneliness of being away from
home while still maintaining
an overwhelming and spirited
sensation of freedom. The tune
ends with an overpowering
blend of drums and background
vocals as Martin sings the line
“I want to be with you ‘till the
whole world ends,” crafting the
signature Coldplay euphoria.
“Arabesque”
is
more
experimental in nature, slightly
deviating from Coldplay’s soft
rock tradition. The tune starts
off with noises from a bustling
city and transitions into an
angular guitar riff before the
introduction of a protrusive
horn section that has its
own solo towards the end of
the song. Unlike “Orphans,”
“Arabesque” is more lyrically
abstract as it attempts to
deconstruct Western fears of
Islam in the wake of terrorism.
Interwoven in the folk sounds
are Middle Eastern motifs,
such as the prominence of
percussion
instruments
and the usage of horns.
Despite the time away,
Coldplay
still
sounds
like the euphoric rock
band
they
established
themselves as back in the
’90s. While “Arabesque”
slightly diverges from their
traditional rock sound, both
singles revisit the signature
sound of the band. The singles
are complex yet captivating and
serve as a promising precursor
to Everyday Life.
— Kaitlyn Fox, Daily Arts
Writer
PARLOPHONE
‘I THINK’
Tyler, the Creator
Columbia Records
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘I THINK’
Tyler, the Creator’s IGOR alter
ego, Wolf Daley, returns with
the music video for “I THINK.”
Directed under Tyler’s Wolf
Haley alias, the video features a
caption that reads “a fraction of
the video*,” indicating more to
come. The lavish scenery of “A
BOY IS A GUN” is replaced by
a grimy club scene — a sketchy
restroom,
claustrophobia,
reprehensible
hookups
and all. Whereas Daley’s
last appearance reflected
a
more
emotionally
unhinged side, “I THINK”
is less dramatic, zeroing in
on a simpler narrative many
of us can relate to with
some comical glimmers
along the way. Wolf dons an
on-brand pastel Neapolitan suit,
his signature bowl-cut wig and
tinted sunglasses as he wanders
aimlessly in pursuit of yet another
Timothee Chalamet-esque love
interest in the club.
A ’70s clad crew of men
sequester themselves at the edge
of a bleak restroom, rolling dice at
the very beginning of the video.
From there, the video pans and we
find Wolf stepping up to use one
of the urinals as a couple leaves a
stall and some people walk in and
out of the entrance. Wolf then
makes his way to the bathroom
mirror where he sings the song’s
lyrics while preening himself.
Hell breaks loose when a fistfight
occurs between the men from
earlier, and Wolf is shoved out
of the bathroom and into a wall.
Unbothered by his surroundings,
he ventures into the club, pushing
and shoving his way to his
unknowing love interest. From
here, we pan to a photo shoot of
various characters from earlier
in the video, including Tyler, the
Creator in GOLF gear, Kendall
Jenner and then finally Wolf, who
occupies the last quarter of the
video. The camera then zooms in
on a forlorn Wolf and then looks
up to a hand on his shoulder,
presumably that of the individual
he pursued earlier.
The video is an anomaly in the
series of IGOR videos. Rather than
presenting Wolf as the primary
focus of the video, it provides
insight into the experiences
of other people at the
club. This effect is more
humorous than anything
else, Wolf sticking out like a
sore thumb, neglecting the
interactions
surrounding
him in his ridiculous garb.
There’s a comical backbone
to this video, but it doesn’t
overpower its sincerity the way it
does in “EARFQUAKE.” Rather,
it embraces the all-consuming
nature
of
love,
awkwardly
unfolding in a casual club scene
we’ve all experienced before.
— Diana Yassin, Daily Arts
Writer
COLUMBIA RECORDS
If you’ve got one friend,
you’re good for Batman
and Robin. Maybe a pair of
boobs.