Why You Should Know about The Virgin Dress

"Good" art affects the beholder. The English literature professor who became my thesis adviser once illustrated this relationship with a triangle, wherein the left base angle was the artist, the right base angle was the audience, and the top vertex angle was the art itself. The triangle's sides were the connection networks made between artist and audience. In his definition, art needed to convey something - be it an emotion, a concept or a technique - in order to be effective.

Several weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to catch the "Sad Girls Club" series, an exhibition by The Virgin Dress (aka, Brooklyn-based Nigerian-American illustrator Chioma Ebinama), in the hallway of a Bed-Stuy brownstone apartment. Only a short while after absorbing the first few "girls" in the series, the little typebars I have for cerebral synapses began banging-out a blog entry about why the exhibition qualifies as "good." Take the following Sad Girl:

A well-coiffed white woman with large, defiant eyes tearfully clutches her Louis Vuitton purse. It is ambiguous as to whether the caption addresses the audience or the bag; however, the often satirical focus on privilege and consumerism throughout the Sad Girls Club exhibition makes me believe the latter. We rely on our possessions - and on the act of possessing possessions - for our happiness. The absoluteness of the caption dramatizes this in a hilarious manner.

In the above Sad Girl, Chioma turns her attention from the privileged to the marginalized, confronting racialist stereotypes about black women with a universal expression of intense, human despair. I attribute the illustration's power to its bluntness: the image of a crying black woman paired with knee-jerk judgements black women frequently face should compel one to re-examine their latent prejudices.

According to the artist, this was drawn following a conversation with a friend about the death scene in Sylvia, a biopic about Sylvia Plath. In the film, Sylvia (Gwyneth Paltrow) closes her eyes after turning on her gas oven. In actuality, Ms. Plath was found with her head in the oven. Chioma’s friend argued that there was no way to depict the suicide as it actually happened without it looking absurd. Chioma disagreed and drew the above drawing.

Regardless of the backstory, the illustration remains an effective critique of stifling, sexist, and thoroughly-American mid-century Modernism. The philosophy that kept the public and personal spheres separate was culpable for the marginalization and oppression of women. For some women of Sylvia's time, such circumscription probably did make some ruminate other uses for ovens besides tv dinners and Thanksgiving turkeys. That said, the dark humor in this illustration is boldly apparent, from the funky wallpaper to the large, baffled cat in the window.

Another member of the Sad Girls' Club fleshes-out this dark humor further:

An almost naked Amy Winehouse sits on a scale, head buried in her arms, surrounded by dancing, anthropomorphic food - one of which gleefully advertises the amount of calories it contains. The juxtaposition between a deeply unhappy human life and consumer culture makes the latter look absurd and irrelevant. The food dances around Amy, perhaps imprisoning her, and when complimented by the scale, it is impossible not to consider the rampant body image problems plaguing women in western societies; Amy herself struggled with an eating disorder which likely contributed to her death.

The blithe, dancing food entrapping Amy suggests that she had likewise become part of consumer culture. Unfortunately for her, in this lifetime, there was no escape. Her fame/infamy kept some writers from seeing her as someone who had suffered in the spotlight, and a rash of callous, mean-spirited articles, like this one, filled the tabloids.

"That's exactly what happened," I said to the artist.

For all the Sad Girls: http://thevirgindress.virb.com/sad-girls-club#/id/i6486712
For other works by The Virgin Dress: http://www.thevirgindress.com/

Neckties; Or, Adventures in Vasoconstriction, Part III

Although I learned during week one that they were not mandated by the company dress code, I continued wearing neckties to my new job until week three: mostly because, for yours truly, the image of me in a necktie was as novel a sight as a gorilla in a shopping mall reading Anna Karenina. The novelty has since lost its affect – like similes with gorillas or puns on the word “novel” – and with summer fast approaching (let’s hope Greenland doesn’t start thawing again), only the hipsterest hipster could bear wearing a sweat-slopped business-noose for the sake of ironic self-parody.

The lesser reason that I kept wearing ties was as a social experiment: do people treat necktie-wearers differently? I discovered that the courtesies and hostilities of everyday urban social interaction remain: what changes is who exchanges what.

For example, in my non-work attire, I accidentally happened upon Chevy's: a menswear shop on 86^th Street in Gravesend. The moment I entered, the owner, sitting behind the counter, asked, with a very subtle enmity:

“Can I help you?”

I responded “just browsing!” and began perusing his wares. Much of it was Italian-made, which meant, to my own paranoid, left-wing head, that I could buy something and not fear that it came from a sweatshop.

As I walked to the back of the store, the owner rose and began sneaking quick glances at me, strongly resembling nervous butler with a peasant in his midst. I felt self-conscious and unwelcome. When I approached a rack of neatly-hung jeans, the contempt he held for my class and kind became clear:

“Those jeans cost $135. Is that a problem?”

Such a question can only be asked to humiliate. “No,” I lied, “that’s not a problem,” but I nevertheless considered buying a pair just to best him. I smiled savagely and asked if he carried the jeans in a size 29.

“I don’t,” said the sallow, class-prejudiced, pathetic little fuck.

“That,” said I, Shakespearean, triumphant, “is a problem,” and I left, mouth puckered inward, teeth clenched tighter than a streetfighter’s fist.

Blatant classism is bad enough, but I was more disturbed by how my peers, or those whom I would regard as such, treated me when I wore a tie. In the subway, my fellow countercultural twentysomethings, with their piercings, thrift-store clothing and chunky headphones blasting almost loud enough to drown-out their student loan anxieties, no longer looked at me with an acknowledgement of <DROOG> in their eyes. No matter what your actual job entails (I would consider my line pro-social), no matter how much David Graber or Michel Foucault you’ve read, and no matter that you’ve listened to every song on Sandinista! at least twice, a necktie immediately makes you The Man.

The absolute worst, however, was the socially-engineered, resentful obsequiousness of the very poor; the exaggerated nicities that we assume we should bestow on those of high rank. Having that directed at me was the straw that broke this camel's heart.

Thus lay a mess of neckties on my dresser table, gathering the same dust that all things, splendid and decrepit, generally do.

Decisions in Footwear Ethics, Part II: New Balance

When I was particularly young, I was more grossed-out by the thought of wearing something else’s skin than with sticky geopolitical issues. Converse and most things Payless sufficed for my anti-leather phase. However, as I began to learn about the grisly world of globalization, sweatshops and child labor, I wanted the kicks I picked to match my politics. Thus, New Balance, with its lovely range of non-leather, Made-in-America footwear, seemed a happy option for my ambling needs. Without having researched the company, I bought a pair and sported them throughout my high school days.

In college, in Boston, with my New Balance sneaks all roughed-up and losing their inner-padding, I gave No Sweat a try. No Sweat's mock-Converse shoes ticked all of my ethics boxes. Lamentably, in addition to providing no arch support, they fell apart within just two months of (daily) wear. I then bought used, Made-in-America Danner boots (my first leather footwear since age eight – second-hand leather doesn’t directly support the industry... or so I had reasoned). I clunked around in those heavy things for two years. They weighed a ton; I might as well have strapped the rest of the cow to my feet.

In the summer of my final year in Boston, in desperate need of something more lightweight, I dragged my Danner-clad feet over to the New Balance factory and bought a pair of Made-in-America sneakers. These lasted me until just recently, with the inner-padding once more rubbing away. I bought yet another pair – again, “Made-in-America,” vegan-friendly – and, finally, albeit retroactively, did the ethics research.

Run Run Run...

As it turns-out, New Balance is a company of ambiguous ethical character, with various websites lending contrasting opinions. From what I can gather, there was a labor dispute in 1999, during which New Balance’s American workforce accused the company of employing extreme low-wage, no-benefit temp workers in China. The following year, these accusations were exposed as valid in Business Week.

We must also mention the strange relationship between New Balance and the Li Kai Shoe Manufacturing Company – a giant Chinese sweatshop rife with child labor, unsafe food, and women being forced to shower in the same facilities as men. This partnership is elaborated in an online report by the National Labor Committee and China Labor Watch:

http://www.iatp.org/files/451_2_78428.pdf 

Granted, these scandals are a bit old, back when every company was getting hit by similar or worse accusations. Plus, to their credit, New Balance remains the only major manufacturer of athletic footwear that still employs an American workforce, even if this accounts only for a symbolic 15% of their product line, and even if the material components for the shoes themselves are imported. Whether these idiomatic grains of salt changes New Balance's ethical flavor is your decision alone, but personally, I'll need a lot more sodium chloride before I buy another pair.

Expect a sequel entry about Macbeths shortly. In the meantime, here’s a link to the prequel entry about Dr Martens (or, as a work colleague called them when I donned them for casual Friday, “shit-kickers”).

Decisions in Footwear Ethics, Part I: Dr Martens

Recently, the toe creases of my trusty, well-worn Dr Martens began to crack. I had hoped to mend my boots, but when I called customer service for advice on repairing “quilon leather,” they told me, with a hint of wounded pride, that Dr Martens are not supposed to fissure; this was a structural defect. I was therefore entitled to trade-in my old boots for a new pair.

Of course, following their offer, the usual stream of annoying ethical dilemmas trickled into my Jainistic brain, starting with the occasionally-lax approach to veganism that led me to buy the leather boots in the first place. On the one hand, by accepting the offer, yet another cow would have to die. On the other, unlike the first time, I wasn’t technically paying to kill this second cow, and besides, Dr Martens supposedly last a decade, and I did pay good money for my pair...

The boots were “Made in England,” and I initially assumed my footwear to be the product of unionized labo(u)r. Although I have not been able to determine whether Dr Martens’ English workforce is, in fact, represented by a union, the workers apparently have the right to form or join one – even those in China.

Essentially, by accepting a new pair, I again reneged on animal rights, but likely supported fair labor. I could have done far better and I could have done far worse.

(Additionally, unless the company changed their policies since I bought my first pair in 2009, I might not have done the best job of researching their environmental-friendliness. Back then, I could swear I read somewhere that Dr Martens are vegetable-tanned, but as it turns out, the company does not disclose details about their impact on the environment.)

I bid my old Martens a sad adieu, for they were perfectly broken-in (save for the part about actually being broken), and as every Dr Martens-wearing ethicist can testify, breaking-in a new pair of those boots is about as painful as an IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Program.

The new boots came in the mail within two weeks:

shiny shiny, shiny boots of leather

The Dr Martens people were kind enough to throw in a pair of white laces upon my request. White goes well with oxblood. I was afraid to buy white bootlaces when I lived in Glasgow because, in 1970s UK skinhead culture, bootlaces carried political connotations, and white bootlaces were once aligned with white supremacy; according to the occasional random website, that is. My Glasgow flatmate laughed away my concerns, never having heard of this nonsense before. If I’m not a 1970s UK skinhead, and if I’m not white by British standards (even if I am by American standards), why should I worry?

I nevertheless wore black laces when in Glasgow. Red and black: I could deal with being mistaken for an anarchist, even if not an animal-friendly one.



(In case you're wondering, "Decisions in Footwear Ethics, Part II" will be posted when the Macbeths I've been waitlisted for finally arrive...)