Vivienne, you have to force yourself to watch Robin and the Seven Hoods...
I do believe your theme song is in that forgotten Rat Pack film. An aging Der Bingle sings a wonderful paen to booze amidst all the then coming into their 40s Rat Packers. And if Bing Crosby singing irreverently about booze, doesn't do it for you, you might still get a laugh out of Sammy Davis, Jr. doing "Bang Bang." Sometimes films are so bad they're good. Either way, bottoms up.
Robin and the Seven hoods...
Well..i watched the film last night DC and i see exactly what you mean, "mr booze".Im not always on the bottle you know, i do sleep sometimes!.I must say though that i can only face my daily chore with plonk so i dont know if that makes me a wino but im quite happy so thats ok. I thought that the Bingster was so cute in this film with ol blue lips coming a close second and yes i did enjoy sammy doing "bang bang".Glad i watched it,thanks. Met another interesting person who has an interesting site,have a look.
http://www.only-anarchists.co.uk
Vivienne...
Sex Seditionaries seems "interDISCIPLINARY." 🙂
Anarcho-Dominance is conceptually about as paradoxical as it gets, don't you think? And of course paradox and discipline are tried and true techniques of not only the sado-masochistic subculture, but also of Madison Avenue advertising and Psy-ops propaganda that forever covertly borrow heavily from that subculture.
Are we going Neo-O here?
It also kind of reminds me of certain clubs in LA in the 80s where submission seemed to be part of the cover charge, but that was then (and before that was the NY/SF black and blue scene, and before that Weimar Berlin) and this is now.
Since the sado-masochistic sub culture and its accoutrements are ever present in society, it is always tricky to tell if sites like this are simply giving a new face to that subculture, or if they are tapping into a zeitgeist of the same that has become a temporary metaphor for some angst in the wider culture. Liza with a Z in Cabaret, so to speak for an example of the latter.
Regardless, the site is visually rich and uncliched IMHO and it works out its anarcho-dominance theme visually at most every level of interaction with it, so it is certainly rigorously (dare I say obsessively) designed.
But as a person who likes the freedom to move about the cabin, so to speak, once the fasten seat belt light is off (and even when it isn't), I find these kinds of sites that make you wait, and squint at the fine print, and struggle to figure out what is happening, and finally just submit to them, kind of stifling. But that's just me. No doubt, there are a lot of persons facing too many choices, and with too much responsibility (and not enough authority), who will probably like a little anarcho-dominance to help them atomize their burdens and their egos briefly and get cathartic with their anarcho dominant clothes shopping experience.
Thoughts?
thought...
Being quite a shallow sort of person DC i just think its an interesting site.I started to get into my stride around the same time as Sex and Seds. etc. and was heavily influenced,and its just sort of carried on from there really.A lot of my current friends have known me since those days and when were all together i find that quite comforting.As far as sado/mass/bdsm/sub etc.go i think its each to their own, but answer me this if you can, (phsycho cannot), i feel at my most content and safest when i am restricted, why is that.My ex partner of 12 yrs. had left me for a month before i knew!,he sent me an email ha ha . I will probably get slated for not answering with a "design" reply now,sorry i wont do it anymore. Now, Gaetano Pesce,whats that all about!!!.
No can answer that one Vivienne...
Not a design question, if you know what I mean. And I'm certainly not qualified to talk about those kinds of issues in a public or private forum. No letters behind my name for that sort of thing. It would be irresponsible and imprudent of me to speculate. My apologies for being no help on this one.
Just to clarify!..
you do know that Sex..Seds etc. were all important shops which were image/design led in england dont you? and when i say "restricted" i mean socially. Probably mistakenly for some,but i think that that particular era had a big influence on design,early Dixon and Arad,Red or Dead,they came from that lot,. Sorry about going off topic,i will try harder.
Vivienne...Pt.1
I am definitively a Red Label guy...Page 3 in particular. To explain why, beyond the primitive, essential and half grunting "I'd like my woman to look and dress this way," I'm going to have to go the long way around the barn, as my dear old grandmother used to say, when I couldn't get straight to the point.
And bear with me here, because you are apt to find it uncool in the beginning...but I'm being authentic here, which is not always chic.
There was an episode of Star Trek once along time ago. It was in the original TV series. Captain Kirk and part of his crew do a bit of time travel. They go back in time to 1920s-1930s Chicago--the gangland era, or perhaps the depression. Spock, looking absurd, wears a stocking cap to cover his pointy ears, but I digress.
There's a woman living in this old Chicago, who becomes Kirk's love interest. She dresses entirely of that era. She is played with simple virtue by Joan Collins, one of those brainy English beauties able to play both the virtuous woman we place on a pedestal OR the bitch goddess in spikes and bustier or leather harness we wish to tame and be tamed by. In this episode, she plays a very humble, but virtuous working class woman.
There is a great, if melodramatic, tension created in this Star Trek episode between the new and the old--between a longing for a past that we can remember through a gauze filter in beautiful simplicity and unsubtle polarities of good and evil, but which we cannot possess again but briefly in our minds, and our contemporary, nee modern, experience, which we cannot escape but briefly either, through reflections on things past, through self-medications and through occassional artistic and sexual catharsises.
Vivienne...Part2
Anyway, Kirk from the future cannot look at Joan Collins from the past without yearning to transcend time and be with her forever--not the most original idea, but a tried and true melodrama plot nevertheless. As always, in these stories, Kirk cannot have her lastingly, permanently in the past, because Kirk must come forward to the present and she cannot come with him for some reason or another. The profound irony of the story of course is that Kirk could not have her permanently in the present any more than he could in the past, for he and she are separate beings--regardless of their longings--chance voyagers meeting improbably in the vast infinities of space and time destined, paradoxically, to part with absolute certainty. In such a vast, untethered and unforeseeable universe, Viv, how could one not prefer the comfort of some occassional restrictions? 🙂
So your Red Label clothes, especially as modelled, create in me a palpable tension between a past of daring, rather revolutionary womanhood I cannot reclaim and a present of rather common "material girl" womanhood I cannot be free of but through the all too permanent act of dying, an act that alas seems likely to cut me off from all my joys and pleasures. Ugh.
Your Red Label clothing is hardly retro in a literal sense. They do not ape a particular past--at least not one I can think of. But there is something in their color, texture, cut and drape that DOES recall an impression of womanhood past (and not so long ago, as I think about it) and this something triggers a distinct tension with the present. The clothing looks at once contemporary and somehow expressive of something lost in "material girl" woman. Add in that it is a fall collection, and fall is the season when life slips beautifully and achingly through our finger tips yet again, and I would guess you could see where I'm going with this, whether or not you intended any of it when you sat down with your sketch pad and got on with it with your scissors and thread.
Vivviene...Pt.3
I can't possess the womanhood your clothes recall from my past, both because it is past and because I'm not sure that provocative, revolutionary aspect of womanhood has survived to the present.
I can't possess the womanhood your clothes contemporize, because the contemporary slips into the past the moment I notice it.
I can't possess the model in your clothes, because she is a professional creating an image.
I can't possess ANY woman in your clothes, because one can't possess another.
So what is left?
The experience of beauty of a woman well dressed, an experience amidst the ache of all that I cannot possess.
Beauty made from the haunting tension between present and past.
Not a post modern tension between the thing and itself, but a modern tension between its present and its past.
No doubt some of what I am writing is a collaboration between me and your clothing. So be it.
But some of what I am saying about your clothes IS there.
Your clothing seems to offer just enough restriction to feel comfortable, as its designers likes.
What is that old saying? A woman is never so naked as when she is well-dressed.
These clothes offer the nakedness of sand passing through the small of an hour glass.
I like them.
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