AROUND 1916, A WOMAN better known as Countess Constance Markievicz had her picture professionally taken by a photography firm in Dublin. Later in her life, she would become known as the first woman MP to be elected to the British Parliament in 1918, but already by the time of this photograph, her role as a political activist in Ireland was common knowledge.

1916 would prove a crucial year for Markievicz. After months of preparation, the Easter Rising – the Irish rebellion against the British which attempted to establish an Irish Republic – finally began on April 24, 1916. She would serve as a commander of the Irish Citizen Army, and it was in this uniform that she chose to be photographed.  

Today, her photograph resides in the archives of Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin. Its corners may be faded and yellowing, but even over one hundred years later, it’s difficult to ignore the captivating majesty of her profile. Leaning on a studio prop, she gazes into the distance, her body alert, fingers gently but firmly gripping her pistol. Her uniform is in immaculate condition; her leather breeches shine, the feather plumes in her hat luxuriously spilling over the sides, a defiant gesture towards the traditional contours of feminine dress. Her contemporaries often spoke of Markievicz’s pride in her military uniform. On one occasion, fellow activist and feminist Nancy Wyse Power recalled how Markievicz took a ‘childish delight’ in showing her uniform to her friends.¹ The press couldn’t have enough of her. In the aftermath of the Easter Rising and Markievicz’s surrender, The Irish Times described her figure as apparently ‘dressed entirely in green, including green shoes’ — an apparent declaration of nationalist intent. She was a larger-than-life caricature, even down to reports that she supposedly, on surrender, took out her revolver and kissed it affectionately before handing it over to the officer.² 

In 2016, Markievicz became infamous once again. Posters, wall murals and even the sides of buses bore her image, as she fast became an emblem of the centenary celebrations of the Easter Rising. But behind Markievicz are hundreds of other stories, of women not just passively silenced by male-dominated histories or a state which sought that their presence be shaped by the trope of ‘Mother Ireland,’ but women who, like Markievicz, saw the political potential of their sartorial choices, and exploited them.

This was achieved, predominantly, through two approaches: either harnessing the domesticated role of ‘mother’ – through first-aid and cooking – as a way into the all-male space of the barracks, or, by switching between modes of gendered clothing. By using both the military uniform and ordinary everyday feminine dress, women rebels were able to determine when it was politically advantageous to be either visible or invisible. As Margaret Skinnider explained, ‘the work of war can only be done by those who wear its dress.’³ 

In 1900, the women’s nationalist organisation Inghinidhe na hÉireann (‘Daughters of Ireland’) was formed, while the first women’s newspaper Bean na hÉireann (‘Women of Ireland’) – described by editor Helena Molony as ‘a mixture of guns and chiffon’ – was created in 1904. This pattern of women’s political assertion was matched by an increasing level of activism, from the unashamedly radical Irish Women’s Franchise League to the Irish Women Workers’ Union. The formation of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913 marked a further shift in women’s political consciousness, as the rise of militancy set in motion the creation of a women’s organisation that would encourage further debate and awareness about politically mobilised women. Established in 1914, Cumann na mBan was originally established as an ancillary force to the male Volunteers. Yet many women were disillusioned with a relegated place in politics. Maeve Cavanagh described how she ‘got tired’ of her Harcourt Street branch of Cumann na mBan and instead decided to leave and initiate herself fully within the ICA’s increasingly radical agenda.⁴ Cavanagh’s actions were indicative of a wider militaristic shift in the organisation, and within the space of a year, both the male and female members were divided into sections, with the adoption of military titles such as ‘squad commander’ and ‘section leaders.’⁵  This took on an increasingly visible manifestation through the creation of a militaristic uniform, which made its first appearance at the 1915 convention. For the women, this uniform consisted of a dark green heavy tweed material. Most women wore a skirt in the same colour while others, such as Markievicz, opted for the highly unconventional choice of trousers. In some instances, it was even inferred that the men and women wore the same, if not very similar, uniform, with Helena Molony describing the attire of Countess Markievicz as follows: ‘Her Citizen Army dress up to the week before the Rising consisted of a plain tweet costume with a sam browne belt and black turned up hat, similar to the men’s with a small bunch of cocks feathers. She went out to the rebellion in the uniform coat of Michael Mallin, who had got a new uniform. And he was so slim his coat fitted her perfectly.’⁶ 

Such political involvement soon began to include a performance element. From the ‘Suffrage Week’ in Dublin, December 1913, to the national fête of April 1914, titled ‘Daffodil Day,’ these events provided a public platform for acknowledging the contributions of women to politics and wider society. During ‘Daffodil Day’ in particular, performance was pivotal in the depiction of women’s strength, with an emphasis on the theme of ‘great women in history.’ During the fifteen individual presentations on the day, four focused on Joan of Arc, two of which were performed by Countess Markievicz. In 1936 in an article in the Irish Press, the suffragette Hanna Sheehy Skeffington recalled Markievicz’s enthusiasm in trying to emulate Joan of Arc, revealing how years later during the Easter Rising she caught sight of Markievicz in action ‘wearing the uniform of the Irish Citizen Army.’ She continued, ‘that earlier vision of Joan flashed upon my mind’s eye. They were not so far apart.’⁷ 

The result of these deliberately self-conscious outfit choices was an increasing analogy to soldier-status, as well as encouraging the training of arms. This correlation between historical figures and the establishment of contemporary political identity was reinforced by Markievicz’s five-part series in the Irish Citizen newspaper from 6 November to 4 December 1915, which explored the women of the United Irishman Uprising, using historical examples to inspire her readers into action.⁸  Previously, in October 1915, Markievicz had spoke of how ‘ancient Ireland bred warrior women,’ referring to ‘super-women’ such as the ‘Maeves’ and the ‘Machas.’⁹ Traditionally, Irish nationalism invoked purified images of womanhood – Ireland was often represented as either the youthful and beautiful maiden Roisin Dubh or as the motherly, elderly woman Shan Van Vocht – which meant that the political presence of women was regularly sanitised within this discourse of femininity. In reclaiming mythological figures, therefore, Irish women were able to take back some control over their public identity. Uniforms became an extended metaphor for an independent Irish femininity.  

Yet it wasn’t just a matter of reclaiming historical figures but redefining the modern parameters for Irish women’s identity. Figures such as Countess Markievicz embodied the creation of the ‘New Woman,’ as she encouraged women to reject the false standards of womanhood. She urged women to ‘escape from their domestic ruts, their feminine pens’ and instead, dress ‘suitably in short skirts and strong boots… and buy a revolver.’¹⁰ The ability to move from a role of passivity to militancy was further highlighted by Margaret Skinnider in her memoir: ‘Whenever I was called down to carry a despatch, I took off my uniform, put on my gray dress and hat and went out the side door of the college with my message. As soon as I returned, I slipped back into my uniform and joined the firing squad.’¹¹ In another instance, when writing to her sister, Nora, Nell Humphrey admitted her disappointment with her daughter’s androgynous clothing; ‘I used to feel ashamed of Sighle as being unwomanly . . .’¹² That these women were required to switch between binary roles reveals the extent to which the cultural conditioning of Irish womanhood was an obstacle. In a warzone, a military uniform had the potential to validate and legitimise the women’s presence, but at an ‘unwomanly’ cost in any other social setting. What exactly did Nell Humphrey mean when she admitted to feeling shame when greeted with her daughter’s attire? Sighle’s androgynous presentation was more a declaration of military and political sincerity, rather than a statement of anti-feminine intent. To return to Margaret Skinnider’s earlier statement that ‘the work of war can only be done by those who wear its dress,’ it’s worth evaluating the extent to which these sartorial decisions were less about political statements and more the realisation that femininity was not as rigid as the excessively womanly tropes such as ‘Mother Ireland’ suggested.

Many women were quick to capitalise on the subversion tactics granted to them by their fashion choices. One example was dressmaker Lizzie Morrin, who made waistcoats and jackets with hidden pockets so guns and weapons could be smuggled unobtrusively.¹³ This proved especially beneficial for the women carrying dispatches – the messages passed between the various rebel leaders stationed in a series of barracks across the city of Dublin. Dispatch carrying was without a doubt an incredibly dangerous undertaking, requiring the women to travel between the nationalist bases and the British army lines, and was a challenge unreservedly accepted by many of the women. One observer described how ‘that was a point of honour with them – to succeed or be killed.’¹⁴ Margaret Skinnider gave numerous instances of carrying dispatches yet remaining entirely unnoticed because of her gender. She described a policeman in St. Stephen’s Green who ‘paid no attention to me’’ as she was ‘only a girl on a bicycle.’¹⁵ On another occasion, Catherine Byrne was praised for her ingenuity when she rolled a note into her bun to avoid being caught.¹⁶ To the men involved, these women blended in because of these everyday roles and outfits, so much so, that they became quite literally invisible. Which explains why Marie Perolz, having dressed her little niece up in a velvet coat and bonnet, was able to fulfil her secret tasks unnoticed, despite the fact that she was also carrying a basket full of revolvers.¹⁷ 

Visibility brought its own dangers. For both the British and Irish soldiers involved, there was considerable confusion, and often anger, at the presence of women in a war zone. There was a clear sense of expectation and boundaries, from nationalist rebel leader de Valera’s outright refusal to allow women combatants into Boland’s Mill, to fellow leader Thomas MacDonagh’s response to the arrival of one of the Cumann na mBan leaders, Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh: ‘We haven’t made any provision for girls here.’¹⁸ In her recollections of her involvement in the Rising, the then-teenager Catherine Byrne described having to physically break into the General Post Office nationalist barracks in order to be involved, kicking in the glass of a window and jumping inside, on top of a male Volunteer. She had tried to ask beforehand, only to be greeted with a resounding no and threats that her brother would be told.¹⁹ 

In her memoirs, Margaret Skinnider wrote in great detail of how she was viewed by the male combatants. Frequently she was shot at in her masculinised military uniform as she recalled how ‘soldiers on top of the Hotel Shelbourne aimed their machine-gun directly at me. Bullets struck the wooden rim of my bicycle wheels, puncturing it; others rattled on the metal rim or among the spokes.’²⁰ Even those tending to the injured were active targets, with the British shooting at the Irish first-aid girls who ‘made excellent targets in their white dresses, with large red crosses on them… Bullets passed through one girl’s skirt, and another girl had the heel of her shoe shot off.’²¹

The national daily newspapers largely ignored the contributions of women, with one of the first editions of the newspapers portraying events purely in masculine terms. In one report, The Irish Times vaguely speculated as to what role the women might play, emphasising domestic duties such as working in the kitchen.²² The only woman to get any form of considerable press coverage was Countess Markievicz, but even this was in a predominantly derogatory tone, with an exaggerated and almost comical depiction of her outfits. When women did receive public acknowledgement, it rarely captured the nuances of their uniforms, instead juxtaposing delicate femininity with the uncomfortably brash imagery of violence. One press report declared that women were ‘serving in the dining room of the Post Office dressed in their finest clothes, and wore knifes and pistols in their belts. . . wearing green and white and orange sashes.’ By juxtaposing femininity and nationalism in this way, it reinforced the necessity for women to return to the domesticated shrine of ‘Mother Ireland’ that had been created for them.

1916 was not to be the year of Irish independence. Although the rebels were able to stave off encroaching British troops for six days across the city, British artillery resulted in the surrender of the General Post Office garrison and the dramatic surrender of Markievicz from the base at the Royal College of Surgeons. Of the estimated three hundred women who took part, seventy-seven women were arrested in the immediate aftermath. Even in the face of defeat, the women rebels continued with their military spectacle, the visual and public display of women in arms reinforced by Irish nationalist Rose McNamara’s description of arrested women carrying rifles and as many as three revolvers.²³ The decision to support the men in the surrender was a statement of intent. As Skinnider claimed in her memoirs, ‘we had the same right to risk our lives as the men.’²⁴

And yet of the seventy-seven women who were arrested, only one woman – Countess Markievicz – was put on trial. Although she was given the death sentence, the fact that she was a woman meant that her charge was changed to life imprisonment, with the next few years of her life spent in and out of prison. And even though other leading political figures such as Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, Nora O’Daly and Nellie Gifford were seen as dangerous and kept in prison for longer than most women, they were still released by the summer of 1916. The role of women as key political protagonists soon was relegated to secondary status, as events passed into the annals of history and the story of these women was drowned out by the nationalist overtures of a masculinised history. Like with the nationalist movement which predated the Rising, the concept of motherhood was a way of allowing women to share, and crucially assist, in the political experience of seeking independence for Ireland while simultaneously restricting what womanhood would actually entail in this new independent utopia. The result was a complicated silencing of these women’s contributions to the history of Irish nationalism, a dominant state narrative resulting in the continuation of an overtly exaggerated, masculinised militarism which would only start to slowly dismantle towards the end of the century.

From both the actual events of the conflict itself to the writing of its history, it is clear that political activism for Irish women was woven, quite literally, into the fabric of their everyday lives. Against a backdrop of rising militancy, women were able to exploit gendered expectations for their own political gain as well as challenge traditional domestic images by creating a militarised public space and identity, aided by their sartorial choices. We opened on the image of Markievicz, proudly bearing her arms as a political badge of honour. So it is apt to close on the group of women who participated in the Rising, photographed together in its aftermath during the summer of 1916 and capturing the diversity of women involved. The mix of military uniform blended in with the soft feminine dress of the period captures the quintessential essence of being a political woman in Ireland, emphasised by an ability to see the radical potential of clothing. By using the concept of a uniform, women were able to subvert the strictures of everyday gendered dress and redefine the parameters of their political participation. This photo captures the subtle nuances of Irish women’s efforts to overcome such difficulties, using clothing to challenge both political and social convention.

Tess Davidson is a freelance writer and journalist, recently graduated from King’s College Cambridge. She is currently working at the Times Literary Supplement.

1. Miss Nancy Wyse Power, BMH Witness Statement 541, p 17. ↩

2. The Irish Times, 2 May 1916. ↩

3. M Skinnider, Doing My Bit for Ireland (1917), p. 163. ↩

4. Mrs MacDowell (Maeve Cavanagh), BMH Witness Statement 258, p. 3. ↩

5. S McCoole, No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years 1900-1923 (2015), p. 31. ↩

6. Helena Molony, BMH Witness Statement 391, p. 54 ↩

7. A Matthews, Renegades: Irish Republic Women 1900-1922 (2010) , pp.97-8. ↩

8. ‘Constance Markievicz’s Allegorical Garden: Femininity, Militancy, and the Press, 1909-1915,’ Women’s Studies 29 (2000), 423-447, at p. 428. ↩

9. “The future of Irish Women”, a speech given by Countess Markievicz, October 1915. ↩

10. M Ward, In Their Own Voice: Women and Irish Nationalism ( 2001 edition), p. 52. ↩

11. L McDiarmid, At Home in the Revolution: What Women Said and Did in 1916 (2015), pp. 21-22.  ↩

12. Ibid ↩

13. A Matthews, p. 114. ↩

14. S McCoole, Guns and Chiffon: Women Revolutionaries and Kilmainham Gaol, 1916-1923, (1997) p. 16. ↩

15. M Skinnider, p.95. ↩

16. Mrs Catherine Rooney (Byrne), BMH Witness Statement 648, p.8. ↩

17. Mrs Mary ‘Marie’ Flanagan (Perolz), BMH Witness Statement 246, p. 7. ↩

18. Pašeta, Irish Nationalist Women, p. 181; Nic Shiubhlaigh, The Splendid Years, p. 168. ↩

19. Mrs Catherine Rooney (Byrne) BMH Witness Statement 648, p. 2. ↩

20. M Skinnider, p. 121. ↩

21. Ibid., p. 124. ↩

22. The Irish Times, 12 May 1916. ↩

23. Miss Rose McNamara, BMH Witness Statement 482, p. 9. ↩

24. M Skinnider, p. 142. ↩

IN A 1975 EPISODE of ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ Mary advises her spendthrift (and – unpopular opinion, maybe – fabulous) friend Phyllis on keeping to a budget.¹ Mary shows Phyllis her own monthly expenses, an exchange that leads Phyllis to ask what Mary would do if she saw a gorgeous coat that cost more than twice her monthly clothing budget. Phyllis describes the coat in so much detail that one wonders if it’s a theoretical garment or one Phyllis has her eye on. (It’s camel, leather-trimmed, and fits perfectly.) Mary insists she just wouldn’t buy it until saving up, case closed. It’s only when Phyllis gets to the part about the coat’s original price being hundreds of dollars higher that sensible Mary admits that she would splurge.

Mary and Phyllis illustrate two enduring stereotypes of female consumption: the greedy woman who craves the latest trend, and her frugal counterpart, who carefully budgets. But a crucial thing is different in 2017: Clothing these days is cheaper than it used to be,² and consumers spend proportionally less on it.³ This on-the-surface neutral fact has had a huge, if complicated, impact on fashion. There are, of course, the labour and environmental concerns raised by the proverbial dress that costs the same as a latte. And there is a cultural shift: Now that having a varied, up-to-date wardrobe has ceased to be a luxury for the few, the wealthy have needed to find other ways to distinguish themselves through dress: minimalism.

Minimalist fashion has emerged in implicit response to a myth: that overconsumption has become increasingly widespread, available not just to ladies of leisure, and that women’s hunger for the next new thing is filling landfills. The expression ‘fast fashion’ implies something more than affordability. It suggests a consumer who can’t pile the novelty items into her cart, real or virtual, quickly enough. Because it would be overtly cruel and snobbish to fault women on budgets (which, with stagnant wages and precarious work, is a lot of us) for trying to look presentable, the financial necessity of cheap clothes gets left out of the cultural conversation about inexpensive tank tops.

What’s chic, as always, is to be rich. But wealth is now signalled by standing apart from the Black Friday hordes (remember to post to Facebook about how you’re instead going skiing that day), or the 9-to-5 plebs who seek bargains for sport. Relatability, however, is also in style, so we’ve landed on a narrative of sorts: A (young, rich, photogenic) woman who used to buy All The Stuff, but who has learned the error of her ways, and now invests in a few choice, trend-indifferent items from upscale, and therefore ethical, shops.

It’s called the ‘capsule wardrobe.’ Brands and lifestyle bloggers encourage the sort of woman who might go in for clean-eating ‘bowls,’ and who apologises for having had overly plucked eyebrows in the early 2000s, to embrace it. Women are urged to ‘curate’ our wardrobes, paring them down to a few select items. But maybe we don’t own the right ones? Capsule dressing requires ‘basics,’ which any given woman may or may not already own, and thus tends to come with a list of suggestions, often described, confusingly, as ‘essentials.’

In a piece called ‘You’re doing the “capsule wardrobe” wrong,’ Kelly Dougher traces capsule dressing from its Seventies origins (with Susie Faux, a London shop-owner⁴ ) to the present: ‘[T]he capsule wardrobe,’ argues Dougher, ‘has sneakily been repackaged as a new vessel for our society’s obsession with consumerism.’⁵ Tips on how to shop less are somehow, she observes, shopping lists of their own. What gives?

The new minimalism sends a paradoxical message to women, that we should both feel ashamed for buying so much stuff – or such cheap stuff, as though the two are the same – and that we need to solve our materialism by caring more about what we own, and spending more on each item. Minimalist fashion, in all its pricey asceticism, is about exploiting women’s discomfort with our enjoyment of stuff.

This is, to be fair, a response to an ambivalence some women genuinely express. Caroline Joy Rector, of the capsule-wardrobe lifestyle blog Un-Fancy, explained the impetus for her project as follows: ‘I’d noticed that I had a bad habit of going shopping when I needed to jolt myself out of a bad mood.’⁶ Meanwhile, art director Matilda Kahl told Ad Age that after switching to uniform dressing (that is, wearing the same thing every day, ‘I no longer spend time on choosing clothes nor do I get self-conscious in meetings, which would happen occasionally before.’⁷

Where women are concerned, then, minimalist clothing advice is aimed at tamping down on overabundant desire. Rather than taking your inspiration from that awesome scarf on the woman at the coffee shop this morning, you’re to restrict yourself to sensible basics. Are you A Woman? You require The Navy Blazer, The Pencil Skirt, and so forth, and be sure to pay full price for each. Which brings us to the capsule’s cousin: the Basic Essentials list. (Think Goop’s ‘Ten Investment Pieces You’ll Have Forever,’⁸ which, in fairness, suggests a camel coat not unlike Phyllis’s ideal.)

As Nikki Ogunnaike has pointed out in Elle, these must-own lists have scant relationship with what any individual woman actually wants or needs to wear: ‘But really, can you tell me why I should own ballet flats before I turn 30 this January?’⁹ Elle backtracked from Ogunnaike’s well-put but not especially commercially-friendly point, publishing a clothes-to-own-by-30 guide a couple months later, complete with ballet flats.

The big lie behind these checklists is that there are ‘timeless’ items in the first place. It’s not that every garment goes out of style, but that there’s no way to know which will or when. A quick way to see this is to glance at timeless-classics lists published a decade ago.¹⁰ While the text version doesn’t much change in that timespan – boots, white shirts – the photos tell another story. Jeans you were called to ‘invest’ $200 in circa 2005 – and this is assuming they still fit – will look anything but modern today.

As minimalism has caught on as a trend more generally,¹¹ post-2008, the term has come to connote both the number of items and a particular aesthetic: the kind of gray-scale uniform that looks fabulous when displayed with blond wood floors and white walls, but that seems, once you’re wearing it (at least in my personal experience of, well, wearing it) like you’re in the same grey T-shirts that did nothing special for you as a sixteen-year-old.¹²

It’s good and well to make the case that you can keep wearing clothes that have gone out of style. Plenty of us do! But that’s not a case conducive to selling thousand-dollar trench coats. And it’s absolutely worthwhile to care about labour conditions in garment factories and the environmental impact of discarded clothes, concerns that sometimes weave their way into minimalist rhetoric. But is that what’s really going on when women are instructed to ‘invest’ in beige belted jackets that seem far more practical than they are?

Consider Ralph Lauren’s ‘Forever Pieces’ collection.¹³ (What could be more timeless than eternity?) Among the ‘five smart staples’: ‘the white pant,’ e-commerce-speak for white pants. The notion that this, the world’s most stainable garment would last ‘forever’ requires tremendous suspension of disbelief.

Minimalism’s critics regularly point out that stop-shopping tips all too often amount to advice to buy more than you would otherwise.¹⁴ The go-to example of this is of course Marie Kondo’s reminder to chuck what doesn’t ‘spark joy,’ a strategy all but guaranteed to end with having to buy all new T-shirts. Like diet advice, minimalist clothing tips have a way of encouraging a vulnerable audience to fall deeper into the hole from which they seek to escape. Some sort of French paradox is meant to ensue, where by spending thousands on a handbag, you wind up saving money and turning into an overall less materialistic person.

We see this most clearly with how capsule wardrobes are marketed differently at men than at women. Cladwell sends different messages in its ‘capsules for women’ and ‘roadmap for men’ sections. Men get this message: ‘Tell us what you’re like. We’ll tell you what to like.’ Women: ‘Have too many clothes and nothing to wear?’ Women will get help ‘reduc[ing] the clutter in your closet.’ Men: ‘A personal style guide that takes the guesswork out of clothing.’

The implied male recipient of minimalist clothing advice is a bumbling bachelor who for whatever reason doesn’t have a woman in his life available to make sure he goes out of the house looking like a reasonable adult. He finds shopping tedious, and so needs a checklist. For women, the problem being addressed is excessive enjoyment of shopping, and, secondarily, time sunk into in choosing what to wear each day.

A vocalised dislike of stuff is a way for a man to assert that he’s an adventurous sort who won’t be tied down. The stuff-averse man¹⁵ – think Mark Zuckerberg, proudly sticking with those grey T-shirts,¹⁶  but also everyday dudes who make a point in shuddering when the word “mall” is uttered – is setting himself apart from femininity (as manifested in men or women) and bourgeois responsibility. It doesn’t matter if he devotes his leisure time to rock-climbing or world-saving (and note that the protests that got the world revved up involved women wearing new pink hats). It’s enough for a man to announce a preference for ‘experiences,’ and his female interlocutor will find herself squirming, wondering if maybe the fact that she finds shopping non-torturous makes her a terrible person.

Perhaps because it’s so dead-set on selling us clothes, the new minimalism conveniently sets aside why women might be disproportionately inclined to go clothes-shopping, addressing the shopping, rather than the underlying (supposed) pathology. Is it really a callous, frivolous female indifference to labour conditions and landfills? Women need to look put-together to look professional, whereas certain men, in some settings, can be taken more seriously if they look a bit scruffy.¹⁷ (The flipside here is that men who enjoy clothes and shopping are often stigmatised for this gender-non-conforming behaviour.) Faced with fewer outlets for self-expression or status attainment, we turn a bit more than the dudes do to our own physical self-presentation. And because it would be rather grim not to, we often find ourselves enjoying the process.

If buying (or just browsing) clothes makes you happy, it doesn’t follow that you’re shopping yourself into debt, or are unable to leave your home, so packed has it become with leopard-print rompers. Liking stuff doesn’t necessarily mean purchasing tons of it, or that what you purchase is, on the whole, purchased new. As with all appetites, the desire for stuff exists at a whole range of intensities, and is only a problem if it’s a problem. Practice saying, “I like stuff,” if you do, and doing so with the confidence of someone who knows that the ostentatiously stuff-averse are consuming just as much as you are.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy’s first book, The Perils of ‘Privilege,’ comes out March 2017.

Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org).

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0642878/ ↩

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/fashion/29PRICE.html ↩

3. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-america-spends-money-100-years-in-the-life-of-the-family-budget/255475/ ↩

4. http://confidencetricks.susiefaux.com/?page_id=17 ↩

5. http://fashionmagazine.com/fashion/youre-doing-the-capsule-wardrobe-wrong/ ↩

6. http://www.un-fancy.com/capsule-experiment/ ↩

7. http://adage.com/article/agency-news/creative-explains-wears-uniform-work/297975/ ↩

8. http://goop.com/10-investment-pieces-youll-have-forever/ ↩

9. http://www.elle.com/fashion/personal-style/a31913/clothes-for-your-30s-lists/ ↩

10. See: http://www.popsugar.com/fashion/10-Fashion-Essentials-According-Tim-Gunn-763661 and http://www.popsugar.com/fashion/Top-10-Essentials-According-Nina-Garcia-769532 and http://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/2005/06/the-staples-for-every-womans-wardrobe.html ↩

11. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/magazine/the-oppressive-gospel-of-minimalism.html ↩

12. See: http://theblissfulmind.com/2015/08/17/capsule-wardrobe-basics/ and http://theeverygirl.com/how-to-create-a-capsule-wardrobe and http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/my-capsule-wardrobe-experiment-part-one-why-i-decided-to-pare-down-227039 ↩

13. http://www.ralphlauren.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=118121096 ↩

14. See my previous article: https://newrepublic.com/article/123561/dont-buy-this-jacket ↩

15. https://newrepublic.com/article/134651/bros-homes ↩

16. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/11217273/Facebooks-Mark-Zuckerberg-Why-I-wear-the-same-T-shirt-every-day.html ↩

17. http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/the-beheld/too-brilliant-to-bathe ↩

Following their delayed admittance into the church in a leadership capacity, female priests inherited a relatively masculine-looking uniform – one that offers little variation where body types and sartorial taste are concerned. Upon their ordination, women in Warde’s position must adopt a standard code of dress. When leading services, clergy members don more formal, distinctive garments known as vestments alongside their ankle-length, long-sleeved robes, which oftentimes reflect the liturgical colour of the day or season of the religious celebration. Outside of church services, clergy people wear what they call clericals – essentially, their ‘street clothes.’ Along with a detachable white clerical collar, a black shirt, pants or a conservative pencil skirt for women are generally acceptable; these modest, non-distracting garments turn the focus away from materialism, thereby illustrating the wearer’s commitment to serving God and their communities as selflessly as possible, even in quotidian life.

Twenty-nine-year-old Rev. Warde has chosen to take an active stance against the stuffiness she saw in most clericals on offer. Instead of succumbing to years of dreary, ill-fitting garments for the sake of fitting in, Rev. Warde aims to modernise her wardrobe through a mix of DIY-alterations, thrift store hunting, and subtle – if liturgically appropriate – colour accents. In the process, she’s proved that dressing with a sense of moral responsibility and religious devotion need not imply a lack of style.

Rev. Warde has not been alone in this effort. Across the pond, Rev. Sandra Sykes, her friend Mandy Strevens and their daughters Sarah and Melissa founded what is thought to be Britain’s first retailer for ‘clergy couture.’ Rev. Sykes, an Anglican curate, points out, ‘So often all you can find is badly adapted shirts and women have been in the ministry for over twenty-five years. It almost seems like we are hidden as women rather than being celebrated…There’s a deeper theological thing to this. Women need to be recognised fully as women in ministry.’² 

As Rev. Warde tells it, the decision-making process required of dressing for work and leisure as a woman of faith occasionally feels like a curse – but she’s warming up to the idea that it might just be a daily blessing in disguise.

I love fashion generally – I’ve always loved it. On my Sabbath, I read InStyle sometimes. I mean, I read the Bible as well, but I do love a good InStyle. I follow Project Runway and I love What Not to Wear and all those sorts of things. I already had this teenage interest in fashion. Then I realised I would be given my work uniform, and my work uniform has a lot behind it – it carries a lot of weight when you walk into a room. That can either be a really good thing or it can be a really challenging thing.

I was trying to figure out what it was going to carry when I wore it and what it was going to say when I walked into a room – I think that matters. I kept looking at these [catalogue] pictures, and there was nothing wrong with them, but I just realised that I couldn’t imagine ever putting that [uniform] on and feeling beautiful. I don’t think that the priesthood requires that we trade feeling beautiful in order to serve God. Full disclaimer: I will say that my relationship to my own body has been a rollercoaster of just figuring out how to love the skin I’m in in the first place, much less adding a collar to it. I wanted to figure out how I could do this thing that I feel like God asked me to do with my life and that I want to very joyously do, but also hold up this interior feeling of beauty. I didn’t want to lose that feeling of beauty – a beauty that I believe God gave me – just because no one decided to give the girl in the catalogue a belt. I also saw all these ways that the clerical uniform could have been better. I just thought, it doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s typical to wear a black clerical shirt, some form of pants or a pencil skirt, maybe a blazer over it and heels. That to me would be the expected outfit to wear. And there’s nothing wrong with that – there are some people who make that exact wardrobe look amazing. But my body isn’t such that that actually looks good on me; it looks like I’m dressed up in my mom’s clothes when I wear an outfit like that. I’m 4’11” and curvy, so my figure doesn’t lend itself toward some of those lines that are a little bit more common … It wouldn’t surprise you that the priesthood – a male-dominated workforce – would have a more expected, masculine dress profile. But I don’t fall into that profile, so I’ve had to figure out how to wear clothes that I think flatter my body in an appropriate way, while also wearing this collar.

I’ll go to a boutique and find a black dress with scalloped edges on the bottom and on the sleeve, and I just put that over the collar. They have this thing called a ‘janie’ – it’s basically a ‘dickey,’ but it’s a ‘janie’ for women – and it hooks down right under your bra basically, and you can connect your collar to it. You would typically wear your undergarment, your janie, and something over it as long as it covers the janie. I take dresses from boutiques – like maybe a houndstooth dress, but it’s black-and-white – and I throw that over the janie and go. But that would not necessarily be something that most people have seen with a collar attached to it. The typical colour for clergy wear is black, but if you go to Women Spirit or Almy – companies that make clergy attire – you’ll see that now you can get clericals in myriad colours.

For my first ordination, I went to a Goodwill in Austin, Texas, and found this black, button-up shirt-dress. It was really cute and it was the appropriate length and everything; hitting right at or just above the knee is best. Why do I care about the length? I think when you meet with the priest, the greatest presence you should feel in the room is the presence of God. Sure, I want to teach and preach from a place of confidence that is sometimes enhanced by my clothing: but the thing of the greatest importance to me is that the people I care for feel God’s presence. I don’t want a hemline to distract from that. I’d rather break every fashion rule in the book than challenge that.

One of my seminary classmates was a former tailor and she was about to get ordained as well, and I said, ‘Would you mind tailoring this for me?’ She tailored it, so I wore the black dress, leggings and black wedges. The colour for an ordination is red, so I put on a red scarf; I thought it would be appropriate for the liturgical season, but I also thought it would be fun and offer some colour. I have a red pair of cowboy boots and since I’m a priest in Texas I always wear them on Pentecost. The only reason I can even remember what I was wearing is because I did get some comments, but they were all positive. People were commenting on how they’d never seen such a fashionable priest.

That said, I was serving in a diocese when I was ordained a priest that considered white to be the appropriate colour for the vestments for ordinations, which was new to me, but I went with it. White is how we recognise the majesty of resurrection: it’s how we celebrate All Saints, Easter, baptism Sundays, and funerals, because white celebrates the resurrection of Christ and how we share in that via our own resurrecting acts and our final resurrection in death.  Ordination could also be seen as a resurrecting act, because we take on a new way of life with new vows, new beauties, new challenges and new eternal joys. My colours change based on context.

The ironic thing about the clerical uniform is that one of the early significances of it was to make a clergy person be in the background. It was worn as an act of humility, so they wouldn’t be flamboyant; they wouldn’t be outwardly dressed in a way that would call attention to themselves. It’s ironic in a postmodern world, because I can’t walk into any place in a collar and not have a million people staring at me, like, ‘What on earth? Did a priest just walk into this coffee shop? And she’s also a woman? I don’t know what to do with that right now.’ That’s a whole other layer. The fashion aspect is constantly also being confronted with the reality that there are people who believe that women should not be ordained. And I have a physical manifestation of my ordination that goes with me when I walk into those places – that’s another challenge that just comes with it. Now the joy of it is that you also end up having conversations that you otherwise wouldn’t have had. People can see your collar and sometimes they have needed a sign for years that they could talk to someone, that they could have a prayer – you walk in, and you’re just trying to get your groceries, but they see this opportunity and there’s a really holy moment that is offered to me because of the fact that they can see on my neck an opportunity for a prayer or maybe hope or someone that they can trust. 

As far as negative feedback I’ve received, I think that every good has a shadow side. And the shadow side of adding fashion as a thing that I’m thinking about in my ministry is the idea that it might become self-centred – that putting on this collar might be about me. And to some degree, yes, by adding aspects of my personality to it, it is becoming about me. But my belief around that is that I’m not trying to take God out of it. God is the focus of my life and I want my life to be a ministry to God – I just think that God called me, Erin Jean Warde, to be a priest. And so I’m going to bring who God created me to be into that ministry. I think I want to honour the worry – that it then becomes self-centred and it’s no longer about God, it’s about you and your ego, and all of that Freudian, terrible stuff that we don’t want to show up in our priesthood – but at the same time, I think it’s okay to say, ‘I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel beautiful, because I believe that God desires that I would feel beautiful.’ That’s part of this abundant life that I believe the ministry is calling me into. 

If you know me personally, you know that I am comedic, I am extroverted, and I think that laughter is the best accessory to any outfit. But I’m also outspoken and I like to talk and I’m curious, so for me, I wanted those parts of my personality to be reflected in my fashion, even from before I was a priest. There is a connection for me between when I look my best and I feel like I look my best, in being able to more confidently walk into a room that might otherwise be intimidating. The life of being a priest, at least in my setting, involves standing in front of a lot of people. And it’s not necessarily four hundred people, but it’s a congregation of people. I think for me, it’s not so much appearance for the sake of anyone else, but I want to be able to feel self-confident, because that’s when I believe I do my best – for God and for the church.

My exploration is wrapped up in the fact that I am a very feminine person. I have really long hair, and I like to curl it, and I like red lipstick and I just went to a gala at my church in a black midi-dress with my collar and my red heels and a red lip. And it was fantastic. I loved every minute of it. That’s who I am. If you didn’t put me in a career where I would wear a collar, I would wear the same thing. It just wouldn’t have a collar on it. As I get older, and as I go through this journey of self-exploration, I’m just trying to figure out how to be the same person in every room I stand in.

Rev. Erin Jean Warde is the Associate Rector for Christian Formation at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, Texas.

Olivia Aylmer is a New York-based writer, editor and graduate of Barnard College at Columbia University.

1. B Tammeus, ‘Episcopal church celebrates 40 years of women in the priesthood.’ National Catholic Reporter, 28 July 2014 https://www.ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/episcopal-church-celebrates-40-years-women-priesthood ↩

2. J Bingham, ‘“Clergy couture” range launched for fashion-conscious female priests.’ The Telegraph, 21 May 2016 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/21/clergy-couture-range-launched-for-fashion-conscious-female-pries/ ↩

Aaron Rose: This interview is going to be a bit different from the usual ones because we are going to speak about fashion and in particular costume…

Kenneth Anger: Yes. It’s great! You know I’ve just come from Paris where I was invited to the opening of the Valentino show.

Aaron: Yes, I would love to talk about that, but if it’s ok let’s go back for a second. My assignment here is to write about fashion and the occult, but since you are not a fashion designer this would really be more about costumes. When did you first start thinking about costumes?

Kenneth: Well, the story behind that is that my grandmother, her name was Bertha Coler, she was also known as Big Bertha, she was a costume mistress and a designer, who looked after the costumes during the silent film period in Hollywood. The most notable film that she worked on was The Eagle in 1925. It was one of the films starring Rudolf Valentino. It was the only swashbuckling action film that he made. It was done a little bit in the spirit of Douglas Fairbanks films.

Aaron: So you grew up around costumes?

Kenneth: Yes, and then when my grandmother died she left me her collection of robes from the films that she had worked on. This included some costumes from Clara Bow films, and of course these costumes are very fragile! Silk is an organic substance and it has to be looked after very carefully or the fibres will tear. I gave all those costumes to the British Film Institute in London some years ago. I don’t think they have put any of them on display, but they do have them.

Aaron: When I was first given this assignment I immediately thought of the opening scene from your film Puce Moment where you have all the vintage dresses sliding towards and tearing away from the camera.

Kenneth: Yes! Those belonged to my grandmother as well. They are different dresses from the 1920s – from the Jazz age. Those are flapper dresses.

Aaron: Why did you decide to tear them away like you did?

Kenneth: Because in the slightly satirical idea behind that particular short film, the girl in the film is supposed to be sorting through her closet to find the dress she wants to wear. So she’s pulling one after another off the rack, then looking at it and tossing it aside.

Aaron: It seems as though costume and fashion have played a major role in most of the films you have made. Why is that?

Kenneth: You have to consider the fact that I’ve never had budgets; my films have always been very modestly produced by myself. I mean, my entire budgets are what a major film would spend on hairpins! But costumes are important. I’ve used a lot of uniforms and I do consider those costumes…because they are. They’re not ordinary street wear. I’ve made several films with military uniforms, and finally I made a film recently called Uniform Attraction, which is about the fetishistic interest in military uniforms. In fact, I don’t care whether it’s a policeman or an orderly in a hospital or a fighter in an army; the purpose of uniforms ever since Roman times is to transform a person from a civilian into a unit. So the fact that everyone wears the same type of uniform makes you into a cohesive unit.

Aaron: Weren’t the costumes in your first film uniform related?

Kenneth: Yes. Fireworks has the white summer uniforms, they’re called Summer Whites of the United States Navy. Those were genuine uniforms too! In other words, I used real sailors in my films. I didn’t have to hire the uniforms from a costume house, so they are authentic because the uniforms are real and so are the bodies inside.

Aaron: Symbolism is very important to you. You seem to continually reference the fact that things in life happen by chance and I’m wondering if that plays into the symbolism you use in the costumes for your films?

Kenneth: It definitely does. I know what I’m doing. I’m not what you’d call some kind of drug-crazed maniac like some other film directors. I’m talking about somebody like Jack Smith who was kind of crazy. I knew him quite well and I even helped him on a couple of his projects, but I’ve had a longer life span than Jack.

Aaron: Well, it seems like everything you do has a very specific meaning, as well as very strong historical and personal ties.

Kenneth: I hope so. You know, I’m making personal films. I’ve never tried to break into the commercial film world because I like making short films. I don’t like making three-hour films or even two-hour films. I also like working with found footage. The film I made on the Hitler Youth is using found footage that I got from the Imperial War Museum in London. They were the boy scouts of Hitler’s Germany.

Aaron: Which is again very costume oriented…

Kenneth: Oh absolutely! Of course if you take off the armbands with the swastikas, what the boys are wearing with the short pants and beige colour are practically identical to the traditional Boy Scouts! The Nazis copied the Boy Scouts. The Nazis took it over for their future brainwashed warriors. I don’t know how much you now about the Boy Scouts, but the idea at the beginning was always to prepare the boys to go into military service.

Aaron: I didn’t know that…but it makes a lot of sense. I’m starting to grasp the historical references, but what is your personal connection to uniforms?

Kenneth: Well, I served in the United States Navy when I was a teenager in the closing days of World War II. I didn’t do the whole term because I came down with scarlet fever. I do have a photo someplace of me in a sailor uniform.

Aaron: Let’s switch gears for a minute. In preparation for this, I was looking back at your film, Invocation of My Demon Brother and I noticed that the way you shot that film is very reminiscent of the trends in fashion photography from that time. Were you looking at those fashion images for inspiration?

Kenneth: I have always been very aware of fashion, and I certainly looked at a lot of it. I mean, not just Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue… and after I moved to Europe, in Paris in the 1950s, I became a friend of Yves Saint Laurent. This is just when Yves took over from Christian Dior and I was invited to some of those early shows.

Aaron: So you were aware of what was happening in fashion imagery at that time?

Kenneth: Oh yes! Absolutely. However I’ve never gone into commercial work. Luckily that’s something that I’ve never felt like I’ve had to do because I had enough money to get by in my bohemian lifestyle. However, if I ever had to go commercial, I probably would have chosen something in fashion.

Aaron: I’ve noticed in your films from the 1960s and 1970s, there seems to be repetitive symbolism in your costumes. In particular, images of triangles or motifs of eyes and such. Is there a reason for this?

Kenneth: Well, yes. Like in Lucifer Rising, the triangle is a symbol of the pyramids in Egypt. The triangle shape is an occult symbol for fire. That’s an upward pointed triangle. A downward pointed triangle is a symbol for water. These are ancient symbols and they are very simple. When you combine the two you make a Star of David. Many people don’t know that.

Aaron: What was the personal significance to you in using the triangular patterns?

Kenneth: I am a member of the OTO, which is like an honorary organization that means Ordo Templi Orientis. I’ve been a member for years. It was founded by Aleister Crowley back around 1910. It’s a little bit like the Freemasons or something like that. But I don’t go to meetings. In other words, I’m an honorary member, but I don’t have to really do anything. I know a few of the other people involved and I’ll speak to them when I run into them, but I’m not a club type of person. I’m a loner. I am definitely on the occult wavelength, but I prefer to work alone.

Aaron: But you’ve most certainly pulled references from the occult into your films…

Kenneth: I hope so! I do that for my own pleasure and whether they are understood by the general audience I don’t care! They are there, and I think they have a power and an invocation. Whether you see or you understand the power of an eye in a triangle, that still has a whole occult background. Like the Seeing Eye, that symbol goes back hundreds, maybe thousands of years! So maybe I’ll just flash it at you for a few frames, you know, very quickly.

Aaron: I’m curious why, if you describe yourself as a loner, you belong to this club and reference uniforms and organizations so much in your work?

Kenneth: Well, with regard to the OTO, as I said, I don’t go to their meetings, but I’ve never been expelled. In other words, I haven’t given away any of their secrets. They sometimes will say to someone, “Well you know you haven’t paid your dues, or you’ve told someone something you weren’t supposed to.” But I haven’t done that. On the other hand, I’ve studied Aleister Crowley my whole life, and it’s no secret that he involved actual lovemaking as part of his magic. So that could be interpreted as being some kind of sex scandal, if you want to look at it that way. You know, his idea that making love can be part of magic or ceremony? That doesn’t mean it happened all the time, though. It was occasional…like when the moon was right or something.

Aaron: Were those ideas something that you have tried to communicate aesthetically?

Kenneth: Well, yes, in my own personal way. But I’ve never filmed a ritual. I’ve always filmed a kind of a vision…like as if you were looking into a crystal ball. Not using dialogue or speech. I always use music. That’s my own personal style of interpreting these things.

Aaron: That’s one reason why I love your style. You’ve never had to show actual sex to make it sexy.

Kenneth: That’s right. I think it’s better. Suggest rather than show. Pornography is boring! I mean, so what? It’s in, then it’s out, then it’s in again. When you’re actually performing in a sexual way with someone that you’re attracted to, you forget that it’s sort of just “in and out and in and out.” That doesn’t matter! It becomes like a symphony…and it should be! Hopefully! There’s supposed to be an art to lovemaking.

Aaron: Are there ways that you can specifically speak of where you’ve referenced that symbolically in your costumes?

Kenneth: Well, I think costumes and clothing in general are more interesting than the naked skin. That’s just my own interpretation. The motifs that I have recurring over and over again in my films are not about striptease. It’s the opposite. It’s about dress up. I always show people dressing. They are putting clothes on rather than taking them off. So it’s the opposite of striptease. It’s playing dress-up. To me that is how people really express themselves. Through clothes or costumes. I particularly like the motorcycle fellows in Scorpio Rising. Those are not actors. They are genuine working class fellows that love their motorcycles.

Aaron: Yes…and nobody is getting undressed in that film. They are all putting on their gear…

Kenneth: That’s right. That’s the Kenneth Anger touch.

Aaron: Is that symbolism related to a way you live life spiritually? I’d like to go back to this idea of chance, or rather the lack of chance in life. The idea of pre-determination. It seems like everything in your life and work fits together like pieces of a puzzle…

Kenneth: Well, it’s nice to believe that you have a favourable guardian angel or something, but it’s all a fairytale. In other words, I don’t really believe that. But I have had fortunate happenstances in my life where things seem to fall into place. Either I have a situation where the people I work with are ideal, like the poetess Anaïs Nin, who I knew when I made Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, and she agreed to appear in it. Also, Marjorie Cameron, who in real life has bright red hair, became my scarlet woman in the film. So those things just kind of fell into place.

Aaron: Are there any other aesthetic choices that you’ve made that were driven by coincidence?

Kenneth: Well, I just go with the flow. For instance, when I was living in England in the 1960s, it just so happened that I was friends with Marianne Faithfull. She was recovering from drug addiction at the time, and I cast her as a devil in my film Lucifer Rising. She played Lilith. Lilith is a powerful female demon from the Babylonian times. But working in my film, when she was recovering from her heroin addiction, was kind of a therapy for her. I told her at the time that she was playing Lilith, but the real idea of the character was to get the demon out of her system.

Aaron: Looking back on all these films you’ve made, and specifically in relation to the costumes, is there anything that you wish you had done differently?

Kenneth: Well, it isn’t that I wished anything was different, it’s just that there were ideas that I had that were beyond my means. So with the films that I’ve realised, I’ve just managed to do them and get through them, but there are other ideas that I’ve had that I wished could have been different. For instance, my film Rabbit’s Moon. I made all those costumes myself. That was Pierrot, you know the sad clown, he is basically just in a large white T-shirt. It’s silk, and it’s very loose…like white pyjamas. But he’s always shown in a kind of sloppy white suit with buttons on the front and then a white skull-cap and white paint on his face. He’s dedicated to the moon. That’s why he’s in all white. His rival is Harlequin, and Harlequin has quadrangles on his costume…

Aaron: And you made all of those costumes?

Kenneth: I made them, but I also had some help. I had somebody to work on the sewing machine for me. Then as for Columbine, she’s the girl who teases and torments Pierrot, and then he falls hopelessly in love with her. Yet she is the actual demoness of Harlequin. Harlequin is actually Lucifer. In other words, he is the devil. In the film he is shown as a playful devil, in other words, playing pranks. I show, in Rabbit’s Moon, that Columbine is just a projection out of the magic lantern of Harlequin.

Aaron: What about in your later films? Did you continue to have a big say in the costumes or were there other people making those decisions for you?

Kenneth: Well, when I was living in England I had Jann Haworth. At the time she was married to the artist Peter Blake. I met her at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London, and I asked her if she would like to work on some costumes for me. However, for the most part, I designed them. For instance, the coloured satin Lucifer jacket with the rainbow spectrum on the back, and then the letters in gold leather that spell out Lucifer, those were personally made for me by Jann. It was a good collaboration. That jacket that she made, I donated to the British Film Institute. They never displayed it, but they have it.

Aaron: What about the motorcycle jacket from Scorpio Rising? Who has that now?

Kenneth: Well, I actually made that one. In other words, I did the lettering on it. I used those chrome studs. So I did all that, which is basically pretty easy. You just draw it on the leather and then stick these chrome disks on it. I actually gave that jacket away. One of the motorcycle guys that worked on my film and used to ride me around on the back of his Harley asked for it, and I said, “Ok, take it,” and he just rode off in it on his motorcycle. That was the last I saw of it.

Aaron: You know fashion is something that is so flighty. It’s a transient medium. Yet films for the most part aren’t created that way…

Kenneth: The diabolical thing about fashion is that they are supposed to come up with new ideas for every season, but the seasons, especially as you get older, seem to come faster and faster. Suddenly you have to come up with new ideas, all of a sudden it’s a new season, and what they have discovered is that they can pick up ideas that have gone before and simply retread them. So I think it’s amusing to see some of these ideas come back. You know, in the 1940s when I was growing up it was wartime. It was also the time of Joan Crawford, who was very beautiful then. They began to dress in a mannish fashion, with padded shoulders. Because there was a war going on, they had a more military look, even though they were not in the military…and they’ve brought that back a couple of times. Then there were clogged shoes…

Aaron: This seems like a good segue to speak about the Valentino show that you did recently in Paris…

Kenneth: There are two young designers, who I believe are both Italians, who did this latest Valentino show. Valentino himself is the producer, but he’s not directly involved in the design anymore. Anyway, they approached me to do the light show behind this year’s runway presentation in Paris. It was done outside of the city in what’s normally an industrial space. It’s a big warehouse. It’s longer than a football field. Everything was white. There were white benches for the people to sit on, and white walls, white seats and white cushions. So three walls are white and on these they projected images from my films that I personally chose. They were mostly images from Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. They are quite Baroque images with a lot of oranges and hot colours.

Aaron: Were you cited as an influence for the collection itself?

Kenneth: The colours from my images were only occasionally echoed in the clothes on the runway. It wasn’t like they copied images off of the screen or anything. But anyway, so these images from Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome were projected on the walls during that half hour before the show while people are being seated. Then, when the runway was happening, they used only images from my Tivoli Fountain film, which were in blue. So there were all these water images that made a wonderful background for the runway show.

Aaron: Did you love it?

Kenneth: Yeah! As a matter of fact, I may try to do something like this again in America. They used nine projectors pointed from the ceiling. Everywhere were these abstract water effects of these splashing fountains. It worked really well. Because of all the water, there was this kind of exuberance going on.

Aaron: How did it feel to sit there and watch that?

Kenneth: It was delightful because I’ve never seen my films shown on nine projectors at once! It was great. I was very happy with it. The Valentino people were very nice to me.

Aaron: At times you’ve mentioned that you saw the cinema as an evil force. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Kenneth: Well, I happen to be a prankster in a sense. A trickster or a prankster. Lucifer tends to be a sort of prankster figure in my imagination. So when I say it’s evil, I mean evil on my terms. I don’t mean evil like, let’s say, the Nazis or something. My conception of evil is something that becomes an obsession. Cinema has become my obsession. In a way I’d like to move away from it and just be free for the last period of my life. I’d love for this period to be one of meditation or contemplation, but it’s not going to happen because I still have ideas for films I want to do. It never lets me go.

This article was originally published in Vestoj On Magic.

Aaron Rose is a director, artist and curator based in Los Angeles.