BLACKLASH
Should black really be the colour of protest?
In Hollywood, no one asks: “What are you wearing to the awards?” The correct question, as any Alister knows, is: “Who are you wearing?” Things took an odd turn before the 2018 Golden Globes ceremony, however. Previously, standard answers to “Who are you wearing?” involved Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein (no longer Marchesa, after allegations that Harvey Weinstein forced stars in his employ to wear his wife’s label).
Last week in Los Angeles, a bevy of actresses wore black to the Golden Globes to protest against sexual harassment and gender inequality. This monotone parade shifted the focus of the fashion press away from who designed the dresses, which pleased those women — among them Reese Witherspoon — who have been encouraging reporters to conduct less facile red-carpet interviews since the Ask Her More campaign was launched in 2014.
Instead, much more attention was paid to the guests of the nominees. Emma Stone was accompanied by tennis legend and champion of sporting equality Billie Jean King (a natural decision, given that Stone plays King in the film Battle of
the Sexes). Not to be outdone, Michelle Williams invited Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too Movement in 2006 and director of Girls for Gender Equity. Susan Sarandon took community organiser Rosa Clemente. Emma Watson’s partner was Marai Larasi, British advocate of minority rights, and Meryl Streep’s was Ai-jen Poo, director of the US National Domestic Workers Alliance. On Laura Dern’s arm was female farmworkers activist Monica Ramirez.
Nicole Kidman, who won an award for her performance in Big Little Lies, bucked the trend with husband Keith Urban at her side, but she too wore black. While many applauded this act of sartorial protest, there was some blacklash. Would it not have been more useful, asked critics, if the stars wore tatty old jeans to the Golden Globes and donated the cost of designer gowns to organisations that oppose the abuse of women in more practical ways?
Even the stirring speeches given by Kidman, Oprah Winfrey and others drew adverse reaction from some quarters. Catherine Deneuve was one of 100 French academics, writers and artists who signed an open letter denouncing the extremes of the #MeToo and Time’s Up initiatives, which they implied have become witch-hunts that do not discriminate between rapists and men who are merely flirtatious. France and the US are now at war over what many American women perceive as a betrayal of sisterhood.
The French femmes did not specifically complain about how the wearing of black made the Golden Globes look like cheerleader practice in the Addams family home, but it might have been this act of cultural appropriation that set them off.
It was a Frenchwoman, Coco Chanel, who coaxed black out of mourning and put it on the backs of the glamour pack. Until 1926 it was considered distasteful to wear black to anything but a funeral. Then Vogue magazine published a drawing of Chanel’s revolutionary “little black dress”, predicting that it would one day be “a sort of uniform for all women of taste”. How right they were. Designers have toiled for decades to bring black into the light. This attempt to turn it back into a colour of lamentation is an insult to their labours.
What would happen if black became associated only with outrage? Every time South African star Terry Pheto wore black (which she does frequently and exquisitely) people would ask what she was angry about, which might start to wear thin after a while.
That’s not to say that black can’t make a strong statement. Princess Diana wore a daring black silk dress designed by Christina Stambolian to a Vanity Fair party in 1994, on the same night that her TV interview, in which she told the world how Prince Charles had cheated on her during their marriage, was watched by millions. It was a calculated choice; the dress screamed revenge.
Black speaks many languages, as Michelle Obama demonstrated during her reign as First Lady of Fashion. For her official White House portrait in 2009, she wore a sleeveless black Michael Kors dress that showed off her muscular arms. To both prudes and the approving, the dress said: “This lady means business.” Later that year Obama appeared on Vanity Fair’s international best-dressed list, pictured in a dress by French-Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa at a Nato summit in Germany. It was a powerful and considered choice that lent dignity and a touch of European elegance to the US delegation.
The black dress has also been used to great effect on the silver screen. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961, Holly Golightly (played by Audrey Hepburn) wore a Givenchy dress that enhanced her fragile yet spunky persona. It continues to appear on lists of the “most iconic little black dresses of all time”. As one of the first reviewers commented, Hepburn, assisted by the dress, entranced audiences “with her own special brand of vulnerability”.
Important things were said at the Golden Globes, but they were not said by little black dresses. While supporting the goals of equality and respect for women, many would argue that the sorority stunt of wearing all black was, in fact, decidedly colourless.