While Rufus Wainwright warbled “Over the Rainbow” in the background, fashion designers Viktor & Rolf staged a “subversive” runway show under the Louvre in Paris on Monday afternoon in which stereotypical gender roles were tossed aside:
It was just before the final parade of models appeared, however, that what could have been another canned fashion spectacle turned into something else. Pumped from the ceiling, a bank of artificial fog rolled onto the runway. Suddenly, through the mist, appeared eight men in tailcoats and with patent-leather hair. Filing onto the catwalk as the orchestra struck up a song, each turned crisply to another, partnered and began to dance.
Fred and Ginger became Fred and Fred.
It was not the Stonewall rebellion. It was not Paris, May 1968. Yet, amid all the posturing and attitudinizing that goes on in fashion (and let's say we ditch the concept of rock 'n' roll “rebels,” a fashion chestnut, now that Mick Jagger has a knighthood and Bono has turned into Kofi Annan), there was something sharp and resolute, even radical, about this one small moment.
If you've ever wondered what a gay wedding in the Emerald City might look like…
Radical, Chic [nyt]
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Viktor & Rolf/Rufus Wainwright Collaboration #2 [tr]
(thanks Jonno and Peter)