My goodness, one year old! What a great year for fashion! Here’s a few highlights from the past year, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I have writing! Yay! These are some of my favorites, some articles that maybe didn’t get enough love in my huuuuumble opinion and a few little updates… and yes I know it’s really self congratulatory, but thus is the life of the Boulevardier!
This one again! I could have easily also called this most vindicated or most colorful/belligerent comments but yeeeeah, this was pretty outrageous, all in all. Everything seemed to turn out alright though, and ended up being a grand victory for feminism I’d say! The Cycle Jerks broke up and never did their little Gang Bang b.s. and Jen ended up putting together an all women’s alley race. As well, the venue where the all male art show was held featured about 5 local women artists in a row, so yay for feminism! Also thanks so much to all my friends for being so supportive and talking with me for hours and hours about the same thing for that week! You all are gems!
The first post, a sort of tongue and cheek look at the ridiculous garments we get at the Free Boutique and they’re colorful history. This sweater was donated by Rod Kershenstein, the octogenarian homophobic staunch republican, went up the beaches in Normandy grandfather of Kate. I wore this sweater for a while then gave it up for the recent Lorca memorial, where Dylan picked it up for his annual Christmas walk down the beach in California with his mom. What a life, I wonder where it will go from there!
AAAAH Chuck Bass! I still love him! Recently Ed Westwick was featured in the uber chic uber snobby Arena Homme Plus, with a lovely photo shoot likening him to Marlon Brando, I agree! Within the last year Chuck has admitted to be bisexual, cleaned up his act (perhaps too much) and done a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember because the plotline of Gossip Girl is written by a poodle. But Chuck’s fashion has also taken a turn for the worse, Eric Daman apparently got another job making his own fashion line and I get the impression he’s been calling it in. Apparently, after the Hamptons outfit, pictured prominently above, the producers told Daman to tone it down because Chuck was looking too gay… even though in the books his flamboyancy is off the charts to the point that he has a pet monkey that wears coordinated outfits, not to mention steals teeth sharpening Dan Humprey’s beau right under his nose. We want more of that.
Tom Ford: Apparently he is making a new movie with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore based on the Christopher Isherwood book, Single Man, Yay! I can’t wait! I hope he does a better job fashion wise than he did in James Bond! Oh did I ever mention that I heart heart Colin Firth, he’s lovely, no? It is widely acknowledged that his role as Mr. Darcy set the stage for all Darcys to follow, he is the original, which is hilahrious because in an interview he claimed that in order to get into the character of Mr. Darcy he simply pretended that he had a huge boner and was constantly trying to hide it… Interesting, yes?
I’m still obsessed with the adult contemporary mustache. It’s not for everyone, me in particular, but I know fashion when I see it and there it is. But yeah, if you are inclined towards irony in your attire or Americana, forget about it, you’ll just end up looking like an extra from Captain Kangaroo.
Wrestling Fashion Smackdown: This was hands down the most fun I had with fashion this year, and turned out to be rather influential I would say. In NYC they started an anarchist wrestling party and we were declared the best party of the weekend by at least one fancy gay magazine as well, all the singlets have been gifted out into the world and who knows where they’ll surface next!
If you didn’t catch it when I wrote it, there’s a lovely quote by Gogol about a suit made of the flames of Navarro… the feeling described is what we should all strive for when we get dressed!
Last week, Ariel, Israel and I all dressed as Molly Macguires for the Martyr’s Ball, a benefit for the Anarchist Black Cross where everyone was to dress as anarchist martyr’s throughout history. I hadn’t heard of them before, but Ariel informed me that they were this gang of Irish peasants in the 1760’s that wore dresses and sabotaged the landlord’s fences, reclaimed properties, freed bound apprentices and sent nasty letters. It was successful enough to gain massive popularity and inspire dozens of similar groups though the uprising was brutally crushed by the state’s militia. After reading the timeline of queer anarchist precedents over here and from the little that I’ve been able to uncover about the topic there’s a *rich* history of transwomen in Irish liberation struggles.
(Mexican cowboy boots found by kate)
A chapter of the Molly Macquires was started in the US as well, in the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania, where they were a militant union who also dressed in drag and was of the first groups to be targeted by the Pinkerton vigilantes, the name for the early FBI. Like the FBI, the Pinkertons used extralegal methods to spy on them, create infighting, organize lynch mobs, then when the Molly’s were caught, they fabricated evidence and had them all hung. Government.
But not everything here is ancient history ending in the state killing a bunch of anarchists, (though it often seems that way!) a lot of the Molly Macguires refused to settle into the indentured servitude that the English wanted them to, and became what we now call Irish Travellers, which are modern day grifters that live out of trailer homes and go from town to town scamming and hoodwinking for a living. There might not be a lot of politics going down in these groups these days but their heart seems to be in the right place. As you’ll note, though all accounts say it’s a pretty rough life, they still manage to keep up their appearances. Fashion!
a cat hat worn by an irish traveler
That last one is a picture taken from Paula Allen, who has traveled around the world capturing all sorts of amazing cultures, here’s an lovely but unrelated picture from when she spent time in the Cuban underground queer scene…
There are Irish Travelers in the US as well, mostly in the South and a lot of them live in South Carolina in a town called Murphy Village, here is an article in Time about them and here is another good one as well. And history comes alive!
Speaking of Irish Travellers, there’s something that’s been on my mind recently. This whole time, I have been crystal clear in my stance on loving melodramatic, gender bending telenovelas based on grifters and con-folk, and yet, AND YET not one of you informed me about a magical little show about Irish travelers called The Riches. Hmph. I had to find it myself, and you know what, thanks to you it’s already cancelled. Thanks a lot for keeping my in the loop. You people…
Anyway, so it’s a great show. I gobbled it up in no time. [speaking of gobble, turkeys are extremely intelligent, magnificent creatures, and not to infantilize them, but rather cute little dinosaurs as well, so don't eat them please.] Eddie Izzard, that hilarious babbling t-girl, is the producer and it is all about a family of southern Irish travelers that steal the identities of these dead yuppies and squat their McMansion in a ridiculous gated community, and in the meanwhile posing as lawyers and what not to keep up the facade.
Sound dramatic? Well, throw in Minni Driver with a meth addiction, a sociopath that bribes them and murders a couple people on the way, an endless slew of almost getting busted, the russian mob, another scary Irish Traveller that’s even scarier than the first, teenage runaways, mobs of angry football fans, and yeah it’s stressful. I don’t know, it raised my blood pressure about a 1000%, but then again I’m a sensitive tv watcher, my claim to fame is the time that I cried while watching a clip from Transformers while walking around a Best Buy when it was playing on their like 50 screens… [btw speaking of Best Buy, isn't this interesting?] But check it out if you get a chance, this is a good site to watch them all on, all it takes is one episode to get hooked. There are so many fantastic parts, Eddie Izzards attempts at being a high powered lawyer, the drag queen disco party, an investment grift that they pull or the constant crazy crazy drama. As far as fashion goes, one of my favorite characters is Sam, the youngest of the family who wants to be a girl but has to be a boy to keep up the grift, though ends up with her own gender bending fashion that offers some great examples of grifter tranny fashion.
There's Sam on the left, while the family is being held up by these rednecks that catch them trying to steal their car and take them hostage because they were cheated by other travelers who said they were going to check their house for termites, then released termites into the house and offered to remove them then skipped town...
But to return to our t-girl theme and to Ireland, I would also recommend one last movie, Breakfast on Pluto if you haven’t seen it already, which is about a transwoman who participates in the IRA in the 70’s and her experiences with being an outcast as being Irish and being transgender. It’s just a really pleasant movie.
So yeah, I’m not really sure if this post has or needs a point but if there was one, it would be that radical Irish history is sparkling with angry grifty T-girls willing to do what it takes to really show ‘em!
Here’s the latest look from the series I’m doing on court fashion for Ariel Attack. If you remember, she was arrested for smashing the windows at the Democratic Headquarters a couple months back, and today was her second court date. Things seem to be looking good for her, to get the whole scoop, check out the Denver ABC’s website here. For this session we decided to go for something related to Guy Fawkes, being November 5th and all. Not wanting to look too costumey we wanted a more muted palette, once again harkening back to the notion of innocence that I discussed last time.
The cape, or pièce de résistance, was made from a suit jacket that had a matching skirt and is sort of my take on a formal fall cape. Underneath, is the classic tie, oxford and cardigan getup, albeit keeping within a strict monochromatic palate.
This look once again addresses the formality demanded within court, but because she is overdressed, she has a greater freedom to express her resistance to both gender norms and the sobriety of the state. This is certainly a truism for court fashion, but can be applied to most situations, I find that the “casual” look is only comfortable in its acquiescence to the status quo, whether it be through militaristic, gender normative or cultural appropriative garments. With a little planning, one can choose a set of confrontational and attractive staples that you can wear continuously as your own regalia. No matter how “formal” they appear, clothes have a long life and when worn in this manner gain a certian wabi sabi, a term Dylan recently turned me onto that I believe finds a comfortable home in fashion.
Artist Statement: On the morning of August 19th, 1936 Spain’s most beloved poet, Federico García Lorca, was shot near an olive tree, his body thrown into a pit with thousands of others. He was murdered by nationalist insurgents, at the age of 38, because he was gay and an anarchist sympathizer. Last week, after 70 years, began the excavation of Lorca’s grave – a tentative step towards addressing the atrocities that happened under the Falangist regime. There is a saying in Spain: everyone within this grave, all mass graves, all the disappeared, are all Lorca’s.
The installation is a take on the free store, a concept popular during the Spanish Civil War, where clothes are donated by the community and gifted back into the community without any direct exchange. Viewers are encouraged to participate in this memorial by taking a gift and/or leaving one- clothing, notes, trinkets.
An Experimental Memorial for Federico García Lorcainvestigates the use of gift economy to explore the way we interact with the past and how we collectively process and heal. In that context these gifts become talismans that carry the memory of Lorca, and all the disappeared, on our bodies and act as a lens by which we are able to create a collective memory of their work and their lives.
Sooooo! This Friday is the opening of the Free Boutique’s most ambitious project yet, An Experimental Memorial for Federico García Lorca and whew! It has been a ton of work… check it out! the Boulevardier using heavy machinery!
For more info about the piece, read the press release after the jump:
Let’s start with the fashion. Here’s some images from a group that perfectly merges anarcho-hooliganism with mansy style and mansy flair. Os Cangaceiros were a Brazilian band of well… bandits that fought against the greedly landlords, stole from the rich and, naturally, gave to the poor. They also happened to love fashion, apparently to be a Cangaciero aside from the prereq of the thirst for blood and theft, you had to be adept at sewing and accessorizing. No joke, they were known for neurotically sewing colorful ribbons, bits of metal, coins, and anything shiny, really, to their garments, (a little passé but a classic in any century). Talk about haphazard accessories! As well, the most famous of the group, Lampião, was known for using an excessive amount of stolen French perfume; and incidentally, Os Cangaceiros were responsible for popularizing the xaxado dance, which I think was the 19th century Brazilian equivalent of the stanky leg…
Oh and speaking of dances, you’ve got to check out this video from Sgt Sass by way of Israel… it sort of changed my life, well at least how much I snap!
But yeah, Os Cangaceiros fashion is pretty amazing, and though their tale ends in tragedy they helped to lay the foundation for the Landless Movement, which is still going strong, as well as inspire generations of insurrectionists, illegalists, anarchists and hooligans. And I hate to say I told you so about the fashion tip, but seriously. I mean these locas were the real deal.
In fact, as a testament to their legacy, I recently read an amazing [article] posting on aaarg (heart heart) about a group of self-proclaimed French hooligans in the 1980’s and 90’s named Os Cangaceiros, just for clarity I’ll refer to them as the French Cangaceiros. Up until this article, I must confess I hadn’t a dream of a whisper that they had existed and considering how incredible, ridiculous, and sort of mind boggling they were, it’s really surprising more people aren’t talking about them… My favorite action they did I think is squatting a luxury condo, when asked why a luxury condo they simply replied that they had been enticed with luxury all their lives and they wanted to see it played out! When the police came to evict them, they had barricaded the doors with steel and in the hours that it took to weld through or whatever, they called their friends in the community who started a protest surrounding the cops who inevitably gave up.
okay, that is literally a parrot on his shoulder! weee birdles!
The article is faaantastic as well, I think it gives a truly balanced look at what hooliganism adds to anarchism, as well as its short comings and lessons to be learned. For example, in the article is an account from a former French Cangaceiro/a, who discusses some of their successes and failures in dealing with the media. Most of their work was done against prisons, for example sabotaging railroads in solidarity with prison riots, but since they were mostly involved with banditry and the like they couldn’t go bragging about it so they naturally relied on the media to inform the people, which is the case for all acts of symbolic property destruction. But the cops told the media to not publish any of their cray cray, which effectively made those types of actions moot.
In contrast, their most popular and successful action, in their own eyes, involved stealing the plans of a new prison that was going up and publishing them in a pamphlet called 13,000 belles, since the new prison was to have 13,000 new cells. Instead of their usual guns ablaze (literally) tactics, this time they just brought up that there are a ton of these leeching architects and other profiteers rubbing their hands as the poor are locked away and then sat back and let the people decide what was too be done, albeit with a sketchiness that no one other than a hooligan would bring. They took the pamphlet, discovered weaknesses where people could escape (li.ter.a.lly) and circulated it in cafes, and basically everywhere, totally circumnavigating the press and creating what the media call “a buzz” that was impossible to ignore. When the media did take note, they had no choice but to side with the Cangaceiros since the entire city had as well, and the media ended up printing unabridged letters from the collective, complimenting them on their organizational skills (what?!) and basically painting them as modern Robin Hoods, romantic outlaws and friends of the people.
Yo. Read the article, they’re amahzing… dancing on the roofs of prisons, traveling around the world sabotaging the state, and thousands of other pranks and acts of grifter goodness and then getting away (that’s right) scot free. I mean what group of roving bandits have you ever heard about getting away?! Even Robin Hood had to sell out to the state eventually, not to mention the endless list of martyred hooligans… sigh.
WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY POINT.
Everybody’s talking about insurrectionism these days, mumble mumble catastrophe of totality mumble love in the wreckage mumble mumble burning riot hallway dumpster etc etc etc. You hear it e.ver.y.where. I mean, ever since I picked up Killing King Abacus a million years ago, I’ve been enduring this insurrectionist mumbling, I mean seriously, have you ever talked with Texas? Talk about mumblecore.
But enunciation aside, I read The Coming Insurrection and The Call, by the Invisible Committee and have to say, I’m deeeply disturbed… well more deeply annoyed than anything, especially with their crappy name, “their” royal we, and most of all their neocommunism.* I really don’t want to get into all my criticisms, but at this point I’ve brought up insurrectionism mainly for how it informs hooliganism.
I do like a good bit about the Invisible Committee’s writings, their disgust for radical purity and the discussion of the anarchist scene turning into a new code of behaviors, but their pipe dream that insurrection, or even hooliganism, is the only form of valid radicalism just plain smacks of privilege. There are moments, of course, to riot, but not all riots aid the destruction of the state. Sometimes, in the case of the ‘68 DNC, cops riot, or other times fascists riot, bigots burn dumpsters and barricade hallways, the kkk smashes windows… there’s nothing liberating in these acts, other than adrenaline, they are just tactics, nothing more. And seriously, we all know who is most attracted to riots… cicgendered strait white boys, I wonder why!
What is liberating is what the French Cangaceiros, or the o.g. Os Cangaceiros did, which is create a sustained hooliganism, take these tactics and string them together in a meaningful way. This sustained hooliganism can’t be taught in a book! And it certainly can’t be achieved through guilting people with propagandistic theory! Both the above examples were of hooligans turned radical, not the other way around. It’s actually pretty offensive to think that some fools can say, ‘hey be a hooligan, go break a window and steal for a living, it’s no thing.’ It is a thing! People are getting killed, or their lives are being ruined everyday who don’t succeed at living the hooligan dream, and then some worms living in books decide to take it on? What both Os Cangaceiros groups demonstrate is that it took criminals, genuine day one criminals to succeed at being bandits long enough to make an impact. And as much as I wish these tactics could immediately dismantle the power of the state like out of Harry Potter or something, they don’t, and the hundreds of thousands of people imprisoned right now are a testament to that.
When it comes to hooliganism, I think you can either be an anarchist or a hooligan, you just can’t be both. You can be a sketchy or grifty anarchist or even a sassy pirate-type anarchist or something, but being a hooligan is a career path! And the goals of each are vastly different, though both necessary. As I see it, the goals of hooliganism are the creation of inspirational moments that transcend all of the state’s mythology and physical force and the beauty of these moments in turn inspires people to rise up themselves. It’s a sort of shooting the moon scenario, but you’ve only got to be one smooth operator otherwise you’re fucked! The goal of the anarchist, the radical theorist, the organizer, the farmer, the artist, the feminist, the sex worker etc! etc! is more based in therapy. The therapy that gives us the strength to carry on and understand and fight by any means necessary against the oppression and alienation that surrounds us. That therapy creates the conditions for hooligans to even begin their struggle, shares the stories of inspirational hooligans and creates the community that they fall back on for support. And it’s a cliché, but we really do need each other. Well, honestly, hooligans need anarchists a little more, but who’s counting!
The Os Cangaceiros called them coiteiros, people that helped out the Cangaceiros and who the Cangaceiros were bandit-ing for in the first place. Without them, the Cangaceiros (o.g. or French) would never have lasted a day. It’s that relationship, between the hooligans and the coiteros that should be further explored, how can we create communities that foster hooligans that will in turn keep the community in mind when they are out hooligan-ing? And how can the goals of hooligans and the goals of anarchists coalesce to create a situation where both radical romanticism and therapy based tactics work hand in hand?
*As for the Invisible Committee and their neocommunism, give me a break. Seriously. I realize that they are arguing for an almost mystical communism that transcends the memory of communism as it existed in history, for example, ignoring that communism has murdered and tortured tens of thousands of anarchists, queers and artists in the name of “the party”… But even if we can magically whisk away these associations, their whole project just reeks of totalitarianism. They ironically resurrect terms like ‘the party’ and ‘all power to the soviets’ and expect us to believe they aren’t trying to seize power and that they wouldn’t turn into tyrants? There are a thousand “red flags” but to name a couple, in the entirety of their texts, they only discuss internal hierarchy once, in about two sentences, where they claim that meetings are holding them back and that in their world, hierarchy is avoided through “good intelligence” and “reconnoissance.” This strikes me as a little more than suspicious. As well, Crimethinc’s use of the royal we through divine anonymity is bad enough, but these characters take it a step beyond. They use “we” at some points to denominate the entire world except the reader! Talk about the voice of god! It reminds me of Doctor Zhivago, the passage when the Bolsheviks seize power and they issue their first communique and Yury is taken with the sweeping emotions of the ‘we’ and he feels the warm arms of history’s embrace. But after 5 years of these sweeping communiques, their static language and didactic view of history he feels like that moment of sweeping emotion turned into a nightmare of complete alienation and subjectivity, as Guattari might say, and he is being made to revisit that moment again and again, as if in a Sartre play.
Yayay! Back from my tryst to nyc, fun fun fun! Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of my own personal fashion but maybe in the next week I’ll recreate some of the looks…! Eitherway, as for what I saw going down, the situation was pretty much the same for mansies as everywhere else, ie: just as dismal, but on a larger scale… Of course, there were some spectacular mansies, (also not pictured, sorry!) but overall there was more rockertown than you can shake a dick at and then there’s the plaid, oh the plaid. About this time last year, I wrote that if you absolutely must wear plaid a few strategies (buttoned up and/or plaid bow tie) can make it ooooooookkkkkaaaaaaayyyyy… but after having literally seen so much urban outfitter/ fluorescent/ ironic plaid that it made me physically fatigued, I’ve come to the conclusion that in no circumstances is plaid acceptable today. Not for the modern mansy, no. I’m sorry to make such a bold and didactic statement, but it after seeing thousands upon thousands of casual, plaid casualties it’s just gone too far.
News Flash: The Boulevardier Declares Plaid… OUT!
But as for my trip, it was oh so lovely! Thank you Yorkie for being so much fun! Btw, Denver! Give me an f’n sesame ball, right now! The food was so so so good, I already miss it!
Here’s some pics from styling Travis at THE Bowery Ballroom… He put this top on on the street, where a passing mansy stopped and asked who the designer was! Me! Yay!
And here’s Israel gogo dancing at the East Village Boys Party! And there’s his beau Johnny… Frisk-ay!
Then we did a Free Boutique installation exploring the potentials of construction fence at Judson Church with the Really Really Free Market (in the same room where Carolee Schneemann did Meat Joy 40 years ago!) Thanks Hannah! And OMG there were a lot of people that came, 600 people in 3 hours! AAAH!
And here’s some pics Kate took of our Sylvia Plath moment at Coney Island… totally apocalyptic, oscillating between heston and juggalo, so epic!
So, as you’re probably aware, the main reason why I started this column was because I am concerned with the representation of anarchists not only in the media but on the streets, and in this case, in court. As I’ve written before, anarchists tend to fall into the same semiotic traps time and time again, whether it’s the practically compulsory hyper-masculine all-black uniform at mass demonstrations, the déclassé “hobohemian” neurosis or the broken record that is punky punk punk fashion.
While these fashion choices are often portrayed as based on necessity, more often than not, they are nothing more than a desire to fit in and feel a part of a subculture. With such a diverse politic as anarchism, being interpreted and enacted in thousands of different cultures around the world, not to mention the contributions of anarcha-feminism and queer anarchism, it’s totally unacceptable to let one or two subcultures dominate the look and the feel of this movement. It’s not like subcultures don’t have their place and don’t have anything to offer to anarchist fashion, it’s just that we should be aware of how often we pigeon hole (wait, why is a pigeon in a hole!) ourselves and how exclusive these representations can seem to the uninitiated.
So, when Ariel approached Kate and I to see if the Free Boutique could help her dress for her court dates (stemming from these allegations), from my end of things, I felt inspired to help because it was such a good opportunity to subvert the media portrayals of anarchism and of course to help my friend look mahvelous!
For this first look, we decided to go for something more reserved, merging Ariel’s own punk aesthetic with something more formal and appropriate for court, while still maintaining personal autonomy and disregard for conservative court fashions. While elements of her love for le punk remain in the boots, and a little in the pants, we wanted to push the look into more experimental territory, confusing gender lines and creating an elegance that is unique and confrontational.
At first, I wanted to really go for this MMM inspired shiny black top with giant villain shoulders and have her wear this large circle-a pendant, playing off the whole anarchist villian/evil tranny thing, but Kate reminded me that when Marc Jacobs dressed Winona Ryder in court, his inspiration was, not surprisingly, “innocence” and that we should probably tone it down… like a lot. Which is what we did, as you can see, and I think it turned out beautifully. It gives her an air of a sophisticated bank robber, a classic classic look to be sure. As well, in this case, it’s obvious that the overdressed look is the only route that can subvert the sobriety and bad fashion that is seemingly demanded in court without reifying the court’s power over us and undermining our agency as adults. Transcendence by the Free Boutique.
It might be a little difficult to spot in these photos, but that lovely necklace there was made by my friend Madi and her jewelry project faht:::stik, and is a beautiful collection of found scrap metal interlaced with turquoise and copper wire. “Exquisite. Rare. Bricabrac. faht:::stik”
And this is just the first installment, her next court date is November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day ironically, and we are already thinking capes, capes and more capes!
Walking out into the media frenzy!
For more into about her case, email friendsofariel@riseup.net or check the Denver ABC for updates, also please donate some cold hard cash to help with her legal defense, it ain’t cheap you know!
![cangaco[1]](http://boulevardier4eva.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cangaco11.jpg?w=400&h=400 "cangaco[1]")
