Fossils, remains of Roman cities, dinosaur bones or a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth have
all become the focus of intense media attention, entertainment and education. Through these objects, worlds thought lost are re-imagined with increasing technical audacity, making the frozen a portal through which our imaginations can fly and alternative realities can be conjured.
Fashion, by contrast, is not so hot on the frozen – especially if the preserved happens to still be alive and kicking. The ageing ted, the resolute goth, the staunch classicist or the English eccentric, these are types who refuse to constantly modify their appearance in line with current mores because they have found something: a moment, an identity, a part of their lives, that they wish to preserve.1 While exposed to the same pressures as the rest of us, constantly buffeted by waves of ideal fashion through media, marketing, culture and society, they endure the ravages of time because they have chosen to stop the clock at a moment that feels significant, appropriate or pleasing. However, unlike the woolly mammoth, which is greeted with gasps of wonderment, these examples of the unfashionable are more ambiguously received. In 1945 historian James Laver went as far as pinning a mathematical equation to the phenomenon, claiming that after ten years, fashion is seen as hideous and after twenty years, it is ridiculous.2 So it is that fashion’s frozen are commonly dismissed, scorned or made fun of – views perpetuated by representations in film, photography and literature.
‘The stars are ageless, aren’t they?’ uttered Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s 1950 cinema classic, Sunset Boulevard. The tragic character, played by Gloria Swanson, presents a melodramatic and delusional case for not moving with the times. As a silent movie actress who failed to make the transition to talkies, Norma Desmond is stuck. As she glides around her Hollywood mansion, waiting for the moment when she will be adored once more (‘I was always big. It’s the pictures that got small.’) we are offered a morality tale on what happens to women who refuse to age gracefully and leave the stage, exit left, when their time is up. A similar message is sent in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? from 1962. Bette Davis’ interpretation of one time child star Baby Jane Hudson, visage garishly painted, lined, and framed by ringlets, is difficult to forget. The cruel tormentor of her crippled sister, her psyche is forever childlike, that of a cruel and spoilt infant, perhaps damaged by her childhood fame. Happiest when clad in baby doll ruffles, she never tires of recreating the act that she used to perform with her Daddy. That was her moment and that is where she chooses to stay. Through the tools of her performance, dress, make-up and hair, she is able to transport herself back to the time of her life. Like Norma Desmond, she is depicted as a deranged, disturbed woman – clearly not an advisable choice. Photographer Diane Arbus’ black and white portrait of former debutante Brenda Diana Duff Frazier is another poignant example of fashion’s shelved dolls. Duff Frazier, who in 1938 was Life Magazine’s ‘Girl of The Year’, is revisited twenty-eight years later by Arbus for Esquire magazine. We see her posing in bed (is she sick or is this a metaphor for life on hold?), wearing a white fur stole around her narrow shoulders, her fragile fingers holding a cigarette. She is a frail, fluttering, faded creature. In a 1965 series called ‘Fashion Independents’ for Harper’s Bazaar, Arbus points her camera at Mrs. T. Charlton Henry who by contrast resembles an ancient bird of prey. She twinkles in her best couture as she sits perched, bejewelled and impassive. While losing the battle against youth, these women present both stoicism and vulnerability. Arbus’ lens is compassionate and soulful. These women survive. Their wardrobes may be frozen but their pre-Botox faces are full of fallibility and humanity; every line is an experience, a story, a triumph or regret.