... the other Black experience
Black people and Glamour
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on -
And here's a link to the example the speaker referred to:
Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats
or maybe this thing w/ glamour and ignoring what may be perceived as "absurdity" to others is a generational thing... but i don't know if that's true or not, ...but mainly because i operate in a world where people dress up and fake it till they feel normal or they get what they want. i'm sure most of y'all probably live in similar worlds, haha.
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Permalink Reply by Phactz on -
Nothing wrong with wanting to look good and living well....just as long as your not a dickweed about it.
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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on -
Some people simply don't understand or want to understand how manipulating ourselves and our environment to be "pretty", to give us a small fraction of joy is creativity and self expression at work.
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Permalink Reply by lyfenlyn on -
black people can be very creative and expressive. dressing is a form of expression for us. I know it can be for me sometimes. But I aint been doing it lately.
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on
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something to be said about hedonism and a different view of life and purpose for black folks versus the status quo perhaps. the fact that glamour can persist by way of style even for the more "conservative/self-controlled" segments of the black community is pretty remarkable. i do think this is a cultural difference between communities...and for whatever reason it translates across borders... and maybe it comes from an alternate approach to life that is not wholly rooted in growing up poor... or socially isolated. *shrugs* it'd be an interesting topic to do some work in i suppose... if i were to get to writing again. lol... which isn't going to be any time soon.
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Permalink Reply by jet fuel perfume on -
i love stuff like this!
a good one to check out, which deals with the same subject matter, is Alain De Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy
and in response to..
Albert said:For some reason I like the voice of the lady in the video.
that's because she sounds very similar to how the majority of the people on tv in america.. people in america speak with many different accents and dialects, but when you watch to tv.. or better yet, when a non-american imitates an american accent, they sound like her..
its a plesant, middle american way of speaking..
~check out Robert MacNeil's Do You Speak American?
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Irving on -
This made a whole lot of sense,especially about how "Glamour "can be totally deceptive or it can benefit!!
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Permalink Reply by Rosenda on -
That is a cool book. That's a whole subject in itself as part of the glamour discussion, church lady attire.
Although as Steve Harvey mentioned (and I know he was serious too) announcing that gospel tribute tv special the other day, "Some of the dresses y'all wearing are NOT church dresses. I know club shoes when I see 'em."
Speaking of crowns...........there was this excellent musical play I saw a couple years ago titled Crowns, it was about that whole subject of Black women and hats and dressing up and mainly about this one family's life stories. It was awesome, and I guess in that context, the point of dressing up was a good thing and not necessarily to cover something up or pretend to be something you ain't just in the hopes that someone else you trying to impress will believe you are.
I think more than Black people are guilty of that, it's human nature, for sure.
What I don't like is other Black women of any age sniffing down their nose at me and even getting all up in my face to let me know they don't like how I'm dressed at some type of "formal occasion". My definition, my personal definition of glamour is more old school classic 40s/50s vixenish probably. Lesy for sure it's generational, what is considered glamorous or sophisticated now by Black young women might be rather different prior generations. But it's also gonna vary according to so-called "class status" and regional tastes. This former coworker of mine who was a curator here, who left awhile ago to be director of a big museum in Amsterdam, she once brought me this book of photographs from an exhibit on the East Coast. The book showed photos of young Black women at a big university in the South, with their hair dressed up for formal occasion. It was beautiful but daaaaamn they were super tall and very very intricated elaborate hairstyles. Way more involved than stuff I see out here among college ladies. But that for sure was considered very glamorous and sophisticated. The coworker showed me the book because at the time I was rocking the flat twists with this medium sized fake dreads bun with flowers thing look and she said it reminded her of a toned down version of some the photos in this book.
LesYpersound said:And here's a link to the example the speaker referred to:
Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats
or maybe this thing w/ glamour and ignoring what may be perceived as "absurdity" to others is a generational thing... but i don't know if that's true or not, ...but mainly because i operate in a world where people dress up and fake it till they feel normal or they get what they want. i'm sure most of y'all probably live in similar worlds, haha.
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Permalink Reply by Rosenda on
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http://ofanotherfashion.tumblr.com/
Of Another Fashion. Features a lot of regular sisters of glamor.
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on
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:] cool.
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Permalink Reply by Yank on -
There's definitely a phenomenon where younger generations elevate the fashion of the past. What was truly "fancy" back then looks so fancy that it seems almost overdone today, and more pedestrian or working class fashion seems classier now than it did before. Enough so that it looks more flash than even upper class fashions of today.
I think it's the modesty and simplicity of older styles, which stand out in our tshirt, sneakers and ballcap world
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Still, someone who was around at the time will see right through it, no matter how much you paid at the vintage store. lol
Rosenda said:What I don't like is other Black women of any age sniffing down their nose at me and even getting all up in my face to let me know they don't like how I'm dressed at some type of "formal occasion". My definition, my personal definition of glamour is more old school classic 40s/50s vixenish probably. Lesy for sure it's generational, what is considered glamorous or sophisticated now by Black young women might be rather different prior generations. But it's also gonna vary according to so-called "class status" and regional tastes. This former coworker of mine who was a curator here, who left awhile ago to be director of a big museum in Amsterdam, she once brought me this book of photographs from an exhibit on the East Coast. The book showed photos of young Black women at a big university in the South, with their hair dressed up for formal occasion. It was beautiful but daaaaamn they were super tall and very very intricated elaborate hairstyles. Way more involved than stuff I see out here among college ladies. But that for sure was considered very glamorous and sophisticated. The coworker showed me the book because at the time I was rocking the flat twists with this medium sized fake dreads bun with flowers thing look and she said it reminded her of a toned down version of some the photos in this book.
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Permalink Reply by coollikethat on -
Thought this might add to the discussion of the topic,seeing that it's about black folks' looks and representations---here's a British article on how a certain brand of camera was made only to make white folks look good:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jan/25/racism-colour-ph...
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