Pharrell Williams, Photo courtesy of BFAThe older I get the more I begin to notice history being ever so slightly reinterpreted. I guess it's kinda like a game of telephone. Because the way people recall stuff is not always perfect. It cracks me up when I hear fictional comments about stuff I experienced first hand. It makes me realize how fucking warped everything in all the history books must be, as it likely has morphed completely as it's been passed down through centuries and generations of misperceptions and errors.
But the fact is, I don't hate that this happens. Even though culture often moves forward by referencing the past, omissions or misinterpretations of cultural references are what often creates something interesting and new. Do the young hip-hop stars of today know who Afrika Bambaataa is and how hip-hop came to be? I'm not sure they do. But does that even matter? And did the throngs of Marc Jacobs fans flocking to buy his 1970's Biba-inspired collection in 2011 realize that that iconic white-hot British brand Biba ruling fashion in the late '60s and early '70s that he was referencing was itself actually built on some sort of mashed-up version of the art deco aesthetic of the 1930's? Who cares!
Recently, Grace Jones complained in an article in the New York Times that no one is currently original any more. (I disagree!) She expressed disappointment at her ex -- the artist/photographer Jean-Paul Goude -- for referencing his own historical work (his famous photograph from the '70s of a woman popping a bottle of champagne with a glass on her butt) for paper's Kim Kardashian cover last year. She also claimed she can't find anything as original as when she was body painted by Keith Haring 40 years ago. The funny part is that the Haring/Jones collaboration referenced African tribal body painting and dance invented long before the '70s. Sorry, Grace. What you did with Haring was marvelous and definitely felt original and interesting at the time. But the past was still present in it!
Rappers The World's Famous Supreme Team, Malcolm McLaren (bottom center) and models wearing items from designer Vivienne Westwood's "Buffalo Gals" collection, London, February 1983. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Let's switch gears to Pharrell's hat. Yes, the hat that went viral big time and became iconic last year after he wore it to the Grammys. I'm talking about that oversized punched-in hat with its own Twitter account (@Pharellhat) that was eventually put on permanent display as an historic cultural relic at the Newseum and can now even be bought as a Halloween costume on eBay. It's by now widely known that Vivienne Westwood designed this hat 33 years ago, but what many don't know is the complicated cultural context that this hat actually came from. Designed for her 1982 collection called Buffalo Gals, Westwood created this hat to accessorize her super-original, inspired looks to accompany the visionary new music releases of her impresario husband, Malcolm McLaren. McLaren's music and Westwood's fashion collaborations were groundbreaking in those days due to the radical cultural dialogue they created as they released new music and fashion to the world simultaneously each season.
Photo courtesy of fancydressoutfit
In this case "Buffalo Gals" was their mad commentary and twist on the brilliant early hip-hop scene germinating in the South Bronx in those days, led by Afrika Bambaataa. McLaren created amazing music and Westwood created amazing looks, and together they collaborated on a radical video to go along with it all with nyc's Rock Steady Crew, the legendary breakdancers who all wore Vivienne's exaggerated innovative clothing. McLaren took hip-hop to a new level on his "Buffalo Gals" track with scratching and mixed dance beats colliding with square dancing overtones, while Westwood mixmastered her accompanying designs just as wildly. Her crosshatched style inspirations included Peruvian mountain women with big bowler hats sitting high on their foreheads (hence the hat!) and folksy full skirts and blankets in earthtones. She merged these with her twisted take on South Bronx streetstyle where she integrated exaggerated sweatsuits and hoodies with huge, loosely laced hip-hop inspired sneakers lifted from the wild homeboy looks that were prevalent then uptown. What a mashup!
I think mixing and mashing unlikely references, whether old or young, can often move us forward unexpectedly. Culture is a complicated soup, and it's at its best when top quality heritage ingredients are respectfully jumbled up with new ideas. That creates Nowstalgia at its best.