The Secret Power of Lesbian Style

New York Times ^ | 6.27.2004 | Guy Trebay

[NYC GOP Chick]

The Secret Power of Lesbian Style

By GUY TREBAY

Published: June 27, 2004

O scrounging through the visual imagery that defines gay women in the popular imagination and the stereotypes are as predictable in their own way as Carson Kressley is in his, and a lot less goofy-cute. There is the Miss Jane Hathaway type in tweeds and brogues. There is the luggage-tanned Dinah Shore Golf Classic gal in a visor and pleated khaki shorts. There are the softball catcher with her cap turned backward and the clanking motorcycle mama in engineer's boots. And, of course, there is Rosie O'Donnell, in boxy suits that look like advertisements for a Big & Tall store.

It was not long ago that the print and electronic media began registering the existence of so-called lipstick lesbians, and a phrase like "lesbian fashion" stopped being an outright oxymoron. When the Showtime series "The L Word" began in January, it showed that — far from being frumps doomed to Manolo Blahnik deficiency — lesbians are a powerful presence in fashion, in both predictable and unexpected ways.

The old stereotypes have not faded. But they have slipped into something decidedly cool. "I have this theory that lesbians start certain fashion things," said Stephanie Perdomo, the creator of a new collection of action figures called Dykedolls, which will be sold on the Internet starting in July. "I used to go around Williamsburg and see guys wearing wifebeaters, wallet chains, gas station shirts and trucker hats, and I would think, `We used to do that five years ago,' " Ms. Perdomo said.

In the mid-90's, at Manhattan all-girl bars like Meow Mix, patrons tended to dress a lot like Ms. Perdomo's $65 Bobbie doll. They got themselves up in ironic homage to a form of masculinity that barely exists outside the World Wrestling Entertainment tour. Bobbie comes with a wardrobe typical of women who dress like long-haul truckers, who look as though they could give masculinity pointers to Ashton Kutcher. But butch girls are only part of the story, as the women on the "The L Word" make plain. The cast, explained Ilene Chaiken, the show's creator and executive producer, is given considerable latitude in dressing the characters, and several of its members, both gay and straight, turn out to be billboards for a sexually flexible style you could characterize as L. A Tomboy.

The unofficial headquarters for that look is Fred Segal, a Los Angeles specialty retailer, which is where, as Mayer Rus, the design editor of House & Garden, sniped, "gorgeous teenage spokesmodels sell $800 T-shirts artistically deconstructed by a commune of blind surfers." Perhaps the sewing skills of blind surfers do attract Hollywood stars of the Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston variety to the store. More likely, they are lured by the way the store's buyers offhandedly blur the boundaries between men's and women's wear.

One buyer, Nina Garduno, who is gay, is critical of how narrowly most women's wear designers define sexiness in dress. "It is not at all that I cater to gay women or that I want a woman to look like a guy," said Ms. Garduno, the buyer for Fred Segal's men's wear department, where women compete with men for the latest offerings. "But a lot of designers miss the boat on what women want to wear, since sexiness in clothes, for this gay woman at least, boils down to an innate confidence in sexuality."

It is the confidence, she explained, to pair a "wifebeater T shirt with a pair of Helmut Lang flat-front pants," the way Ms. Garduno's girlfriend, the actress Leisha Hailey of "The L Word," does. "So many things come out of an L. A. gay women's look," Ms. Garduno said. "Whether it's ultimately worn by a gay woman or a straight woman, straight guy, gay man, bisexual or whatever, it's really sophisticated, and it's sexy."

Ms. Hailey's "L Word" character, Alice, a magazine writer, also wears a choppy boyish shag, a hairdo first spotted on women in Hollywood gay bars a few years back. The celebrity hairstylist Sally Hershberger gave Meg Ryan a version of the cut, and it was soon adopted by women across the country, presumably unaware that the style originated among fashionable lesbians.

It is the subtle incorporation of butch and femme dualities — the traditional poles of lesbian sartorial identity — into mainstream fashion that most clearly signals the influence of gay women in the garment industry, a group that few outside the business are aware of. "There are a lot of gay women working in fashion, obviously, and they approach it as gay women, and that fashion is then consumed by a much larger culture," Ms. Chaiken said.

"What makes their work lesbian fashion?" Ms. Chaiken said. "It's probably that they are celebrating that play with gender, that provocative style that pulls from rock 'n' roll, boy icons of the past, the street and the high-end couture type glamour, but that starts with a lesbian sensibility."

In a business that often seems creatively dominated by gay men, the idea of lesbians still has the power to startle. "There is this almost total silence about gay women," said Valerie Steele, the museum director at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

The cause is not too mysterious, said one top level executive in the beauty industry, who wished to remain anonymous. "As lesbians, we feel our place in fashion is tenuous, and so the presumption is perpetuated that we don't exist," she said.

With men in fashion, the award-winning knitwear designer Liz Collins said, "it's almost a given that they are gay," whereas lesbians, if they are thought to exist, are depicted as "independent or strong." Her own lesbianism is, she said, "an important part of my design inspiration, because I am more inspired at a gut level by women's bodies than by a cut or a silhouette, which is probably true of a lot of women designers, gay or not."

Unlike straight women designers, however, those in Ms. Collins's position are often forced to contend with the usual prejudices, not least the intractable dowdiness of lesbian stereotypes. "Some of the most stylish women are lovers of women, as opposed to lovers of men," Ms. Collins said. If they choose to keep their preferences private, it is because invisibility can seem preferable to outright discrimination, she added, or else to "preconceptions about lesbian style that are pretty horrible."

That gay women not only exist but also exert considerable sway has only begun to be acknowledged. "It's wild, if you think about it, that the woman who defined how straight women dressed in this millennium on "Sex and the City" is a lesbian," said Roger Padilha, creative director of the fashion production company MAO PR.

Mr. Padilha was referring to the designer Patricia Field, whose costumes often served as uncredited characters on the HBO series. "Go out to the clubs on a Friday night, and the women are dressed like characters from `Sex and the City.' " Mr. Padilha said. "Pat brought a lot of dyke sensibility to the show," he added, citing the do-rags, newsboy caps and the outlandishly femme jewel-box ballerina outfits that Ms. Field provided for Sarah Jessica Parker to wear.

Amanda Moore, one of the most successful of fashion models, said, "People tend to have this image of what gay is, especially when it comes to women." Since leaving Pensacola, Fla., Ms. Moore has appeared on nearly every designer runway and remains a darling of photographers and editors. She is also uncommonly open about her sexuality. "Just because I choose to love women and don't dress the part of a model doesn't mean that I'm not very good at what I do," said Ms. Moore, whose own style epitomizes androgynous slacker cool.

If same-sex unions have proved anything, it is that the old stereotypes are looking frayed. Homosexual social identities turn out to be as plural as those of any other group. And the day seems not far off when gay style, like gay radar, will go the way of any other artifact of minority status. "The gay gene for fashion is like the gay gene for musicals," said Ms. Steele of the Fashion Institute of Technology. "It doesn't exist."

What does, however, she added, "is the reality that being an outsider heightens awareness." And, if outsider status tends "to give one access to a slightly subcultural feel, based on what turns you on," Ms. Steele said, a style can also emerge from that awareness and then migrate into the culture at large. The truth of that proposition is well understood by designers from Seventh Avenue to the Avenue Montaigne.

"Lesbians seem to play with gender roles a lot," Mr. Padilha said. That playfulness sometimes turns up in unexpected quarters. When Tom Ford hired the model Eleonora Bose for a Gucci campaign three years back, some expressed shock at Ms. Bose's biker haircut and masculine way of posing. "A lot of people criticized the look as a little bit aggressive," Mr. Ford said at the time. The clothes were "about this masculine-feminine mood," he explained, and in the butch-styled but heterosexual Ms. Bose he had found the "personification of what is in the air."

But has it not always been there? A distinct lesbian style, Ms. Steele said, has evolved markedly through the last century. "In the 1940's, there was a butch-femme polarization," she said. "In the 60's and 70's it spread more toward this androgyny that fitted the mainstream feminist look." In the 80's, a prettied-up version of lesbian stereotypes took hold. The 90's were marked by the emergence of drag kings, whose gender games were quickly sampled by designers like Jean Paul Gaultier. When the model Erin O'Connor posed for a Moschino campaign, playing both a flamenco dancer in ruffles and a toreador with side whiskers, she proved the proposition put forward by Dr. Suzanna Walters, the director of feminist studies at Georgetown University, that "sexualities once literally outlaw are now rendered as sartorial motifs."

Dr. Walters termed the process the commodification of difference. And the Moschino design house was hardly the first to work the terrain. The director Josef von Sternberg commodified difference to sublime effect in the 1930's, creating in Marlene Dietrich a prototype for the glamour puss empowered by trousers. It took half a century before there was any consensus about the lesbian origins of Dietrich's cross-dressing. The lag time would be a lot shorter today.

Still, the least obvious conclusion to be drawn from the Von Dutch trucker cap phenomenon might be that it originated among a bunch of gender-obsessed young lesbians — the prototypes for Bobbie the Dykedoll. "Trucker hats, wallet chains, cowboy boots and straw Stetsons, all that started with gay women and was transformed into street fashion," said Rebecca Weinberg, a former stylist for "Sex and the City." About the last people to get hold of the look were heterosexual men, added Suzanne Ethier, a Manhattan retailer, whose vintage store, Rags-a-GoGo, is tube-sock central. "The straight boys didn't realize that they were rocking a style that originated with a bunch of dykes," Ms. Ethier said.

It is often like that. Last fall's Paris runway season opened with Undercover, a label created by the Japanese cult designer Jun Takahashi. Seated in the front row was Sarah Lerfel, who owns the Right Bank emporium Colette. Before the show started, Ms. Lerfel was asked if she thought the tomboy look popular with patrons of Le Pulp, a Parisian women's bar, had not been having a surprising effect on style. She smiled indulgently.

Then the lights dimmed, the D. J. cued Patti Smith on the turntable, and a parade of models appeared in slashed jeans, flat shoes and mannish jackets, clothes that were hip and sexy tough, vulnerable and imposing, just the sort of stuff one might expect a fashionable young lesbian to wear.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I knew you would!

[NYC GOP Chick]

Figures you'd find something like that! ;)

[Gabz]

Oh, I understood your point completely, however, to make your point you had to take my comments out of context.


I ask that you take all of my comments on this thread in context and then give me a comment.

[NYC GOP Chick]

This same woman is also known to wear a black leather mini skirt and knee high boots with 4 inch heels............check the CPAC threads from January if you don't believe me.

I'll vouch for the lovely and feminine Gabz with the long, knock out legs in short skirts!

[sawmill trash]

I'm a lesbian ... trapped in a man's body !

[NYCVirago]

I didn't know until reading this article that Patricia Field, costume designer for Sex and the City, is a lesbian. I wouldn't exactly call some of wacky outfits she dressed Carrie in anything to brag about!

[Gabz]

I showed no victimology. I just made a statement, I alleged nothing.

I just happen to find citing scripture to be a bit over the top. If you don't like what I have to say just tell me. I'm sort of a plain spoken kind of a gal who tells it like it is and generally leaves her beliefs in her heart where they belong and not on the internet.

[wardaddy]

Does O'Neill still live here?

[familyop]

"Why do you not use my entire statement?

Here's your whole statement.

"I agree with you.
I don't have facts to back up my agreement - I just believe it. That is what I was taught decades ago by my parents and having friends who are "different" has proven to me that my parents were correct.
There are abberations in people of all stripes......but there are also wonderful human beings of all stripes. the vast majority of my homosexual friends, male and female, are right leaning conservatives, Christians, and are either in long standing monogamous relationships or are celibate. And to a one they HATE the activists who are trying to change the way the world is.

Alright, there you are. Notice that you said that the "vast majority" of your homosexual friends are "consevatives, Christians," etc. Here's the answer to that again.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Leviticus 18:22, King James)

"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13, King James)

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind," (1 Corinthians 6:9, King James)

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet" (Romans 1:26-27, King James)

The NIV, in Deuteronomy 23:17, says, "No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute."

The KJV says in Deuteronomy 23:17, "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel."
"Sodomite" is a word that I haven't found in the NIV.

A feminist lesbian named Virginia Mollenkott helped to write the NIV. Here's some info on Mollenkott.

The New International Version - 1978
http://www.revelationwebsite.co.uk/index1/kjv/mouth4.htm#niv
Let's read something else Ms. Mollenkott had to say.

{2}Virginia Mollenkott wrote, in a letter to Christian Century (March 7, 1984, p. 252), "I am beginning to wonder whether indeed Christianity is patriarchal to its very core. If so, count me out. Some of us may be forced to leave Christianity in order to participate in Jesus' discipleship of equals."

I saw that on the following book page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cbmw/rbmw/chapter26.html "Charity, Clarity, and Hope: The Controversy and the Cause of Christ"
John Piper and Wayne Grudem

"Two New Organizations: Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Christians for Biblical Equality"

(Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood A Response to Evangelical Feminism Wayne Grudem and John Piper)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And that's the older NIV, by the way--not the new "gender inclusive" version.

[familyop]

" I want an answer - not a scripture quotation."

Your answer is in the scripture quotation.

[wardaddy]

In nearly half a century I have known a fair number of homosexual women including a great aunt and her girlfriend of 40 years. (They both look like old blue hairs and have always been kind to me)

In any event, I have only known 4 good looking lesbians and 3 of those 4 were persuadable by men under the right conditions.

The rest have mainly been dykes spanning soft golfer looking types to full blown pick-up driving Timberland boot wearing uber-Dykes. Most had issues with being close to men in even an unsexual way which is different from homosexual men who do well with good looking women as a rule.

As for fashion, I would opt for straight women over homosexual.

One question..why are most salons owned by men?

[Gabz]

LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!

You've seen me on my good days! You wouldn't know me today, or for the rest of the summer. I don't give a flip about "fashion" and who's it is............I've got gardening, painting, remodelling, and a roof to do.....thank the good Lord I have a husband willing to help do all.

[itsamelman]

Lesbian Seagull
Engelbert Humperdinck

Over rocks and trees and sand
Soaring over cliffs
And gently floating down to land
She proudly lifts her voice
To sound her mating call
And soon her mate responds by singing
Caw Caw Caw
Come with me

Lesbian Seagull

Settle down and rest with me

Fly with me lesbian seagull

To my little nest by the sea
With me that's where you belong with me
I know I can be strong when you're with me
She skims the water
At the new time to seek
Her fish and she emerges
With one squirming in her beak

She plays among the waves
And hides between the swells
She walks the beach at twilight

Searching for some shells
Come with me

Lesbian Seagull

Settle down and rest with me

Oh fly with me lesbian seagull

To my little nest by the sea

With me that's where you belong with me
I know I can be strong when you're -- you're with me

And in the evening
As they watch the setting sun
She loooks at her as if to say
The day is done
It's time to find their shelter

Hidden in the dunes

And fall asleep the
Music of the moon
You and me

Lesbian seagull

You just watch the world oh my

Just you and me lesbian seagull

Side by side with me 'till we die
('Till we die)
You and I
We can make it if we try
Our love will keep us flyin' high

Until we die...

[Gabz]

Thank you, my FRiend!!!!!!!!

[Gabz]

SO you are denying that a homosexual can be a Christian.

How very Christian of you.

[Gabz]

Your answer is in the scripture quotation.

No it is not.

I spoke of monogamous and celibate Christian people who oppose the activists.....as a Christian how can you possibly find fault with them?

[pops88]

Sorry, I was too busy leaving a string of broken hearts...till I found my wonderful, conservative husband.

[Gabz]

One question..why are most salons owned by men?

They look at women and know what they like??????????