Beth Ditto in POP Magazine

 

Ah!

Finally, a singer who doesn’t come manufactured in the predictable moulds of teen vomit like Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson and other plastic dolls.

Beth Ditto – she looks like Michelle Olley, the rotundly voluptuous girl-woman in Alexander McQueen’s Spring|Summer 2001 art installation where she had to recline nude on a chaise with antubed animal mask and festeredby hundreds of mask in a tar-stained glass box – apparently, is interpreted by the fashion world as some kind of singer-artist-performer-superstar.

Well-connected with New York’s neo-factory collective of artists, and a regular at MisShapes parties (she was photographed in MisShapes’ recently released “nobody’s-getting-younger-and-the-party’s-soon-over-so-let’s-make-a-fast-buck” gimmick), Beth Ditto is even singled out by music world heavy-weight and supremely respected Columbia Music guru Rick Rubin as a must-hear singer (Ditto was mentioned in a September issue of The NYT Magazine for that Rubin story by Lynn Hirschberg) .

Now, photographed by POP as some kind of performance artist.

POP titles the spread as “Size Zero” and was shot by Steven Klein and overseen by Katie Grand. Beth Ditto is posed accompanied by male model Blake. The clothes were all specially commissioned to be made for the gargantuan Beth by Yves Saint Laurent, Giles Deacon, Proenza Schouler, Prada, and Hussein Chalayan … although Ac.Stet feels that the one designer sorely missing from being represented on Beth’s ample flesh is fashion’s latest enfant terrible Gareth Pugh.

Some online commentators like Niwdenapolis (which Ac.Stet checks out sporadically for cute boys with cute booties) says it reminds him of  “a combination of Russ Mayer’s “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” and John Water’s “Pink Flamingo”… ” and that “of Blind Mellon’s “No Rain” video and Beth as the grown up Bee Girl specially that the male model Blake kinda resemble Shannon Hoon”.

Niwdenapolis may be too young to realize this but the visual reference may have been older. When Ac.Stet first saw the spread, me felt that the images seemed inspired by Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey’s HEAT. Well, Blake the male mannequin used in the spread seems to invoke pretty boy-man Joe D’Allesandro in the movie, while Beth Ditto seems a resurrection of Pat Ast, the lecherous trashy motel owner who seduced D’Allesandro and offered to let him stay in her motel for free in exchange for the ample ministrations of his cock.

Well, we’ll just have to ask Ms. Katie Grand about that at some point.

~ by acrylicstetson on October 4, 2007.