November 6, 2011 |
Our thoughts on Haider Ackermann, or his clothes, if he/they were to one day become absent from our lives, are thus: “If, for some reason, your life functions ceased, my most precious one, I would collapse, I would draw the shades and I would live in the dark. I would never get out of my slar phase or clean myself. My fluids would coagulate, my cone would shrivel, and I would die, miserable and lonely. The stench would be great.” We know that you feel the same. And if you don’t, find the show on YouTube, put on Leonard Cohen’s A Thousand Kisses Deep and prepare to weep. This is, after all, a man who, with a well-placed curtain and some clever background music reduced a hangar of hardened bitches to tears. And how they wept! Twenty-odd years of pent-up emotion finally released from between the shoulder blades in one long howl. Something about turning tricks and getting fixed. Slow nights. The wretched and the meek, gathering up hearts to go. We’ll admit it was in tune to the Leonard, but by God it was petrifying. The clothes, though – the reason for this momentary lapse of discretion – weren’t. Everything that makes Haider Haider came together in one overwhelming moment. The drapes, the layering, the long slinky cuts of cloth, the flashes of flesh, the leather and cinched waists. The girls – well, more extraterrestrial warrior princesses – weren’t merely dressed, they were sheathed. In an impenetrable cocoon. They looked ready to take on the world. To come down from whatever planet they inhabit and take over. Femmes of power. Sleeves were pushed up over elbows, fabric bubbled out over wide belts, jackets were form fitting, trousers cascaded off hips. The effect was more rippling mass of shiny substance than well-cut fabric. That’s what was so clever about it. No matter how hard we searched, there was not a seam to be found. The idea that they were dressed backstage seconds before they appeared is too far fetched. We’re currently Googling “dress pods”, one of those sci-fi contraptions that you stand in and, after a few bursts of steam, you exit fully dressed. Looking like this. We, too, want to be Ackermann femmes. We’ve got the hair. We have the “take me to your leader” shtick down pat. We can stride. All that’s left is the clothes. Even just a belt would do.
by Natalie Dembinska
