An Unlikely Jacket To Launch Your Spleen Into Your Throat
It cuts a killer silhouette...and analyzing Rosalía’s McQueen rosary thong heels!
This is an “I Need It Piece” about a jacket that I am salivating over but I want to touch on a few things first…
Mel C aka Sporty Spice Makes a Case for Her Arms
I love that JW Anderson featured Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, in the latest campaign. I am a Sporty Spice diehard. Those arms…buff with active, pulsating veins! Like she’s just finished a round of pull-ups in the park! And how she perpetually marinates in a pair of track pants? JW Anderson managed to translate all of these qualities into one stellar grown-up, elevated shot of Sporty Spice.
Among the coat-clad looks, there’s a photograph of the singer with her legs lazily open, dressed in a pair of army drab green trousers, and then, the motherlode: a slinky black tank top. Those toned arms! The Celtic cross tattoo on her upper bicep! And, of course, around her other bicep is the infinite Celtic arm band!
I know JW likes his handful of weirdos. There’s Daniel Craig, who Anderson completely drained all sexiness from by dorkifying the actor in a striped knit sweater and serial killer glasses. JW Anderson campaigns can sometimes feel like a funhouse fashion mirror. Ok, fine. But Mel C is a great choice and by far the hottest. Perhaps this is because the brand honored Mel C’s soldered-to-the-bod-tank-top look, which is thoughtful!
Analyzing Rosalía’s Rosary Heels
I loved Rosalia’s “Berghain” music video, and I love it even more that she wore a version of the McQueen rosary heels from spring 2003. In the music video, there is an echo of religion—she kneels at a cross windowpane—so the inclusion of the holier-than-thou heels doesn’t feel like a thoughtless archival clout grab.
Back to the heels…the McQueen rosary clackers are probably the most epic form of thong heels known to man1. There’s the combination of a sickening toe placement and beautifully debased symbols! The rosary strap of the heel lassoes the two middle toes and mashes them together. The toes are squeezed as if they are ready to burst out of the harness loop, like a pair of breasts strangled by a push-up bra. And make what you want of what else that asyphixated toe cleavage could resemble...
Then, there’s the symbolic part, which is more obvious. I’ve mentioned this before, but sliding into a thong heel is the most risky form of shoe wearing: those chaste, buffed heels are separated from the filthy ground by a thin sole jacked up by a spindly heel. Do you like the tantalizing adventure that your pinky toe could graze that nasty ground? Now, ramp that concept up a metaphysical thousand-fold by wearing a Jesus-dangling rosary necklace like a trashy summer anklet.
The whole combination of perverse iconography and the psychotic phalangeal snare with its gash visual makes the McQueen rosary heel a demented classic.
Now, This Jacket Is Making Me Flip (Yes, I Included Picks)