Random Picture Entry: Siouxsie Sioux

Back in the days when "120 Minutes" was an imaginative lifeline out of the suburbs and the Internet but a dormant set of synapses in a few computer scientists' minds, Siouxsie Sioux first got my attention with her dramatic look: bold, geometric eyebrows framed by a Louise Brooks bob against alabaster skin, doing a strangely convulsive dance in the video for "Peek A Boo." But Sioux was way more than her visuals: I loved the restrained ferocity of her voice, the haunting sweep of the atmospheric, unapologetically arty music and her sheer imperviousness to the male gaze. She combined punk energy and glam rock theatrics, enunciated with the tones and visual vocabulary of Weimar-era cabaret. To label it "goth" would be too simple, as their music possessed layers of artifice and raw emotion, filtered through increasingly literate lyrics and an underrated melodic complexity. Through the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees, one could sense that sheer force of will and a spark of creativity could reinvent who you were. To listen to a song like "Cities in Dust" was to transport yourself to a place where the fabulous dark corners of the imagination were illuminated like so many dazzling lights of a very surreal kaleidoscope of a party. An Angela Carter story could have no better soundtrack than a Siouxsie and the Banshees song; both writer and musicians were known for their dark glamour and their mordant slant.

Siouxsie herself went through a few incarnations, from the London punk of her early days to the more straightforward sophistication of the Superstition era. Fashionwise, Sioux is all over the fall/winter season, judging from the runway makeup from the shows to a startling resemblance in the ads for Parisian fashion house Lanvin. Looking at these pictures, I'm struck by how utterly soi disant Sioux looks, how completely, unmistakably self-contained she is. In a season where the proclaimed trends are dark, romantic and strong, photos (and articles) of Sioux are a reminder that the origins of such a look were about the vision, absolutism and force of will that a woman could possess, and not trends and adjectives to pile on like so much cheap jewelry to be discarded after a season.

Posted by Kat in Random Picture Entry
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