Behind the choice of a look there is sometimes much more than an aesthetic transport. Sometimes there is a message. This was the case with the transformation of Billie Eilish for the June cover of Vogue UK which coincided with the launch of her second album Happier Than Ever, with a single that by the title is already a program Your Power. “It’s about the freedom to choose what makes you feel good,” explained the 19-year-old teenage star, who ditched her buggy, hooded, hooded, opaque, two-tone hair look to turn to blonde bombshell and show off her her body, her shapes and her skin for the first time, taking a classic beauty model, that of the pin-ups of the past.
It seems to have been Billie Eilish herself, passionate about American female iconography of the first half of the twentieth century, who chose these references, one would be Betty Brosmer, a former American bodybuilder and fitness expert, others the images of women portrayed by the fetish photographer Elmer Batters.
In the interview published on Vogue UK, the pop singer with 83.8 million followers on Instagram, the youngest singer to have won a Grammy for album of the year and to write a song for a James Bond film, No time to die, he explained why he wanted to try to get into a corset: “Suddenly you are hypocritical if you want to show your skin, and you are easy and you are a t ****, and you are a prostitute. If they are, I’m proud of it. Me and all the girls are sluts, and you know what? F *** it. Let’s turn everything upside down and feel more powerful thanks to this. Showing your body and showing – or not showing – your skin shouldn’t take away any respect from you. It’s about taking back your power, showing it and not taking advantage of it. I will never let myself be overwhelmed again ».
A statement that makes the choice of more relevant than ever Billie Eilish to play the role of a pin-up, a timeless aesthetic model that celebrates femininity as strength, sensuality and self-confidence, even if often considered controversial because it is then depleted of its original meaning.
BRIEF HISTORY OF PIN-UP
The pin-up of the 40s, or the cover girls, literally from English pin-up translates as “to hang”, were modern women, who were not afraid to enter the world of work, in control of their sexuality and who showed themselves in a decisive and confident way. They were the evolution of Gibson Girls of the early twentieth century, female portraits taken from the sketches of Charles Dana Gibson, women squeezed in Edwardian corsets and with puffy hair, always attentive to the latest fashion trends. Unlike the burlesque performers they did not show their skin but accentuated the shapes thanks to the clothes.
A figure that has evolved over time, as he tells in his book Pin-Up Grrrls, Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture Maria Elena Buszek, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Denver in Colorado, in which she explores through history the female sex symbols, from those of the beginnings like Adah Isaacs Menken and Lydia Thompson, to the English burlesque performers, who fought control of one’s image. The text is an analysis of the evolution of this sexy aesthetic within the panorama of the “new woman”, the independent ones of the early twentieth century that wished for a radical change, in the suffragette movement, in the photos of fanzines and those of women in the period. of the Second World War, up to the Playboy covers and the revival of the most recent burlesque genre, as a new wave of feminist artists. Pin-ups with their provocative look have often been read as icons of empowerment, because women who publicly defined and represented their personality and sexuality.
They were committed to embracing their sensuality and during the following decades when the female model needed to break free, they helped balance the fields of action between the sexes, proving that women are more than a sexual object, even when they choose a bold aesthetic. , courageous, which pays homage to their many facets, with pride for the female forms, which do not need to be hidden to assert themselves in society and be listened to.
A concept clearly expressed by Billie Eilish herself in the cover interview with Vogue: “I’m no less a model if I have the ability to excite you,” she said. Referring to that body that for her was “the initial reason for her depression when she was younger”, a situation that worsened causing her to cover herself in loose clothing when at 13, due to an injury, when she gave up dancing, later adopting a style that became, even with her reluctance, a body positive icon, and which, as stated in her editorial by Vogue UK editor Edward Enninful, transformed her into “a leader of feminist thought for her fans, which has made this change of look even more intriguing. You have your version on the issue of personal choices, on fears, on fans and on women’s bodies and above all on self-confidence ».
IÂ CODICI DEL LOOK BEAUTY DA PIN-UP
They settled in the 1940s and had the as protagonists lips with a plumping effect, enhanced with bright lipsticks, women were encouraged to buy lipsticks during the war because of the beneficial effect they had on mood. As Sarah Schaffer wrote in Reading Our Lips: The History of Lipstick Regulation in Western Seats of Power lipstick was considered a symbol of female resilience during a dangerous or difficult situation, let’s not forget that Queen Elizabeth II, a woman of another generation, made this belief a pillar in her reign, using it even in a pandemic period. The face had to be natural, given the scarcity of make-up during the period, in this light the eyebrows were left thick but well defined. The eyeliner was quite thick and applied to make the eyes appear more open and engaging. Even the hair style transmitted positivity, the waves were soft and voluminous, at a certain point they took the shape of Victory Rolls, strands rolled up on themselves and fixed with a hairpin at the root to decorate the forehead or the sides of the face, one style that according to various theories symbolized the dynamism of the planes that had led to victory during the war. The pin-up look as well as still having undisputed reference icons such as Betty Page and more recently Dita Von Tesse had a renaissance in the 2000s among pop singers, before Billie Eilish, star like Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry e Beyoncé, in the video Why Don’t you love me, they interpreted it in a playful and daring way.
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