Friday, March 4, 2011

Lady Gaga is actually a 16th Century Venetian Whore


Those Noritaka Tatehana heelless shoes of which she is so fond?

Totes just chopines:

What do you mean you've never been to the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto and don't know what chopines are?

It is almost too wonderful.
"The chopine was one of the most extreme and artificial styles of footwear ever created. The chopine could reach a height of over 18 inches (50cms), but this extreme seems to have been confined to Italy and possibly Spain. It probably originated in Venice and was first worn by prostitutes, but was then adopted by fashionable Venetian aristocrats. The style derived from the Turkish bath shoe which kept the feet of the wearer out of the water."
"What a prodigious affectation is that of chopines where our ladies imitated the Venetian and Persian ladies." - Dr John Bulwer, 1653.
In-deed!

Should you find yourself among the fallen of Venice with nary a thing to wear, here is a step-by-step guide so you can make your own! You will apparently need a variety of different sized hand saws among other things.

Also, not to beat the Mugler thing to death, but I am really enjoying this video:


Soundtrack includes a new Gaga song called "Government Hooker"-- with a title like that the sound itself doesn't really matter, but turns out it's fun! Unfortunately about three-and-a-half minutes in it morphs into "Born This Way", which, ugh, but the video remains gorgeous. It's really a shame; the staging and cinematography is so engaging and so completely undercut by that cheap trash.

Damn, though, Gaga is fierce 34 seconds in.

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