Her social media photos aim to evoke those emotions in concrete terms – in the form of bodysuits, disco balls, hologram horses and bedazzled saddles. If the music is an homage to uninhibited movement, the still images are steeped in the history of fashion, glamor and maintenance perfectionism – perhaps not the old-school version that Beyoncé eschews in her message, but a demanding rigor nonetheless.
There is a lot of work in these views.
To start: There are body suits. But of course there are also physical ones. Has there ever been an extended Beyoncé moment that didn’t feature one? No, there isn’t. They are her signature. Her uniform. They should be renamed Bey-suits.
There are coiled ones and cast ones and one that is really just a little silver chain and rhinestone. In one portrait, she sits with her legs akimbo in a black Alaïa lace bodysuit with her gaze directed at the viewer and her lips slightly parted. This is also a signature. In almost every shot, she is looking at her audience with her mouth slightly open. This preset expression gives each photo a similar emotional tone.
Beyonce in still images is not as interesting as Beyonce in motion. Her silence doesn’t speak volumes. It does not communicate so much in a glance as it is captured in a click of the shutters. It doesn’t matter if she’s holding a broken bottle as if fending off an unruly bar friend or raising an old-fashioned glass as if beckoning a waiter to refresh her drink. She’s giving the Beyoncé look. But it doesn’t matter. This has always been more than enough.
There’s more Alaïa on display in the form of a custom acid green lace dress with Mongolian lamb trim. There’s also a Gucci silver satin velvet dress with winged sleeves and a puffy red jacket by Dolce & Gabbana. There are western hats and red-heeled stilettos, corsets and a silver horned bodice by Mugler reminiscent of the entirety of the 1992 “Too Funky” video, in which designer Thierry Mugler collaborated with George Michael, who may be a from seven summits of fashion and music collaborations.
The clothes, with their broad shoulders and pale lines and relentless sexual provocation, recall the 1970s to early 1990s, when fashion went from a kind of foreboding sexuality to mad display. The outfit brings to mind the witty confidence of Grace Jones and the sexual titillation of Madonna. Intense glamor brings to mind drag balls and drag queens. The pose makes one think of the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Jean-Paul Goude.
Beyoncé posing on her knees with a gilded saddle on her back echoes Newton’s “Saddle I.” The image of her in a silver Gucci dress with an almost exposed breast is reminiscent of his portrait of Paloma Picasso wearing a breast-revealing dress by Karl Lagerfeld. And there’s a disco horse. Beyoncé sits above her in chains and spikes and a white hat; recalls the pop culture moment from 1978, when Bianca Jagger rode a white horse into Studio 54 and helped cement the nightclub’s reputation as that of the era. not any more place for decadence and debauchery.
There is a total commitment to the bright joy of that period – or at least the tenderly concentrated memory of it. At that time, satisfaction grew despite – and perhaps because of – the dire circumstances. Dance endured in the face of the AIDS epidemic, homophobia, economic peril and horrific crime statistics. There was much to fear. And so, after a pandemic lockdown, civil unrest and an attempted uprising, Beyoncé delivers bubbly, happy music. And after years of track pants and yoga pants and dressing only from the waist up, she also presents her audience with a lithe, spit-smooth, tight-fitting, edgy fashion. She’s working hard on those corsets and stilettos.
It would be politically correct to argue that she is putting on a display of female strength and empowerment with her pasties and stitched stockings. After all, Beyoncé has educated the culture and the music industry on what it means to embrace one’s success and power. Her teachings have especially resonated with some black women. But there’s no denying that these photographs also express a pleasure in the male gaze—as well as the female gaze, the genderless gaze, and the gaze of anyone who cares to look.
The clothes tell the chaotic story of an era in pop culture when people were determined to have a good time. And when they He did have a nice day. Despite everything.
