A history project in San Francisco’s gay district that honors Virginia Woolf. The last bronze plaque of the 20 in the Rainbow Honor Walk will memorialize Woolf as a deceased person in the LGBT community who left a lasting legacy. Author Armistead Maupin will dedicate her plaque, which will be located near the Twin Peaks bar at the corner of Castro and 17th streets.
Dr. Claire Nicholson’s exploration of Woolf’s often ambivalent relationship with clothes and fashion as part of the National Portrait gallery’s exhibit on Virginia Woolf. The Luncthtime Lecture, Virginia Woolf: A Woman of Fashion?, is free and will be held Sept. 4 at 1:15 p.m. at the NPG.
Insurrections of the Mind, coming Sept. 16 from Harper Perennial, collects 70 essays from the influential The New Republic magazine that includes one from Woolf.
A review of the documentary Secrets from the Asylum that mentions Laura Stephen, Woolf’s half-sister.
Virginia Woolf has inspired many things — from fashion to multiple “rooms of one’s own.” But now she has inspired a hairdo. Or so musesThe Daily Mail.
The paper reports that hairstylist Anthony Turner was likely inspired by Woolf’s famous 1902 portrait by George Charles Beresford now housed in the National Portrait Gallery when he created a center-parted hairdo for a model at Erdem’s recent show. The hairdo swooped over her ears, ending in a low knot, with “whimsical flyaways” around the face.
The Woolf hairdo tidbit is the lead item in a July 5 column of beauty tips that are nothing more than shameless sales pitches.
Virginia Woolf: Art, life and vision is at the National Portrait Gallery from July 10 to October 26.
Once again, Virginia Woolf has influenced runway fashions, this time at London Fashion Week. Check out these links for references to Woolf, Charleston, Bloomsbury and fashion:
Handpainted Burberry fashions, a la Charleston Farmhouse. Read the New York Times story.
London Fashion Week autumn/winter 2014 blog: Days one, two and three in The Telegraph.
“The inspiration is Virginia Woolf — very poetic and super fragile as if the girl has never been out in the sun,” said the makeup artist in a Women’s Wear Daily story that also refers to the Woolf look as “a bit of a mad woman.”
Jezebelcalls outVice‘s Women in Fiction issue for its distasteful fashion spread that features models reenacting the suicides of famous female writers.
In the photos, the authors — including Virginia Woolf — are styled and posed to depict the times of their deaths. The title of the spread is “Last Words.”
The online Vice article was to appear in this month’s fiction issue of the popular news and culture magazine, which is based in the US. But after an outcry from commentators and mental health groups, the company took the feature offline late yesterday afternoon and issued an apology, according to today’s Independent article.
Perfect storm of criticism
Other writers and bloggers responded disapprovingly as well. And the heavies weighed in with a full storm of criticism:
In a related bit, ABC News reported on a class that analyzed some of history’s most famous last words, including those of Adolph Hitler, Virginia Woolf and Kurt Cobain.
The talk among academics
Finally, here are quotes from the discussion regarding the offending fashion spread and the 2002 film The Hours from the VWoolf Listserv:
“I’m just wondering of those who oppose this, are you equally offended by the portrayal of the same event in The Hours?”
“Apart from VW, the characters in The Hours were fictional, and VW’s death was decades ago, whereas Iris Chang’s family and loved ones probably are still very much processing their grief over her suicide. The image of her was breathtakingly insensitive and offensive to me for that reason.”
“It seems to me that there is a perhaps slight but nonetheless significant difference between the depiction of suicide in *The Hours* (film) and this project insofar as* The Hours *attempted to portray Woolf’s life and (perhaps to a lesser extent) her battle with mental issues before portraying her suicide whereas the Vice Magazine project shows readers only the moment of suicide itself. Although perhaps the Vice spread also contained some information about the authors and their lives? I would argue that neither work did a very good job of portraying mental illness (particularly not when it came to Woolf herself). Unless there was a significant written component to the Vice piece that I’m not aware of, it seems to me that the Vice Magazine project uses suicide as a jumping-off point for an exploration of aesthetics (if I were to be generous) or (if I were to be less generous) as a point of provocation rather than exploring the deep and complex health issues that led these authors to suicide.”
“There is no comparison. The VICE spread is using suicide to sell fashion and in doing so it glamorizes and aestheticizes female bodies in pain. It also takes our attention far away from the amazing work all of these women accomplished. You would think that in an issue announcing itself as covering Women’s Fiction that the work would be their concern. Whatever you want to say about Michael Cunningham and/or the film version of his novel The Hours, he isn’t guilty of promoting suicide to sell shoes and vintage attire!”
