[image-4]Published February 21, 2008.
It’s So You
Edited by Michelle Tea
(Seal Press)
Fashion is a feminist issue. Queer-lit icon Michelle Tea and 35 other feisty fashionistas explain why. Six Feet Under writer/producer Jill Soloway; Sonic Youth’s bassist Kim Gordon; transgender author, performer and gender theorist Kate Bornstein; writer Trina Robbins; novelist Beth Lisick and other fashionable females offer insight into identity and creativity as expressions in sartorial style. Artists Nicole J. Georges and Ellen Forney also offer up their visual take.
Gordon, perhaps inspired by living in Sylvia Plath’s old homestead in North Hampton, Massachusetts, pens a provocative critique on the clitoris, “Lipstock.” More brash than the late poetess, the musician’s view of current celebrities’ anti-panty paparazzi poses---offers a memorable take on vulgarization of the vulva. Bornstein’s “Betsey Girls Saved My Life” begins with the author’s childhood crush on a James Dean-ian boy wonder, tells how bellbottoms kept her out of Vietnam and follows her through a 12-year stint with the Church of Scientology. But it is the femmes and butches of Seattle---post-sex-reassignment surgery---who iron everything out and save her wardrobe. This is an ode to designer Betsey Johnson, who drags sexuality from the closets and slaps it on our backs.
Shannon Webb-Campbell
type: book
