Fashion Influential #26: Mae West
MAE WEST
Born:
August 17, 1893 in Woodhaven, NY
Died:
November 22, 1980 in Hollywood, CA
Fan of:
her corset model mother, her many lovers, herself
Fans:
Salvador Dali, Ringo Starr, Edith Head, Marilyn Monroe, Christina Aguilera,
Beginnings:
Mae West once told interviewer Charlotte Chandler she first fell in love at the age of five years, at the Royal Theater in Brooklyn: "It was my first love affair with my audience, and it's lasted all my life. That was the only one that ever really counted. No man could equal that. I ached for it, the spotlight, which was like the strongest man's arms around me, like an ermine coat."
Career Highs:
With her unapologetic sex appeal - she once served time in jail for having written the successful stage show Sex - Mae West brought blatant raunch to glamorous Hollywood. The 1920s and '30s equivalent to Madonna, West insisted on wearing salacious costumes that pushed at the censors' limits. It worked for her, too: West was already 38 when she signed a contract with Paramount, but the first movie in which she starred, 1933's She Done Him Wrong, was such a hit it kept the studio from bankruptcy.
I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.
- Mae West
Legendary costumer Edith Head said that West taught her "everything...about sex, clothes-wise."Career Lows:
West notably absented herself from Hollywood for nearly thirty years after Columbia Pictures' The Heat's On failed miserably. She attempted a comeback in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge in 1970, but the movie, which featured Raquel Welch as a woman who was born a man, bombed. Her final film, Sextette, was also a huge disappointment.
Legacy:
Mae claimed to have invented censorship - hence she also invented the now-ubiquitous act of pushing sexual boundaries. She once said she'd have been insulted if a film of hers didn't earn an X rating, after all. Other women may have flirted with a hemline or two, but West allowed her entire bawdy body to serve as a double entendre.
West was also a successful writer.Get the Look:
Mae West may have raised a lot of eyebrows with her costuming, but she actually revealed far less skin than the sexpots of today (thanks, Paris). West's sex appeal was definitely about her body, but it was more about her vehement insistence that sex was an important and healthy aspect of women's lives. Wear what makes you feel sexy - with confidence. - Alicia
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