Idolatry
Exquisite Torture: Angelspit’s New Album, “Hideous and Perfect”
Check out this interview with Angelspit from ReGen Mag:
The Beauty of Perverted SoundHere’s an excerpt I particularly like, explaining Destroyx’s image for the album artwork:
Visually, you once more set up a whole new appearance. Destroyx this time spreads a kind of geisha vibe, in connection with erotic and doll-like imagery. What’s the background for the current visual concept, and how does it relate to the lyrics?
Destroyx: For our previous albums, we have often looked towards history for our visual concepts. This time we decided to do something fresh and completely new….I worked with an extremely talented makeup artist, Karen Hopwood, to develop the makeup look. The outcome is something edgy and quite horrific, yet also strangely alluring. The overall look is quite alien, a weird mix of fetish fashion and screwed-up geisha makeup. The makeup is a mask which covers my recognizable facial features, thus contorting my identity. Most responses to the makeup have been very interesting. Many people have been confused and disturbed by it, which is definitely the intended outcome. I’m not trying to look glamorous, as many people do for their promotional looks. I guess I’m still trying to get people to readdress their attitudes towards beauty, which is always an ongoing theme. Through presenting highly polished, almost hyperreal imagery, we are attempting in a way to use the language of advertising that we are so constantly bombarded with in society. However, we are subverting the message in a disturbing way. People seem to be repulsed and confused by the message, which is our intention. It’s meant to be an alluring yet terrifying image; it’s basically Hideous and Perfect.
“Destroyx is a typical girl who has a fetish for shoes; I’m a typical boy who is a junkie for old synthesizers.”
- ZooGAn Interview with Dita Von Teese
A Suicide Girls interview with Dita Von TeeseOn going through a divorce or bad breakup:
I guess the best advice I have is to accept the pain and to know that it’s part of the risk we take in loving. Inevitably we learn from heartbreak and we recover, and hopefully emerge ready to become a better partner for someone new.
In the midst of a hellacious heartbreak, I work my ass off to stay occupied, and I try to imagine myself further down the line when I’m right again, and in love again. I’ve been through enough heartache to know that we don’t ever die from it, and we always find someone better suited to us. And I personally force myself to think hard about what I did wrong and try to get my revenge by being a better person for someone new. My revenge is always based in living well and trying to be better.On her recent move to Paris:
I love it. It’s beautiful. I’ve traveled the world and I still can’t find anything nearly as beautiful.
I’m really happy that I finally did it. I realized one day when I was talking to an old friend from 15 years ago; I mentioned I wanted to live in Paris and he reminded me I said that way back when. So I was like, “What am I waiting for? Why am I afraid?” I just did it.On her upcoming film project Mata Hari:
It’s an amazing script, and I would love to play Mata Hari… I don’t really have any interest in acting unless it’s in films I would actually like to see, so I pass on most of the acting projects that come my way. I really like being true to myself and doing what I do. I have no problem being content to be a burlesque dancer. I didn’t do it as a stepping stone to “bigger” things, I did it because I love it.On scandal:
A stranger recently tried to blackmail me to buy back some love letters I wrote to a boyfriend 15 years ago, and I said, “Feel free to sell them on eBay if you want. What do I care if people find out that I’m romantic!”
That’s one downfall of fame, I get lots of people that want to extort money from me to buy things that they think — hope — will be scandalous for me. Really, what could be scandalous for me? I’m a burlesque dancer!Read the full interview here.
Tags: dita von teese
Obscurae: The Art of Anja Millen
I love photographer and digital artist Anja Millen! She blows me away again and again with her intense, dark, surreal, gritty, beautifully horrific pieces. I love the wide range of her work; she’s one of those artists who really defy the distinction between beauty and “ugliness” or what causes a reaction of repulsion in us. She also takes brilliant self-portraits. Here’s a small selection from her work:
3 Style Icons
I guess they’re kind of a holy trinity for me.
What I admire about them is their ability to create an image for themselves, to forge and strike a visual identity from the inert mass that flares for a pretty near eternal instant.
Descriptor: Vintage VixenMmm, Dita. What I love about the burlesque queen is that she’s always impeccably dressed, and preserves the glamor of the golden age of Hollywood while putting her own twist on it. Her sense of fashion is amazing. She has a very distinctive, consistent style, which is complete and cohesive. She goes for the elegant and glamorous side of retro rather than the kitschy. And she does it through and through. She doesn’t dress casually even to go to the supermarket. With her signature black curls, vividly red lips, and lily-white face, she can be dark, bold, vampish, yet she’s feminine, delicate, always elegant, and sometimes sort of fluffy. She infuses the more mundane present with some of the fascinating and voluptuous glamor and the tightly-controlled, very put-together beauty of the ’40s and ’50s. I think Dita is a perfect example of self-transformation and creating beauty through unique style. Nothing beats her retro look of wickedly defined, bright red lips, jet-black sculpted hair, and clear white skin. Dita’s book, Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese, is gorgeous and a really fun read.
Descriptor: Experimental EpidemicThe multitalented Destroyx AKA Amelia Arsenic, vocalist for industrial/alternative band Angelspit, is another one of my style heroines. Her blog, www.destroyx.com, is all kinds of goodness. Her ability to style and adorn herself absolutely blows my mind. She combines cyber, fetish, gothic, and retro looks with daring, elegance, and innovation, to create an edgy, sophisticated, and utterly unforgettable image. Even though she takes elements from so many different styles, I think that above all, her style is really only hers and one of a kind. I love the complexity, eclecticism, elaborate accessorizing, and layering that go into her outfits. She is a makeup guru. Her looks are bold, gorgeous, and original. She represents the pinnacle for me of achieving interesting effects through makeup and styling – becoming something more than just yourself visually. Angelspit’s got amazing visual design and aesthetics with her influence, and Destroyx and ZooG (the other member of Angelspit) make a powerful creative duo.
Descriptor: Wayward Victorian Girl/Insane Asylum InmateEmilie Autumn is a quirky solo musician who makes self-styled “Victoriandustrial” music. She has a lovely style all her own, which is a kind of bastardized-era, feminine, torn, tattered, wispy, layered, ribbony, very pink-themed goth look. Her hair is divine, a very beautiful shade of pink and/or red. Aside from the Victorian influences, there are fey influences and influences from the Elizabethan period, which show in her music as well. Her style is light, ethereal, and fairy-like, as well as grungier girl-punk with the requisite studded cuffs and tattered fishnets. Bloodstains, hearts, and teatime are recurring elements. Emilie has an incredible ability to create an image, and this can be seen in all the artwork, design, extra features, and images on her Opheliac album – a testament to her creativity and styling genius. She is charming, alluring, and promises to take you beyond the mundane, into a secret world of melodramatic madnesses, anachronisms, oppression, and trauma. Her whole aesthetic concept revolves around the “Asylum.” Her style is very coherent, but has lots of variety and potential. Her very basic and most replicable look is something like a “dirty”/tattered white tank top with a heart patch, or a tea-stained corset, with bloomers, red-and-white stripey stockings/asymmetrical legwear, and of course, her heart makeup.
Tags: 1940s, 1950s, avant-garde, destroyx, dita von teese, emilie autumn, insane asylum aesthetic, latex, retro, victorian, vintage
