Track the Trend: Prada vs. Josephine Baker

Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life – Josephine Baker

Prada, S/S 2011 from Style.com

Miuccia Prada is a fashion behemoth. And while there’s no denying that she’s a true visionary, I can’t help thinking that some of her collections smack a tiny bit of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Anyone remember the Miu Miu jockey-cum-scuba looks from 2008 for example? While it kick-started the trend for neoprene that has been hanging around for a few seasons it certainly wasn’t high on my wishlist of clothes I wanted to wear. But it seems we’ve reached a stage where the style press are scared to question anything she does for fear of running the risk of not ‘getting’ fashion. Miuccia Prada IS fashion. I’m actually quite a fan of this particular state of affairs, as it means she can go as bonkers as she likes and no one will question it. Having said all this, her recent S/S 2011 collection is  bang on as far as I’m concerned.

Prada paradoxically described the collection as “minimal baroque,” and while the influences ranged from cherubs to hospital scrubs, the defining influence for me was Josephine Baker.

The original banana skirt: Josephine in the Folies Bergere in 1926. From The Josephine Baker Story by Ean Wood

Josephine Baker has long been a stylistic influence for me, a few years ago a friend and I made a replica banana skirt and at the same time I made a Carmen Miranda fruit headdress. But my own obsession with wearing fruit aside, in choosing Baker as a reference Prada has opened up a whole host of associations.

Prada, S/S 2011 from Style.com. While many people have lauded the multi-soled brogues, my personal favourites were the striped Mary-Janes.

Miuccia Prada is not one to take an influence lightly, as you can see from the graphic silent movie-esque make up by Pat  McGrath and the fingerwaved hair. Prada had banana earrings on to take her final bow, and the rumour on vogue.com is that the only reason the models weren’t decked out in similar banana jewellery is that Miuccia’s assistant talked her out of it at the last minute. Always one to follow through with a theme, the finger sandwiches were also dyed green and pink to mimic the stripes on the clothes.

Hair affair. (Left) Josephine with Chiquita the Cheetah in 1930 from The Josephine Baker Story by Ean Wood; (Right) Prada make up and hair from Vogue.com

And so to Baker. In choosing Josephine Baker as a seminal influence, Prada not only conjures up images of the exotically glamorous Paris of the 1920s, but also the vision of an incredible woman who fought for freedom and against injustice throughout her life. She grew up in poverty in St Louis, Missouri and at the age of 10 she won a dance competition put on by a traveling medicine man. This was the moment that she first realised that she could make money from performing. She started performing professionally at 14, touring in a vaudeville show. America was  largely defined by segregation at this time; black shows could only perform to black audiences. It was this injustice as well as witnessing the East St Louis race riot of 1917 that ensured she eventually felt more at home in Paris than in her native America.

The interest in African art had been growing in Paris since the late 1880s, as France’s colonial expansion fueled interest and led to increasing numbers of explorers discovering  artifacts and sending them back to France for fledgling museum displays. By the time Josephine arrived in 1925 to appear in an all-black revue, the Harlem Renaissance in America and the Art Deco movement in Paris that celebrated ‘primitive’ art as a major influence were in full swing. The ‘Negro Vogue’ was at its peak, and Josephine Baker’s appearance in ‘Le Revue Negre’ swiftly solidified her position as the embodiment of the erotic/exotic in popular performance.

The Danse Sauvage in ‘La Revue Negre,’ Paris 1925. From The Josephine Baker Story by Ean Wood

Just a year after she set foot in Paris she starred in the  Folies Bergere and wore the banana skirt for the first time. By mid 1926 she was believed to be the most photographed woman in the world. Dolls of her in the infamous banana skirt were sold in thousands,  and everything from cocktails to bathing suits and hair products all capitalised on her image by using her name.

Costume for the finale of ‘Un Vent De Folie’ at the Folies Bergere (1927); Costumed by Georges Barbier for ‘Un Vent De Folie’ at the Folies Bergere (again 1927); Josephine as Le Chasse-Mouche in ‘La Folie Du Jour’ (1926) all from The Josephine Baker Story by Ean Wood

The banana dance in action, and you can hear her saucy number ‘Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes’ here.

Yet Miuccia Prada isn’t the first designer to be influenced by the Baker legacy. Paul Poiret was inspired by Baker and used her as a model. She even claimed, “It was for me that Poiret created the Zouave pants.” Madeleine Vionnet also gave her clothes to wear as an advertisement. And it wasn’t only clothing that Josephine inspired; Alice B Toklas even created a dessert in her honour called ‘Custard Josephine Baker’ (needless to say the main ingredient was bananas) that you can read in this book.

Poiret Zouave dress from Harpers Bazaar

But as well as the influence she had over stylistic and culinary arts, Baker was an avid believer in human rights. Throughout the course of her life she adopted 12 multi-ethnic orphans – which she named the ‘Rainbow Tribe’ – the last of which runs a restaurant dedicated to her in New York. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, Rosette de la Resistance and the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur for her work helping the Resistance in France during WWII – as well as entertaining the troops she worked as an ‘Honorable Correspondent’ by smuggling secrets written in invisible ink on her sheet music. And she was so active in her support of the Civil Rights Movement in America that she was asked to replace Martin Luther King as the leader of the movement after his assassination. (Baker eventually declined, claiming her children were too young to lose their mother.)

Baker has an enduring legacy and is frequently referenced in popular culture, from the video for Sir Mix A Lot’s hip hop classic ‘Baby Got Back‘, to the recent variety show ‘Desir’ in which the hugely talented Marawa the Amazing played Josephine to rave reviews: the New York Times described her as a “banana-skirted virtuoso of the hula hoop” who “blissfully reincarnates Josephine Baker”.

Marawa the Amazing

Baker took the banana – which due to Freud had been imbued with connotations of masculinity, and due to slavery was associated with oppression and segregation – and subverted it to become a symbol of female emancipation and empowerment. It is this heritage that Miuccia Prada draws on when she uses Josephine Baker imagery in her current collection. Combined with the healthy helping of kitsch that comes from the cartoon-like banana print, Miuccia is undoubtedly ushering in a new era of optimism in fashion.

The banana influence: Prada, S/S 2011 from Style.com