First Step Was Vague, but a Vogue Fad Dips Into L.A.
To vogue or not to vogue?
It’s no longer a question.
Los Angeles vogued Thursday night at “The Love Machine,” a one-night event organized by the trendies who run the Apartment club, April La Rue and Christian Farrow.
Very few of the late-late nighters attending, however, had any idea what they were doing. This was a test run in Los Angeles for the latest urban dance trend, which, in New York, incorporates modern dance movement, break-dancing, gymnastics, runway modeling, drop-dead fashion and a great deal of attitude.
“We just had to get it going now,” La Rue shouted over the heads of the throng shoving its way into Palette in West Hollywood, where the hastily organized event was held. “We couldn’t wait another minute. We have just got to vogue.”
Later this month, La Rue’s and Farrow’s Apartment club will be reopening, after a six-month hiatus, at the Stardust Ballroom on Sunset Boulevard and will feature regular competitions called vogue balls. From the looks of the overdressed mob elbowing into Palette, voguing is here to stay . . . at least for this summer.
“At last, at last,” Cafe Mambo’s Mario Tamayo, shouted as he strutted past the phalanx of security guards. “It’s here!”
But just what is it that is here?
To vogue, according to New York’s lexicographer on the scene, Chi Chi Valenti (who’s composed a glossary of voguing terms), means to dance in a form “combining frozen fashion model poses and transitional steps.”
To vogue, according to Vogue magazine’s editor in chief Anna Wintour, is to “send up the magazine a bit. The stiff posing, that old-fashioned studio look from the ‘50s, is what it’s about. Although, it’s not what the magazine’s about now.”
“Houses”--groups of 20 to 40 kids who vogue under a name--are named for their founders, like New York’s House of Afrika, founded by Renault Afrika (bank clerk Renault Verone by day). Or a house may be named for its mentor--the House of (designer) Thierry Mugler or the name might send up fashion excess like the House of Extravaganza. Like the dancing itself, voguers poke fun at the older, stiffer, formal fashion titles of the ‘40s and ‘50s--House of Chanel, House of Dior--laughing at the grandness, and perhaps hoping for the chance to be that grand.
“It’s a chance to work out a dream in reality,” said David Burns, the coordinator of Thursday night’s “Love Machine.”
In New York it is more. Voguing is a way of life for hundreds of kids, mostly poor, who belong to the 20-odd recognized houses that compete against each other regularly for cash prizes. And this fashionable way of life is run by a “father” and a “mother.” At first glance, this structured, paternalistic society may seem like a chic cult brewing; however, the “kids” who report to their house “mother” or “father” are usually in their late teens or early 20s. Some of the kids are unemployed, and it is the house mother or father who will help them find a job or get back into school.
The houses in New York have been developing for “at least five years,” according to Burns, who worked on vogue balls there for the last several years before coming out to Los Angeles. “Voguing goes back a long time, maybe 20 years, when it started in Harlem--black and Spanish kids facing off in costumes on speaker boxes. It’s going white now, much more trendy.”
Indeed. Rock impresario Malcolm MacLaren has already produced a record, “Deep in Vogue,” which is moving up on the charts, and he is in negotiations with Columbia Pictures for a full-length feature on voguing. Thierry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gaultier have used voguers in their collections on the Paris runways. Claude Montana is next, it’s rumored. And film maker Jennie Livingston is producing a full-length feature documentary, “one that goes back to Harlem.”
But back to voguing in Los Angeles, where no one was quite sure what was about to happen inside “The Love Machine.” Only four houses were scheduled to “walk” on Thursday night.
It was the usual club scene inside--no room to dance, people knocking drinks all over each other, beat-thumping, ear-splitting ‘70s and ‘80s dance music, dark happenings in dark corners. A very few voguers scurried about, wondering where to and when.
About 11 o’clock, seven oddly dressed people got up on the stages around the central dance floor and began voguing . . . so to speak. The crowd on the dance floor was not mesmerized by the woman in the scanty negligee striking vogue-ish poses.
“This is just a little preview,” explained David Burns. “There’ll be a show later.”
“I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” surmised perennial late-nighter Rusty Updergraft, who admitted to only having read about voguing.
Cosmetic maven Gale Hayman, disappointed, was expecting “high fashion reminiscent of Diana Vreeland.” There were only two major hats and no veils.
The crowd was getting restless. Dweezil Zappa and his entourage, and John James and his, left. At 1:15 a.m., Farrow and Burns decided to get the show on the runway. Fourteen voguers stood on the main stage, waiting for their cue--MacLaren’s “Deep in Vogue.” They waited. They waited, several striking poses and trying to hold them. The crowd in the balcony took up a chant: “Vogue, vogue, vogue . . . .”
The music finally began. And then there was voguing.
And cheering, and clapping, and laughing. “Princess Stephanie” of the Apartment House dipped her way across the stage, puckering her lips, ignoring the ranting crowd just like a good runway model should. Designer Jerry Jaeger of the House of Lovestyle stretched his lanky arms out wide, then threw his head back. Eduardo Lucero, a fashion illustrator, and Ramirez, who works at Modern Objects, both of the House of Moderns, sashayed across the stage together. One poseur after another swaggered, paraded, popped, dipped, spun down the narrow runway. Finally, the mother of the Apartment House, April La Rue, bustled out, distributing copies of Vogue magazine and Vogue detergent.
Ten minutes of voguing; it was over. That was it.
Voguing. It’s here to stay . . . at least for this summer.
