Artiste or Coquette?
What Manet/ Degas and Barbie taught me about bow-mania and balletcore
Happy 2024!
Here’s a New Years confession: I too have fallen deep into bow-mania.
My affliction (punctum?) began last summer with these Ganni satin butterfly bow heels. I thought it was one and done. Then this Acne Studios musubi tote stopped me in my tracks in Aoyama over Thanksgiving.
Reminiscent of men’s briefcases, the tote’s dark marbled brown color is dead serious, yet on each side is a twisted musubi knot - a reinterpreted bow per se, inspired by traditional Japanese obi sashes - adding a soft, playful flair. This musubi tote silhouette lived in my head rent free for the remainder of my time in Tokyo. (Ultimately I caved in and got it for my birthday.)
And for the final b(l)ow - the unexpected wardrobe hero on my Christmas trip to the Cayman Islands was this pastel jacquard top from Peter Som (courtesy of RTR):
With sculptural puff sleeves and a peplum hem, it was easy to throw on and loose everywhere except at the cinched waist. A black ribbon at the back tied everything all together. I paired it with denim shorts for long walks on the beach, draped it over my swimsuit as poolside cover, and dressed it up with silk leopard pants to sit down at formal dinners. The possibilities were endless. I felt so good, so free - coquettish, perhaps?
Of course, bow-mania has been a long time coming. Slender appliqué ribbons embellished the face of Simone Rocha’s models for F/W 2023. The bow is a central motif for Sandy Liang, who gave us draped bow bags for SS24 and put bows on everything from button-ups to entry rugs. Sandy Liang herself got married in June 2023 with mini satin ribbons all over her hair and bow-wrapped shell chalices on her table setting. Her bridal bouquet was a singular ornamental onion, adorned with none other than a black bow.
Holiday season festivities only exacerbated bow-mania, as Christmas presents, garlands, TV remotes, pickles, and even melting ice cubes all found themselves donning bows.
2023 was the “Year of the Girl” after all - we had girl dinners, languished in various girl summers, and celebrated as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the Barbie movie broke records. Given bows’ common association with school girls and ballet dancers, bow-mania is but one facet of broader emerging sartorial trends centered around whimsical femininity, such as the girlhood/ coquette aesthetic and balletcore.
I find the emergence of these aesthetics deeply intriguing. On one hand, the cultural significance: popular discourse often claims that coquette and balletcore make space for women to reclaim ultra-femininity without giving up autonomy, that the bow is a symbol of nostalgia and longing for youthfulness. As superficial as it may be - just throw on some sheer tights, leg warmers, ballet shoes, and put a ribbon on it - you go girl!
Another dimension of my fascination is entirely personal: for I have been the young girl who began ballet training at age six, who spent every Sunday morning by the barre, and continued on and off until high school. From the very beginning, the aesthetic of ballet enchanted me: I loved the diaphanous tutus, the ritual of fastening my hair in a tight bun with a dainty bow and slipping into ballet slippers, their satiny feel against my feet. I loved how smoothly words like elevé and plié rolled off the tongue, the crisp rhythm of piano, the swell of waltz. It was the promise of womanhood - that with every striving tendu and relevé, I too will one day transform from ugly duckling into white swan.
But there’s also the unsavory side which balletcore glosses over: the tireless repetition, relentless discipline, the sweat and tears and pain. The barre was where I learned to inspect my own evolving body in the mirror, reading into every angle, straight edge, and curve. I was always conscious of whether I was smaller or bigger than other girls in class. I was told that I was most beautiful when I was at my thinnest and most vulnerable. I learned that beauty is raw and often masks agony. Eventually I quit ballet.
The weight of the bow can be crushing.
Flashbacks of my own history with ballet rushed in as I stood before Degas’ The Dancing Class at the Met’s Manet/Degas exhibit, currently in its final week on view. This is Degas’ very first depiction of a ballet class, predating his backstage access privileges at the Paris Opéra and the 1,500 works that ensued portraying coteries of young ballerinas in flowering tutus.
Looking closely at the painting, my gaze landed on the left-most girl with her back against the piano and the girl bending over the barre on the right: the gleaming pink bows around their waists look just so identical to the bows tied around ice cubes circa 2023 bow-mania.
How far have we come? In Degas’ Paris, ballet performances were demoted to tawdry interludes at operas. Wealthy male abonnés lingered backstage at the foyer de la danse where the dancers warmed up to ogle and proposition the ballerinas. Young girls (called petits rats) from working-class backgrounds entered the ballet academy as children, worked grueling hours, and often had to offer sexual favors to abonnés in order to supplement their income and advance social ranks.
In her essay Artiste or Coquette? Les petits rats of the Paris Opera Ballet, art historian Lorraine Coons remarked the ballet’s brothel culture was so pervasive that serious young dancers who were dedicated to their craft and did not resort to prostitution would likely have been suspected to have done so anyway.
Heavy is the bow that ties the waist.
Moving through the galleries to the focal point of the Manet/Degas show, I spotted yet another bow - on who else but Manet’s Olympia herself!
In Manet’s scandalous, modernist interpretation of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, the black ribbon pendant choker is among the only accessories worn by the otherwise entirely naked prostitute performing as Aphrodite. Contrary to Titian’s allusive Venus, the cynical Olympia lounges in her unmade bed and asserts her presence with a forthright stare. The bow choker a symbol of Olympia’s femininity, sex appeal, and livelihood, perhaps both a blessing and a curse.
For a while, I still couldn’t quite pinpoint the takeaway from 2023’s bow-mania.
Then, I finally I watched the Barbie movie on my flight home from the Caymans - I held out from watching the film for as long as I could, knowing the plot and message to be predictable. I was also already familiar with America Ferrara’s monologue from media buzz, but it still hit me in the moment:
It is literally impossible to be a woman…You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin…You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass…
You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful…
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line…
“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”
Maybe this is what bow-mania is really about: a knot that ties together the multitudes of womanhood and its inherent contradictions. The trials and triumphs. The sweat and glamor. The pain and beauty. The bow is tying together me, and you, and the petits rats, and Olympia, and Venus, and even Barbie, to do the best we can with the cards we were dealt, to assert our own self-image even as we are still inevitably a part of someone else’s gaze.
On my morning commute, I carried my musubi tote and sat on the ferry behind two women cheerily planning their New York day trip itinerary. I noticed they both wore red ribbons in their hair. I told them I love their ribbons. They smiled and told me they love the bow-like knots on my tote.
So for that brief moment, we were kindred spirits - and maybe that was enough.
I really loved this so much