Music and Vintage Friday: Cormorant

I decided to challenge myself this week and put together a vintage outfit that expresses the aesthetic of my own husband’s band, Cormorant.  Since I’ve been with Arthur since the band’s beginning, you’d probably think I’d be able to pull this artistic exercise off easily.  That is definitely not the case.  This was the most challenging wardrobe experiment I’ve ever done, and even though the look is very simple, it took a long time to find the right combination of pieces to form an accurate sartorial statement.  The challenge in this exercise was not in deciphering Cormorant’s artistic statement, but rather in deciding how to express an artistic statement that has multiple layers and crosses multiple boundaries.  I decided that the outfit should reflect just that: the way Cormorant crosses borders of time and region.

The jacket is from the late 19th Century.  The outer shell is still pretty hearty, but the lining is extremely delicate has tons of rips and tears in it.  I chose this beautiful old jacket because it expresses Cormorant’s strong connection to the past (Arthur even wrote lyrics about the late 19th Century for the song “A Howling Dust”).  Plus, its nipped waist and strong shoulders give me a slight birdlike silhouette, which is useful for expressing the image of a cormorant itself.

The dress is fair trade by Global Mamas.  I’ve had it for a few years now, yet somehow have failed to post any pictures of it anywhere.  When it comes to clothing, I rarely buy new, and if I do, I tend to favor fair trade clothing.  I thought this dress would be appropriate because of Cormorant’s exploration of international themes.  Cormorant has drawn inspiration from every inhabited continent on the planet, focusing on themes of exploitation, the struggle for freedom, and social justice (among many others).  This dress was made in Ghana by women who were paid a living wage, given fair work hours, and not exploited for their work.  I think Cormorant would appreciate that.

And the batik print is a little reminiscent of the Metazoa album cover.

See you Monday!

Amber von Nagel