By Audrey Chan and Shabnam Shahkarami, 2024

 

Kate Craig’s Pink Dress (1975) is a handmade garment sewn and worn by Craig for a performance titled Amy Vanderbilt’s Valentine’s Ball by Lin Bennett. The event occurred on 14 February 1975 at Western Front’s Grand Luxe Hall and was inspired by the death of the real Amy Vanderbilt, author of The Complete Book of Etiquette in which expectations for women’s behaviour and manners were explained in great detail.¹ The avant-garde artists of Western Front created a performance piece to challenge societal expectations of women, particularly satirizing stereotypical etiquette. Guests were invited to dress formally for the performance, which was an array of dialogue, song and dance exploring the mysterious death of Amy Vanderbilt in connection with the Emperor and Empress of Wu. Craig was part of the chorus of eight women known as the Peanettes.² Together, they prepared for a Valentine’s Day party which took the form of a debutante ball, also known as a “coming-out party” where young women would “come out” into society with the opportunity to find a partner for marriage. The Peanettes changed their name to the Vignettes in the spirit of the occasion. In preparation for their presentation as debutantes, the women rehearsed proper etiquette or, as they said, “Minding our p’s and q’s.” They practiced walking while balancing books on their heads and curtsying, though each book tumbled to the floor as the Vignettes went down the line taking turns bending their knees and bowing their heads.

All of the Vignettes wore long dresses in different styles in pink, red and white –colours stereotypically categorized as feminine. Many wore flowers pinned to their hair or clothing. Wearing Pink Dress, Craig donned silver heels, a white flower pinned to the strap of her dress and elbow-length white gloves. Each of the women wore a pair of gloves to protect their hands. During the performance, a narrator explained, “Debutantes’ skin is very delicate and will quickly chafe and get sore if roughly handled.” This is one of many remarks in which the women were referred to as fragile and in need of protection from the world. The debutantes were described as “often kept in captivity until society is capable of looking out for them properly and giving them the devoted individual care they need.” The women were not seen as able to manage themselves independently and were constantly reliant on a male figure –whether it be a husband, an escort or a father, as revealed lyrically in a song with the chorus, “My heart belongs to dada.” Simultaneously, several characters were played by performers of the opposite sex: Paul Wong played the Empress of Wu, Anne Geach acted as the Emperor and the role of Amy Vanderbilt was taken up by Glenn Lewis (known as Flakey Rrose Hip) wearing a leopard print lampshade over his head and reading lines from The Amy Vanderbilt Book of Etiquette to mock instructions of how men and women should behave.

Pink Dress is part of a larger series of pink satin costumes designed and made by Craig called Pink Poem. Through this series, representative of Craig’s “coming out of [her] Lady Brute” persona, Craig tackled issues of female freedom and limitations. In an interview in BOO Magazine, Craig explained how she claimed her “freedom of sexual expression” by reclaiming the colour pink through her creation of the pink Straight Jacket, Pink Dress and Pink Jacket.³ Craig believed that stereotypes around female sexuality needed to be confronted and broken.⁴ The Pink Poem costume series and Amy Vanderbilt’s Valentine’s Ball were timely and could be considered engagements with the Second-Wave Feminist Movement which flourished in the 1960s and 1970s.

Works from the Collection considers works in the Belkin’s permanent collections in conversation with ongoing exhibitions, programs and the world around us. This entry is part of a series written by students in the 2023/24 Seminar in Contemporary Contextual Issues for Museums and Curatorial Practice led by Nikki Georgopulos (CCST 501). Students worked with the Belkin’s Naomi Sawada, Teresa Sudeyko and Anna Tidlund to condition report, research and write descriptions about Kate Craig’s costumes that were recently gifted to the Belkin by Western Front and Hank Bull. To see more of the Belkin’s collections, visit belkin.ubc.ca/collection.

Photograph: Kate Craig, Pink Dress, from Amy Vanderbilt’s Valentine’s Ball, 1975. Gift of Western Front and Hank Bull. Photo: Rachel Topham Photography. Costume support: Ken Labun