Nicki Minaj has been on the fashion radar ever since ever since she premeired her oddball fashion sense to public a few years ago. Since her rise to fame, the flamboyant emcee has graced the glossy pages of high-fashion bibles like V and ELLE and was even hobnobbing with fashion’s supreme entity, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, during New York Fashion Week. Now, Minaj is venturing into the artsy side of fashion and pulling inspiration from the distant past as she transforms herself into an 18th century courtesan for the November issue of W.
On one of two striking covers for W’s “Art Meets Fashion” issue, Minaj sports a grey bun wig, a strangely crafted enlarged tear and Dior couture chiffon gown as she channels famous French courtesan Comtesse du Barry.
For those unfamiliar with the naughtier side of European history, courtesans were old Europe’s version of what we today would call a high-class prostitute, women of higher standing who would sell themselves to the most prestigious and noble of men.
Inside the magazine, Minaj, who was styled by famous black editor Edward Enninful and shot by Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, Minaj channels other famous courtesans like Marquise de Montespan, Madame de Pompadour, and Madame Rimsky-Korsakov, all while wearing 18th century inspired pieces from the likes of Vera Wang and Dior.
In the cover feature, Vezzoli explained that he chose Minaj for the editorial because of her hip-hop stardom and her pride for her voluptuous frame.
“I wanted to play with the public image of a female hip-hop star. During my entire career, I have always been fascinated by powerful women in history,” explained Vezzoli. “I have spent a lot of time researching the ways they were represented in art and how their images were used to mold the public imagination — and to convey aesthetic and philosophical ideas about beauty and sexual desire. My main interest has been to link the historical artistic approach to female representation to contemporary icons of the media era.
“In her performances, Minaj makes very explicit and challenging use of her beauty and her body, so I thought of comparing her to some of the most famous courtesans in history: the Marquise de Montespan, Comtesse du Barry, Madame de Pompadour, and Madame Rimsky- Korsakov. My idea was to reproduce four iconic portraits of some of the most fascinating females of the past in a series starring an American pop-culture role model. We tried to re-create those original portraits using similar furniture, props, and clothing, à la Visconti. Luckily enough, the result came out as surreal as it could be, just as I wished.”
What are your thoughts on Minaj’s transformation into an 18th century courtesan? –nicholas robinson
