First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

filed in Fashion Forward, Who Are We?

The Black Dress

January 27, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

About a year ago, while browsing in my favorite card store, I discovered a postcard of Alex Katz’s “The Black Dress,” and thumbtacked it to the cork bulletin board beside my desk. Mr. Katz employed his beloved wife Ada as a model for the painting, which he created in 1960, almost a half century ago. I suppose some might consider this image, painted in loving tribute to the artist’s spouse, an odd inaugural emblem for “Notes from an Unmarried Life.” I find it a timeless representation of the ways we single women can be similar and different (while chic and fabulous) all at the same time.

(Check out a recent interview with Alex Katz, from Women’s Wear Daily.)

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