69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 3: Clothes make the (wo)man

The original Wonder Woman costume must surely rank high in the list of all-time great, iconic comic hero get-ups. Is this part of what puts me off?

Costumed (or semicostumed) heroes such as Wonder Woman and Superman, rather than the villains they fought or the outlaws rampant in crime comics, were the main objects of the Catholic Church’s early [1938] criticism of comic books, censure that began to take the form of a serious campaign against comics.

Bishop Noll explained that the NODL [National Organization for Decent Literature]* objected only to Wonder Woman’s costume. “There is no reason why Wonder Woman should not be better covered, and there is less reason why women who fall under her influence should be running around in bathingsuits,” Noll wrote.

(Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008. Print. 75-78.)

I did not save a lick of info related to this pic, but from the moment I saw it, I thought she was about to turn in a circle and transform in to Wonder Woman. If you can help with credit, please do!

I guess it’s true that I never liked her costume much, but I’ve never found it any more all-that-scandalous than those of usual dat-ass suspects such as Power Girl, Emma Frost, or Huntress. (God, I hate Huntress, and there is nothing mysterious about it. She sucks. You will not be seeing a “__ Days of Huntress” around here, ever.) I don’t think I ever gave Wonder Woman’s outfit much thought in print … but I did contemplate it onscreen, watching the Lynda Carter television series. The TV Diana had so many great wardrobe changes, not only with that wonderful spinning-into-Wonder Woman sequence, but with gear tailored to her various missions: remember that slick diving suit?

Separate from my later feelings about Wonder Woman as a comic hero, as an early television role model I had nothing but full esteem for the character, in particular her outfit. I can remember sitting on the tacky rose-patterned velour daveneau on which I’d been conceived and on which I took my afternoon naps — and, depending on where we were living, sometimes slept at night on the hide-a-bed as well (very strange experience, since my parents were extremely up front with me about the couch-conception thing and seemed to find it heartwarming; I had more mixed feelings) — in the early afternoons before I even started school, watching syndicated re-runs of the program and being wowed. If I picture Lynda Carter in a blouse and blazer speaking confidently to a male coworker, I can still vividly feel kid-sweat from playing after lunch melting the sofa’s scratchy, worn fabric in to faint little clumps under my legs. She was so glamorous that she wore earrings everywhere. Everywhere. I loved that shit.

This is definitely a non-issue. The outfit has nothing to do with me shying away from Wonder Woman for the last mumble-muffleth years. Asked and answered!

In any case, Wonder Woman’s costume recently underwent a redesign. That’s her new look up there. I don’t really care one way or the other. I guess I’m a little wary and disappointed, as always, by tampering with classics, even ones of which I’m not a fan — and, in the same way that I was slightly rankled by the initial reinvention of Kate Kane as a Jewish lesbian in the Batwoman comic (Why not make her deaf and HIV-positive, to boot? How unforgivably uninclusive of you, Non-PC D.C.!), I feel not-just-vaguely pandered to. Then again, I like the new Batwoman line now and I am hunky-dory with the matchup of Renee Montoya with Kate. So maybe the costume redesign of Wonder Woman will be another in-my-face situation. Tough to gauge since I don’t know if I’ll come out of this project wanting to read her or not.

Longtime fans, what do you think of the change?

*more on those guys soon.

Art of Design: Varna Restaurant

Varna Restaurant in 1971.

The Varna Restaurant, also called the Varna Palace or Varna Palæet, in Århus, Denmark. The original restaurant is a reknowned, eye-popping marvel of color theory and artistic design.

The restaurant was situated in a renovated palatial building, itself built in 1909, in the Marselisborg forest of Denmark. It was designed by modernist architect and artist Verner Panton, who is also known for designing the Spiegel publishing house in Hamburg, another famous piece of breathtaking psychedelic eye candy. Maybe I will spotlight that one soon, too.

The architectural commission at the Varna restaurant in Arhus was for the interior design. … Fabrics from Mira-X were used by Panton to focus on proportions and connections, and using colour and shapes gave each room its unique dynamics. (Vernor Panton’s official website)

In contrast to the primarily violet colour of the restaurant, Panton formed the Rotonde red. A central element in the so-called Red Hall were red foamed plastic balls which hung from the ceiling. (“Room design from Verner Panton” official blog.)

By their arrangement they seemed to move on to the column standing in the middle of the space. The Flowerpot lights placed in between were arranged also perfectly circular. Below rectangular plastic tables, equipped with the Panton Chair, in red as well, formed groups. (Ibid.)

Tuned on psychedelic effects of his creation Panton put unquestionably the crown of the ambience of the restaurant. Coloured foamed plastic balls, in between Spiral SP1 pendulum lights, violet-coloured columns, carpets and curtains with the Decor I in the variation of Circles, in addition chrome-coloured Pantonova Chairs from Fritz Hansen – the use of colours and forms was virtually inflationary.* (Ibid.)

The city of Århus eventually sold the restaurant to the men’s social club the Order of Odd Fellows. Today, it has been renovated and is available for rent as several banquet halls. If you visit the offical site of the present Varna Palace, you can see that, though they have made renovations to make the spaces more open and airy, and they went a little nuts with yellow (guess they were really sick of the red and purple and wanted to go the other way?) a strong influence of Panton’s original design remains.

*The English-langauge version’s translation from the Danish is a little rocky, but it’s a really informative and beautiful site.