#25yearsofvelvetgoldmine

The first thing to note about Jack's costumes is the colour palette. In a movie full of bright colours and patterns, Jack is starkly monochrome. He wears block colours of black, grey, lilac and one floral pattern. 1955 The first we see of Jack he is a small boy in his school uniform, typical for the time. His rumpled sock is precious and already a small hint of how he doesn't fit the mould.

We see him later the same day, at the vanity mirror. His hair is carefully parted to hide his odd-coloured eye. He has his trademark beauty spot on his chin, he smears his blood to stain his lips and smiles when he sees his potential. Tiny icon.

1967 The next we see of Jack is in London, he's about 19 years old in this scene and is soliciting an older client in a fancy hotel lobby. As @silverfactory has pointed out before, the wide pants and long floating blouse are almost like a dress in their fit. He's dyed his hair red. He is no longer hiding his different coloured eyes. The pin is proudly on display holding his scarf together. The scarf looks cheap and a little frayed, he's wearing a lot of rings but many of them are cheap and staining his fingers, a blatant display of the artifice of his grandness. He's checking his make-up in his compact mirror, dedication to perfection of his image and perhaps a little insecure though he holds his head high as he swans through the slurs. The strict laws around homosexuality were lifted in 1967, which is something interesting to think about, the bold defiance of Jack's image during this year of change.

New Year 1970 This is the Jack that "everyone stole from". The velvet dress with navel-sweeping pearls. His fur stola is snatched by Mandy moments after his descent to the dancefloor (the first theft of the night, also taken with a kiss) and we see it on her in the outdoor part of the Ladytron montage. Everyone else at the party is dressed in rather gaudy styles, metallic, synthetic, shiny, while Jack looks like an old Hollywood starlet. His hair is styled, the make-up is heavy and precise, you could hang weights off those eyelashes. The pin is hanging on an earring, vulnerably on display (and we know how that ends).

1972 It's interesting that we don't see anything of Jack during the Glam Rock heyday, but I will mention the cut scene where he's Saint Sebastian in Brian's "Virginia Plain" montage. We have a few behind-the-scenes of Micko Westmoreland freezing his bits off and wrapped in a blanket. (That rumpled sock is very reminiscent of baby Jack!) Jack's naked and shot through with arrows. He's stripped of everything, a sacrifice for Brian's image, but presumably still proud and strong, owning his pain and martyrdom in the embodiment of a saint.

1974 The next time we see Jack is when he picks Curt up in Berlin. We can't really see what he's wearing but it's black. He's wearing silver cross ear-rings. His make-up is lighter than it was before, making him look a little brittle and faded from his former glory, yet the red lipstick and kind smile make him shine.

Then we see Jack prowling the streets around London before Brian's last concert. (What is he doing there?!). He's wearing that epic shiny floor-length black coat, the hat, a nice manicure with one single ring and simple earrings - a far cry from the excessive display of bling he started out with, his accessories make a statement and he's more confident in his expression. The scarf adds a pop of muted colour. He's walking in the opposite direction to where everyone is running towards Brian's show and making sure everyone looks at him. He wishes to be seen. "Who's Jack Fairy?".

We see him a short time later when Curt is being interviewed. Black wide-necked top, red nails, red lip, slick hair. Very Berlin.

1975 The Death of Glitter. The first outfit is what I call "The fetish undertaker". Shiny black has become his statement fabric. The thigh-high boots, the top hat, the tailcoat and tiny pants. Coming out of the coffin. To die for. Cabaret melodrama to the max. This is the first time we've seen Jack perform, and we finally see how he inspired all the artists we've seen before. Wherever he's been and whatever he's been doing while Maxwell Demon was holding the spotlight, he's still got it. He's timeless.

Then his 2HB outfit. It's reminiscent of Maxwell Demon's feather collar. Shiny black again. Extremely low-cut, tits out, oozing with confidence and genderqueer sex appeal. The dress is similar in shape to the black coat, to the velvet New Years Eve dress, which makes a recognisable silhouette. We see his silver eyeshadow, bedazzled beauty spot. He's taken his image back.

"...[T]he doll scene in Velvet Goldmine... does represent the film as a whole, and maybe in the most complete way. A lot of it has to do with the game of laughing and feeling aware of the construct - in a fun way, not in a Brechtian, didactic way. There's humor in glam rock, there's irony and wit, and it's often about its own point of address; it's often about the presentation, the inherent artificiality of our so-called natural world. And yet it ends up being very moving with its rhythm, its meter, its color." - Todd Haynes (Source)

"A gentle love scene is being played out by the hands and off-screen voices of two young English Girls. The scene is shot romantically, with soft lighting and heavy diffusion." - Todd Haynes (Source)

“In a way, I think that scene with the dolls sums up what I’m doing in this film. Which is literally holding up these icons, like these little girls, and speaking through them. And ultimately revealing more about my own interests and desires than any truths about these figures. But they inspire us, and they propel us to imagine and make up stories ourselves.” - Todd Haynes (Source)

"The scene is absurd but tender, self-reflexively distant and emotionally absorbed. Its queer child's play (two little girls identifying with and voicing the desires of two queer men), further positioned as fandom (the girls act out their Slade fantasies surrounded by fan paraphernalia), is exposed as embarrassingly naïve and accepted with a disarming seriousness. The film allows this crucial scene in its narrative's central relationship - Brian and Curt's first kiss - to be imagined and acted out by fans whose awkward fantasies are nonetheless authorized as real, or at least as real as anything else that occurs within the film's diegesis, emphasizing the way in which fandom is given authority in the film as a mode of cocreative dreaming, essential to the character of the rock star." - Chad Bennet (Flaming the Fans: Shame and the Aesthetics of Queer Fandom in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine)

"I wanted to show that it wasn't a problem for girl fans to enter that world and play out their desires with two boys instead of a boy and a girl. But ultimately, the little girls holding up their Barbies and speaking through them is exactly what I'm doing in the entire film. It's not the story of Bowie and Iggy. It's what we do with what they put out there. That's the work of the fans." - Todd Haynes (Source)

A big idea in velvet goldmine is that we’re seeing everything from an outside (arthur stuart) perspective. We will never fully see from these characters perspectives because we are not them and never will be. If you’re not really paying attention to the movie, it becomes easy to interpret curt and brian’s relationship as superficial but with these short moments, you see how that might not be the case.

Everytime curt and brian have some form of genuine intimacy, the movie makes it a point to take it off screen, almost to preserve the privacy of their actual relationship. Them leaving the orgy to somewhere more private, us only getting two momentary scenes of their holiday together, and their fight being private up until the last second. Jerry makes them have this public image, but their actual relationship is just for them and no one else.

Bringing the conversation back to the holiday, this scene actually kills me. It’s this small short moment of them just standing there together, holding each other. It’s not for show, no one else is there, it’s just them, this is just for their own comfort. This scene solidifies their relationship in concrete. We don’t need to see the whole thing to see how visibly tender they are with each other. This is their private little getaway together, we only get a few seconds because this isn’t ours to see, this isn’t ours to ruin.

Another thing i think is important about this scene is that it shows that this relationship isn’t one sided. Even though brian was the one that gave up on the relationship, there was a point in time where he loved curt. and while people may not agree with me on that, i think it just makes everything a whole lot sadder, because his fame did truly take everything from him. I also find this crazy because he has a whole wife????

i am so so happy to announce…. THE 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY FAN CELEBRATION OF “VELVET GOLDMINE” !!

i’m really excited to be putting this together with the support of such a wonderful community! i wanted to share it with you all before i share it on other platforms! please let me know if you’re interested in helping at all, and - of course - please feel encouraged to participate in any way you can!!! it’s going to be so much fun! save the date(s) !