‘GRIEF is the price we pay for love.”
This sentiment was expressed by Queen Elizabeth II to those who lost loved ones during the September 11 attacks in New York. More than 20 years later, these comforting words resonate even more as we mourn not only the loss of the beloved British monarch but also other world leaders—former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos.
- 1952: When her father, King George VI, died in February, a 25-year-old Elizabeth became Queen. She just celebrated her Platinum Jubilee in February 2022. Let’s leave it to political scholars to debate on her complicated legacy as a leader. But when it comes to her influence in fashion, there’s no argument that she favored classic, clean, crisp and sometimes rainbow-colored lines as she embarked on her civic duties. Her couturiers included Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies, Stewart Parvin and Angela Kelly; her famous boxy handbags were from Launer London; and the mid-heel shoes were from Rayne or Anello & Davide. Elizabeth preferred monochromatic head-to-toe looks so her subjects can see her even from afar.
- 1962: Far from forgotten even 60 years after her death on August 4 is Marilyn Monroe. The screen goddess was reintroduced to a younger generation when Kim Kardashian wore one of her iconic dresses to the Met Gala on May 2 this year. Marilyn wore the Jean Louis dress created from a Bob Mackie sketch to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden on his 45th birthday, on May 20, 1962. Contrary to reports, the historic garment wasn’t damaged by Kim as attested by its new owner, the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum, which bought it for $4.8 million.
At the recent Venice Film Festival, Ana de Armas broke down in tears as her Marilyn biopic, Blonde, was given a 14-minute standing ovation. “Playing Marilyn was groundbreaking. A Cuban playing Marilyn Monroe. I wanted it so badly. You see that famous photo of her and she is smiling in the moment, but that’s just a slice of what she was really going through at the time,” Ana told Variety magazine of the tragic life of the world’s greatest sex symbol.
- 1972: The world’s greatest fashion designer, the Spaniard Cristóbal Balenciaga, died this year. He dressed the most glamorous women of all time such as Ava Gardner, and fashion icons Gloria Guinness and Mona von Bismarck. Coco Chanel said he was the only “authentic couturier” while Christian Dior called him “the master of us all.” The Museo Balenciaga in Getaria displays 1,200 pieces of his work supplied by his protegee Hubert de Givenchy, who called him “the architect of haute couture.”
- 1982: Grace Kelly was a Hollywood queen before she became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. Her classic films, such as the rom-com High Society (1956), and Alfred Hitchcock suspense thrillers, like Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955) are regarded as style inspirations by fashion designers. Also cited as her fashion legacies are her wedding dress by Helen Rose and the Hermès purse which became known as the Kelly bag. Sadly, the great beauty died at the age of 52 on September 14, 1982, from injuries sustained in a car crash. Grace is listed 13th among the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classical Hollywood Cinema.
- 1992: Number 9 on that AFI list is the Berliner Marlene Dietrich, also an icon to fashion designers and screen stars. A gender-nonconformist, she declared to The Observer in 1960: “I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. If I dressed for myself I wouldn’t bother at all. Clothes bore me. I’d wear jeans. I adore jeans. I get them in a public store—men’s, of course; I can’t wear women’s trousers. But I dress for the profession.” She died on 6 May 1992 at age 90. On RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9, Sasha Velour portrayed Marlene on Snatch Game, on her way to winning the crown. Drag queen and American gay liberation activist Marsha P. Johnson also died this year, on July 6, 1992. Leading up to and after the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, Marsha was one of the most prominent figures in the LGBT movement. She modeled for Andy Warhol, and performed onstage with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches, and was a staunch AIDS activist with ACT UP.
- 1997: The year 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the passing of two fashion stalwarts: Princess Diana and Gianni Versace. Gianni, who nurtured the OG supermodels, was murdered by a Filipino-American spree killer. His fashion house survives and thrives to this day because of his sister Donatella. Diana, like Marilyn Monroe, was only 36 and died under tragic and mysterious circumstances. Besides her singular style, she is best known today for her humanitarian efforts and activism.
- 2002: Sylvia Rivera, who died on February 19, was another prominent American gay liberation and transgender rights activist and drag queen who fought alongside Marsha P. Johnson. Of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent, Sylvia was also a poster girl for Latin Excellence.
- 2012: Black Excellence is synonymous with Whitney Houston, known as “The Voice.” Ten years after she drowned in her bathtub on February 11 at age 48, Mac Cosmetics is collaborating with the Whitney Houston Estate to create a makeup line that pays tribute to the life and legacy of the iconic singer. The collection is set to launch in late 2022 to coincide with Whitney’s biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Naomi Ackie will portray Whitney while Stanley Tucci is Clive Davis. I hope the film will also explore Whitney’s relationship with her bestfriend and onetime lover, Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), to reinforce her status as a bonafide LGBT icon and inspiration.
- 2022: A hero to the LGBT community and one of the first big designers to put nontraditional models such as transgenders, porn stars and drag queens on the catwalk was the French Manfred Thierry Mugler. His outlandish, theatrical and avant-garde aesthetic remains well-regarded and relevant to this day. The French haute couturier died on January 23, 2022, at age 73. This year, Japan suffered massive losses with the successive passing of Issey Miyake (5 August) and Hanae Mori (11 August ). Miyake was unequalled for his high-tech high-fashion clothing creations and for “reinventing” the Mariano Fortuny pleats in the 1980s.
Mori, meanwhile, was the first Asian woman to be admitted as an official haute couture design house by the elite Fédération française de la couture in France. She dressed up Masako, Crown Princess of Japan, and the Monegasque Princess, Grace Kelly. And just like Queen Elizabeth II, Hanae died at the ripe age of 96. n