Dundas, the Super Bowl & American Fashion
As Peter Dundas dresses Mary J. Blige for another iconic all-American event, THREADS Editor Karina considers the state of American fashion today…
Last weekend, the Super Bowl LVI served up the crème de la crème of positive-Blaxploitation to clean up one’s image — in this case, the NFL’s — during Black History Month yesterday with its insanely impressive roster of musicians: the pioneers of hip-hop still with us today, curated by none other than Jay-Z and Roc Nation another year in a row.
With the world’s attention transfixed on LA’s SoFi Stadium across borders and time zones, the Super Bowl halftime show served as an audio tour through three decades of West Coast rap rounding out a season of overdue awards, recognition, and sponsorship deals being fired directly at primarily middle-aged Black cultural icons, post-George Floyd including the queen of R&B, Miss Mary J. Blige.
Swathed by platinum blonde curls, Blige hit the stage to collect her flowers in a crystal-embellished two-piece co-ord custom made by Norwegian-born, American-taught designer Peter Dundas with matching Dundas by Sergio Rossi boots. Though this would be his second time dressing the halftime show with Shakira donning another two-piece of his in sparkling burgundy in 2020, Dundas took his affinity for flamboyant crystal-encrusted femininity to new heights with the tiny mirrors speckled all over Blige’s look in the style of leopard spots to, as the designer noted to the press, illustrate the singer's ability to embody and reflect what we're all feeling at any one time throughout her illustrious 34-year career.
“I thought [the mirrors] worked really well with Mary because she pulls so much on your heartstrings with singing about things that you kind of identify with yourself. She almost becomes a reflection of the audience as well.”
But beyond the Swarovski, the pearl beadwork, and the Niki de Saint Phalle inspirations, Dundas’ involvement in this all-American televised event harkens back to when he played a similar role in dressing the less globally pervasive (but still equally relevant as far as fashion is concerned) Met Gala of 2021. From Ciara’s football-inspired sequin number to the start of his continued partnership with Mary J. Blige and her stylist, Jason Rembert, the Costume Institute's red carpet was lit up by the Dundas touch flying high above an otherwise drab sartorial offering.
“...the singer’s ability to embody and reflect what we’re all feeling at any one time throughout her illustrious 34-year career”
Of equal significance, the theme of the two-part Met Gala event: In America, A Lexicon of Fashion. Once upon a time, we would only be subject to the Met Gala guests' disappointing attempts to top their own 2018 Holy Bodies themed looks once a year on the first Monday in May. But following 2020's cancellation — and interesting developments at New York Fashion Week given the COVID-19 pandemic had robbed it of its apparent one true draw: the city of New York — the Institute decided to host a preliminary event in September 2021 the day after NYFW ended as lockdown restrictions lifted.
And so the American glitterati ascended the iconic steps of the Met in a whole lot of... very-not-American brands, and a handful that were including our PR darling, Dundas.
Dundas’ prominence in the media limelight at the Met Gala and now this most significant Super Bowl yet suggests a battle may be afoot for the fate of American fashion as the Row shifts their presentations to Paris this year, and as the passing of Virgil Abloh — menswear kingpin, cultural thermostat, the golden boy the industry opened all doors for — last November leaves a vacuum in some of the highest echelons of both American and European fashion, with few American successors appropriately poised to supersede, as Kanye West, the problem child the industry struggled to tame, becomes more hypervisible than ever before... a less twisted but ultimately tragic IRL retelling of Cain and Abel, perhaps?
With white America finally accepting the all-encompassing role Black cultural movements play in its international relevance, ironically only after the world has already watched it gun down, silence, and oppress them for years, Dundas’ relationship with Mary J. Blige will likely inspire a trend of similar fashion collaborations between Black icons and America's underfunded, difficult-to-define fashion scene, leveraging the success of its other cultural exports: music and celebrity.
“...white America finally [accepting] the all-encompassing role Black cultural movements play in its international relevance”
And thus, the red carpet and tabloids will be its primary battleground culminating in the second part of the Met Gala as the United States wrestles to claim a throne that has always seemed to escape its grasp.
credits
words — karina so.
design — karina so.
