Some days ago I published a post I had wanted to write since the early 1990s and today I’m removing another stone from my shoes, figuratively speaking. In the early 2000s I was out of university; after some years spent working in the world of fashion marketing, I decided to go back to university to attend a post-gratuate school to become a teacher. In those years I started listening to Christina Aguilera, I fell in love with her voice and I even wrote my final essay on her music videos from the Stripped era. Among those, Fighter has always been my favourite. Directed by Floria Sigismondi [1], it showed a darker and more mysterious side of Christina, thanks a very peculiar imagery and dramatic costumes.
Last November I had the chance to speak about those costumes with Merlito Pabatao, who asked me if I knew who made them. After finding out that Carol Beadle was the stylist who worked on that video, I contacted her. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I received her reply: she explained everything in detail, which I can’t wait to share with you. Eleven years have passed since then, but I’m pretty sure there are other people like me who are still excited about learning more about it.
The video, whose concept was inspired to the life cycle of moths, is about transformation. Sigismondi said: “It’s basically about coming from a very poisoned place to an empowerment, a place of strength.” This obviously referred to Aguilera’s decision to break free from her previous teen pop princess persona and let her more complex and grown-up self come out. Three are the stages through which the moth Christina through, each of which has a specific outfit.
Dallo Spazio 