What Roland Barthes felt about the face of Greta Garbo, I feel about the face of Marlene Dietrich: it's a pure and perfect object that appears to be untouched by time or finger-tips; unmarked by traces of emotion. It's a face that belongs to art, not to nature and which has all the cold and expressionless beauty of a mask; a face that has not been painted so much as sculpted. An archetypal and totemic face. A fetish object.
Dietrich knew all this herself. And she knew better than anyone how to capture on film the face that she and von Sternberg created between them; make-up artists, lighting technicians, cameramen and directors all spoke of her brilliance in their fields of expertise.
She was an icon also to the top fashion designers, who were seduced by the fact that she dressed neither to please them, her lovers, her public, nor even herself, but solely for magical effect.
She was an icon also to the top fashion designers, who were seduced by the fact that she dressed neither to please them, her lovers, her public, nor even herself, but solely for magical effect.
I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.
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Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marlene_dietrich.html#zBgFe3sa1iLvR7bc.99
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