the alice in wonderland problem ep. 21
"Curiouser and curiouser!"
Alice is an escape artist.
There are many ways to escape. You can change your geography, dissociate, do drugs, daydream, doom scroll. You can Eat, Pray, Love yourself or My Year of Rest and Relaxation your way out of reality. Or, you can follow Alice down the rabbit hole.
Alice has been escaping for 159 years and, to her credit, she remains on the loose.
Alice obediently eats the cake marked “Eat Me” and becomes larger than life. The magic doesn’t make her older or wiser, it simply changes her proportions relative to her surroundings. This image of Alice suddenly at odds with her environment is what makes her such a seductive allegory for fame.
The image of Alice has been used to symbolize growing up, the societal pressures to become very, very small when your persona is very, very big, and the awkward intersection of girlhood and idol. Over the decades, we’ve seen many women at the precipice of fame photographed in the style of Alice: Madonna by Steven Meisel in 1992, Cameron Diaz by David LaChapelle in 1997, Billie Eilish by Harley Weir in 2020.
Fashion loves the idea of Wonderland because it’s built on fantasy and the many promises of reinvention. Eat Me! Drink Me! Alice shrinks and stretches, she follows the White Rabbit, she has tea with the Mad Hatter, she vapes with the Cheshire Cat.
The iconography of Alice have been used in editorials and runway collections alike (Vivienne Westwood Fall 2011, McQueen Fall 2016, CDG Play Tees). Sarah Burton described her McQueen girl, wearing a collection inspired by Wonderland, as “Almost sleepwalking, in a state where reality and dreams become blurred.”
The temptations of fashion as a means to escape yourself are real. Clothes act as armor, makeup a mask, style as manifestation. Even, maybe especially, for a supermodel. Recently, Bella Hadid told British Vogue that at the height of her illness she created an alter ego named Belinda. Belinda “slayed” when Bella couldn’t.
But back to Wonderland. Before the grift of authenticity became the only branding you could IPO, there was the whimsy of Tim Walker, the candy colored vulgarity of David LaChapelle, the romantic imaginations of Glen Luchford. They created images you could disappear into, the only relatable element being the shared delusion and the desire to escape.
And while Alice was written by a creepy man who couldn’t have known that he had created a character that would withstand two world wars, the threat of a nuclear winter, and Katy Perry's 11 minutes in space, there is something innately timeless about wanting more and being curiouser enough to go looking for it.
Withstand two world wars and Katy Perry’s 11 minutes in space 😭😭😭 brilliant and timely as always
Tim Walker supremacy