Last Friday night was a night to remember. My dear friend Deb Malkin (owner of Re/Dress), whom I have known for several years now, invited a group of her vintage devotees, to join in her birthday celebration at the Beth Ditto and The Gossip concert at Terminal 5 on the westest west part of 56th Street, practically on the West Side Highway…
October 9th morning I realized I hadn’t bought a damn ticket, and was hoping that the concert was not sold out. I went online and ordered one and emailed Deb to say “Schuller’s in!”
We met up at 7 pm at the cavernous Terminal 5 with it’s cement floors and chan delier motif….Nary a seat in site, I was thankful I had worn my comfortable platforms with my eclectic ReDress ensemble. I grabbed a quick cab on Park Avenue, just could NOT stand the stares any further. I was wearing an 80’s conglomeration, not really an outfit so much as an assemblage of items. My see-thru slip worn over my cat suit cinched with a shiny red belt and organza black flower buckle at the belt set off my 80’s red metal octagon shaped earrings with my pill box hat. My leather bustier worn over a sheer grey/black and white cheetah print long sleeved Faith 21 top….The cab driver was Haitian and said as I entered his cab, “I like your outfit girrrllll!”
I replied “Get me out of this neighborhood!” He laughed and we whizzed west to appropriate-ville and the Deb Crew, waiting with cocktails and champagne in hand.
We watched the two warm up bands, not bad, but made you long for Bodacious Beth. Finally, the moment arrived. She burst on the scene, the pint size powerhouse in a black graphite skin tight dress hugging her curves as she gyrated all over the stage in solo contortions and hip shaking, energetic brilliance. The crowd went crazy and I felt that by 9:30 pm or so when she finally came on that the audience was positively dying for the Ditto Woman. And she did not disappoint.
I was reminded of Divine with that indelible eyeliner that was tough girl tart and not budging no matter how much sweat was washing over it….Beth is a three towel performer and she is not afraid to spit and hock those lugies on stage. She saunters, she sashays, she sinuates, she is impossible to resist. She has you at the Dimestore Diamond and Live from Liverpool and Arkansas Heat stuff….the crowd mouths every word and jumps in mosh pit glee all around me. One girl faints next to me, everyone thinks she is drunk. I recognize that she is probably diabetic and alert the EMT who comes to her rescue to get her some immediate orange juice. Crisis averted. Then there is a bald, swaggering, clutching cloying, arm slinging, hail fellow not well met making himself a royal nuisance with everyone in the first five rows of the mosh pit area. Beth is dripping, she is drenched and singing her heart out…very little patter between songs…you wonder why with a workout like this she isn’t a toothpick instead of a curvaceous creature…she work outs like a demon….But regardless, she is a GREAT role model for those of us who need to say I’m Loud and I’m Proud.
And if you really want to hear her speak her mind on social justice, check out her YouTube stuff on bullying…it is a perfect set up to understand what happened ¾ of the way thru with this bothersome baldheaded bastard I was referring to. There was a short lull in the music and he screamed out “Beth you are a c*nt! Well Ms. Ditto stopped the frickin’ show… She said “WHAT? WHAT did you say? Excuse me, in her slight British Arkansas accent…Arkansas via Liverpudlian accent….”Never, EVER call a woman a c*nt…not even in jest, not even if you are kidding, NEVER DO IT! I want you to apologize to me for saying that. Go ahead apologize. I’ll wait!!” And she proceeds to pass the mike thru the crowd to him and makes him say “I am sorry that I called you, Beth, a c*nt!” But the guy wouldn’t say it so Beth had the security guys remove him! Just like that. The crowd passes the mike back and she said, “Sorry, but I won’t accept that”….and she started singing again and that was the way it went. I was thinking, “My God….in my punk days with the Ramones and CBGB’s, it was almost acceptable to see who could be rudest and nastiest to each other. As a poor girl from Pittsburgh, I was sort of mortified by this behavior and all the PLEASE KILL ME T shirts, really had me wanting to bolt for the door. If my boyfriend hadn’t been in Blondie and I hadn’t actually felt like I deserved to be there whether they were kind and welcoming and warm and fuzzy to me or not, didn’t matter.
But here I am decades later and the radical thing to do is to stop the show, take a moment to focus on the asshole, to make a spectacle of him, to teach him to not be rude and completely repulsive, but to be NICE and show some MANNERS!!! I thought Wow…she is Emily Post of Punk…a new kind of Post Punk for sure…it was just a strange observation…an observation from my sage vantage point. Regardless, of this little drama in the audience…my feet were meat by the end of the concert but I was uplifted and a true Gossip convert. 
Listen to Music for Men, their latest release but not before you check out their Live from Liverpool and Arkansas Heat, which pays homage to their origins in Searcy A rkansas….they later moved to Washington state…a GREAT music scene there. Beth did a helluva concert. Wow, what an interesting cover of Psycho Killer! She does George Michael’s Careless Whisper too…she has that raw absolute power that catapults her into instant stardom when she hits the stage. Her hair color is as vibrant as her voice and her curves are endless contours of voluptuous versatility…when she does the encore returning in her black clingy shapewear with her “Leave it to Cleavage” carefree crowd surfing nonchalance…she is curvy courage and bratty brave for real…..I mean she has just reprimanded the crowd to never say the “C” word and now she will dance amongst them??? You go girl, you know how to rock your fans – your Lez Lib Stance is across the board freeing and just what the crowd needs to let their freak flag fly. They were adoring and completely under her spell. Happy Birthday to Deb of ReDress….my dear friend….May 40 be the beginning of the next phase of your already fabulous femme life!!! Denim be damned….we will keep the flame going 4 ever…
Catherine Schuller
About Catherine Schuller
CATHERINE SCHULLER’s status is legendary as she is considered one of the pioneers of the full figured fashion industry. She became a Ford Model in the 80’s when the industry was still forming and is a trained film and theatre actress who also became a standup comedienne when she was told at 5’10” and 175 pounds that she was “too heavy” for the acting world. She sought revenge in humor and created and performed her own sketch comedy cabaret act, “The Nerve!” That phrase became her mantra and she became an advocate for “being yourself” and having the confidence and style to put yourself out there no matter what After years of acting and modeling she combined standup with fashion and commentated in-store fashion shows at major retail chains for years, then segued into becoming a certified professional image consultant with AICI (Association of Image Consultants International) specializing in the plus size woman. She was invited to become an editor of the “Vogue-executed”, wildly successful MODE magazine in 1997, a position she held for the full four years of the magazine’s existence, which then led to her becoming spokesperson for retail brands such as Talbot’s Woman, Just My Size, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, Saks, Filene’s, Macy’s, The Bon Ton stores’ Boston Store and Carson Pirie Scott, Charming Shoppes’ Lane Bryant, Catherine’s and Figure Magazine. Her highly acclaimed how to modeling book “The Ultimate Plus-Size Modeling Guide” was self published and turned her into the go-to person for advice on model development. After Mode’s closing due to 9/11, she started another enterprise in March 2002 in New York featuring a high end runway show in New York featuring top plus designers called CurveStyle: Reshaping Fashion devoted to promotional and marketing efforts celebrating and elevating the “full figured woman to the status of fashion icon in her own right.” She has appeared on QVC with her own line of clothing “Shape Shopping with Catherine Schuller,” debuting her line of figure-flattering apparel in sizes 2-22. A frequently quoted expert, she has appeared in articles for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Orlando Sentinel, St.Louis Post Dispatch, The Daily News, Times Picayune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Chicago’s Windy City, San Francisco Chronicle, US Weekly, Good Housekeeping and on television she has appeared many times on The View, The Early Show, The Today Show in her hometown of New York as well as news programs where she is a frequent guest on Neal Cavuto’s Your World, Oxygen Channel and local morning shows across America. She was assistant style advisor to Wynonna Judd for USA Network’s Nashville Star where she introduced Richard Metzger to Wynonna and he designed her looks for the TV show and tour. She executive produced two full length films with Constantine Valhouli. The first, “Curve,” a documentary about the full figured modeling industry featured interviews with plus size models and luminaries in the field from the retail, media, modeling agency, design world all bearing their souls to the scrutiny of the lens where the film captured the honesty and ambivalence about the world of fashion and the fuller figures. Her next feature entitled “Sex, Lies and Superheroes” was inspired by the death of her first husband, Mark Gruenwald, Senior Executive Editor of Marvel Comics and writer of Captain America and other titles. She is the Image and Style Advisor for Divabetic, a charity started in honor of Luther Vandross to empower women living with, at risk of or affected by the epidemic of diabetes and teaches them to have a ‘diva’ attitude about their diabetes. She works closely with Luther’s personal assistant of fourteen years, Max Szadek, and is part of its creative core team, traveling around to major United States cities with a program entitled Makeover Your Diabetes sponsored by Novo Nordisk which targets women living with, affected by, or at risk of diabetes - an epidemic now affecting 23 million Americans, 80% of whom are plus size women. She teaches the course on special sizes at Fashion Institute of Technology in their Image Program currently. Her latest project is a coffee table book entitled Such a Pretty Face about the plus size models and their interesting career paths. She has been awarded the Icon of the Industry from Full Figured Fashion Week which she will be given in June of 2011.
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OHHHHH HOw I love the way you write!!!!!!! This is a great piece! Glad to hear it, Catherine.
Carrie
Creative Director
FashionOverdose.com