Richard Armitage: Two pictures, two fantasies. Fantasy 2. Armitage unaware?

Introduction and disclaimers here (Fantasy 1). Stressing again: this is only my reaction to the photo; your mileage may vary. I know with this picture there was a fair amount of chat about two or three themes in particular (for instance: at Jas Rangoon; at MorrighansMuse), but I haven’t read anywhere what I’m about to say.

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This was the second photo that appeared last week to kick me in the stomach.

It was posted on Instagram and tweeted by Todd Snyder. Snyder is a New York clothing designer, a graduate of Iowa State (Architect [my first cousin] went there for her undergraduate, so yay! and yay! Midwest!). He’s been working for about two decades designing for various high profile American clothing labels; a few years ago he founded his own eponymous label, which is now carried by Barneys New York — a sort of mainstream bellwether emporium of luxury style in the U.S. (Barneys carries a number of the brands we’ve seen Richard Armitage in before.) Not edgy, but contemporary, recent style for those who can afford to realize the vision of Barneys buyers for themselves with their powerful wallets.

On Snyder’s “About” page, it says of his clothing line: “Inspired by Savile Row craftsmanship, military tailoring, and a distinct New York sensibility, the line has garnered wide critical and commercial praise in the US.” These are all elements that we might imagine would appeal to Armitage — clean lines, not the most “out there” style features, but still on trend / fashion forward, and recognizable as such, with the additional vibe of youthfulness. (The whole cardigan thing this fall struck me in that light; the way I’d been seeing that style out of the corner of my eye, it seemed classic, consciously stylish New York, and also likely to be worn by thirty-somethings.) Skip Brooks, since January 2013 the copywriter for Todd Snyder NY, elaborates Snyder’s philosophy of leather jacket wearing here. Given that, I think that this jacket is cut a little narrowly for Mr. Armitage, but he seems to have a slight preference for close-fitting clothing anyway. Then again, he was wearing it over a hoodie in the fall (Gosh, Armitage, I hope you bought your hoodie at Target and not at Barneys!) so maybe it is a bit looser than it looks in this photo.

Snyder was tweeting not only because because Armitage visited his showroom (presumably as a customer), but also because Armitage was wearing “his” leather jacket. He made the following tweet with the picture:

A date was not stated for the photo upload, but given the presence of the beard and the fact that filming for The Hobbit will resume shortly, we may assume it was recently or near recently. Later that day, Todd Snyder tweeted again, identifying this leather jacket with the one that Armitage was wearing around New York City in December, 2012:

That December 2012 image is pinned here.

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No one who’s read this blog for long will be surprised that my first step, after going *ooof* (sorry for the petty intellectual property thievery, Guylty!) was to change the exposure on the photo so I could see more details. Doing so was important to me just because the camera perspective of the initial picture made Armitage’s stance appear so odd, making his thighs seem almost misshapen in comparison to what we’re used to seeing. As every student of pictures who’s seen Velazquez’s Las Meninas (1656) learns, when a mirror is conveniently placed in a picture, you use it to see what’s “outside” the picture. That explained some of the oddity — Armitage seems to be standing in a slight contraposto here, hyperextending the knee in his left leg. That’s a bit hard to see just looking at the picture frontally — he’s actually putting his weight on his left leg and thus leaning a bit towards Snyder.

But I still wanted to see more, so enter iPhoto and changes to exposure, contrast, definition, etc.

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The previous post in this series made me realize that there are always two waves of reaction to these photos — first, the dopamine rush. I was musing along — what’s on the clothes in the racks in the background? Was he trying that stuff on? Oh, he looks relaxed and happy! That always makes me feel good! Beard! Beard! Beard! But not totally shaggy beard — he’s definitely trimming pieces of the chin and mustache rails to give it definition, great Armitage beard aesthetics! Mmmm, chest hair, chest hair! To the clothes, jeans correctly close-fitting across thighs and rear — wouldn’t mind seeing him from the rear! — correct pant length for boots, a little long for these shoes, but oh do I love the sneaks! Leather jacket is starting to look broken in, there’s that little bit of too-long sleeve over the wrists that always makes me want to pet him! Oh, Richard, that shirt really needed to be ironed!

And then I realized what it was and got the second kick in the stomach — the moment of self-recognition. It was a fragment of information about Richard Armitage that I stumbled over very early on in Armitagemania — it would have been one of the first articles I ever read.

Penny Wark: “Did you know that you were recognized by a lustee at Waterloo Station and stalked for a few minutes? I was stalked at Waterloo Station? he asks incredulously. Well, stalked in a nice way. God, I’ve got to be really careful, haven’t I? Smelling of body odour, looking like …

from the same article: “I like my own space and once my door is closed I can turn into a bit of a monster. I’m really quite messy, I can stay at home and not wash and not shave and it’s hard to do that with somebody else.”

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John Porter (Richard Armitage) in confrontation with Hugh Collinson (Andrew Lincoln) in a dusty structure in Afghanistan, in Strike Back 1.6. My cap.

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It showed up again a few months after I started blogging, in the Strike Back publicity round, when Armitage noted that John Porter had been a very grimy character to play:

Source: I wish I could go more often without washing or making myself presentable.

And it showed up again in December 2012:

Are you a high- or low-maintenance guy?

When I’m getting ready to go down a red carpet I tend to be as minimal as possible. I like to throw some wax in my hair and maybe not even shave, but I will wash my armpits!

Which many of us read as winding the audience up a bit, but we guess he did in London — where he had a nice level of stubble, and someone reported that he was olfactorally more than satisfactory:

Source: Richard Armitage Confessions

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I’m not per se fascinated by his smell, whatever it might be. The self-recognition moment that got me in the Todd Snyder pic was the same thing that made me love the pics of Richard Armitage / Thorin with his Thorin Oakenshield Lego toy. Not so much their boyishness, but their sheer apparent level of grime. (The only problem with this pic for me was that his hands were so clean — I assume because he had prosthetics on them earlier and removed them.)

Or this:

A bushy beard, grime, AND (briefly) a shy smile? What more could Servetus ask for? Richard Armitage / Thorin Oakenshield thanks the cast and crew of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the end of principal photography. From the feature on the Best Buy Blu-Ray edition of the film. There’s also an intriguing abrasion at the base of his neck. Damned hi-res images. Source: Heirs of Durin

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It’s going to be hard to explain this, because I spend so much time commenting on specific features of Armitage’s clothing, and many people have assumed that in order to write about clothing in this way, I must be especially well-dressed or care a lot about dressing myself well, and that by extension, I would care about this in a crush. I really don’t. Also, what I want to talk about doesn’t let itself be labeled very neatly, even as it’s a part of the fantasy of self. It’s about how this picture pushes a very personal button for me, somewhere between neatness and cleanliness and self-unawareness and introversion. Well, let me give it a try, nonetheless.

Because OMG, DOES THAT PICTURE TURN. ME. ON. And it’s not only the beard and the chest hair.

And no, it’s not about the “masculine” qualities of sweat and dirt, although I grew up in that kind of household. All the soap in our bathrooms was the extra-strength, industrial kind, to get automotive grease or oil based paint or turpentine or ground-in dirt off the hands. We didn’t have any liquid soap except to wash the dishes with.

Admittedly, I also have an issue with a lot of scents around me. I’m very likely to sneeze when a student with a heavy soap or perfume smell walks into my space and there’s no ventilation. That may play a role.

And I do like the smell of a man without soap or scent on him, even a sweaty man a few days away from a shower. Though I’m also not shy to ask a partner to shower if his smell is bothering me. So yeah, I like “real” smell, and I’ve never dated guys who made big investment in their own scent.

But really, I think the turn-on is about the self-recognition.

When I first read that quote about how Armitage doesn’t like to wash and shave, back in 2010, my heart immediately started to hum happily, even as my critical detectors swung into action, wondering if it could be true. Are there really still men out there who haven’t been captured by that particular cultural trend? It’s a great defense mechanism in our day — not just actual mess on one’s person or in one’s house, but even the prospect of it. One of the big cleaning gurus of our day, The Flylady, talks about having CHAOS (can’t have anyone over syndrome). As a society we believe in cleanliness, we’re “cleaner” than ever before, and we want our partners to be clean and to shower every day and to smell good and be tidy. Don’t we?

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Richard Armitage, with those slightly mannerist femurs, as photographed by Joe McGorty in 2010. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com. This was the photo that accompanied the interview discussed below.

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We have a cultural value about the importance and attractiveness of cleanliness and neatness. One of my fellow bloggers articulated it very well back when an essay appeared in which Richard Armitage admitted that he was sometimes compelled to pick clothes off the floor to wear, and that he was guilty of “organized mess” in his house. While I realized that he was spinning out some hyperbole — winding us up again, Richard? and of course, now we know that there must have been materials regarding The Hobbit in his house — when he was discussing the need to kill a hypothetical cleaner who saw his scripts, I felt like important features of my life were captured perfectly in Armitage’s self-description. In contrast, Maria Grazia found herself horrified:

I wouldn’t be able to bear that mess, those eating habits, that life style. That’s one of my … defects(?), I can’t stand untidiness. You can call it organized mess, but it is just mess to me. I know I may sound a maniac but I’m not. Working, having so many interests and hobbies, having two lazy and untidy teenage sons and very little time, my house can’t be perfect but … I couldn’t stand living in a  mess. More than everything else,  I felt sorry for him… everything sounded so hard and sad and lonely. Did he want to stir our motherly sympathy? He succeeded. I can’t think of anything else in these days. Can a TV star’s life be less glamorous,  harder and more undesirable? Exaggerating? I don’t think so. I hope he got some rest and social life after finishing Spooks, because he deserved and needed both. Am I disappointed? Not at all. Only really worried, as if he were my son living alone. He can’t be my son, only my younger brother, but … it’s just the same. I go on thinking about … his phone ringing at 5 a.m., his driver banging on the door, his picking clothes from the floor and his empty drawers, his piles of books everywhere (those I like!), his forest of ivy on the roof, his porridge + fruit + scrambled eggs for breakfast (OMG!!!), his forgetting to do the washing, his refusing to have a cleaner, his furious-Guy-style temper (that I cannot believe!), his maniac worry for his scripts, his happily making the same dish over and over again till becoming sick of it, his iPhone & iPod, running and exercising … I’m still shaking my head now that I’m writing about it. I am convinced he desperately needs a woman, he wouldn’t have any difficulty at finding one but … will the poor very lucky lady resist that life-style, will she succeed in changing him a bit at least, will she be satisfied with his being totally devoted to his wonderful job?

It’s not mine, though. This essay did not make me want to move in and mother him. Armitage as filthy slob? Bring it on, Rich. I’d have no need to change you. I might be even worse. And I’ve never thought (apart from cleaning to prevent bacterial assemblage when my mother is immuno-suppressed) that even lax household cleanliness is more important than reading another book or daydreaming another daydream.

So when I read that first quote above, sometime in January 2010, I thought, me, too, Mr. Armitage. I shower when I can smell myself, or when I notice that I’m dirty at a level that makes me uncomfortable, or if I’m planning to have sex. And, oh, how I hate dressing “for” random other people, or for students, or colleagues, or really, for anyone who might be watching except possibly a lover. Possibly. Not all the time, that’s for sure. I remember a big knock-down drag-out fight with The Physicist after I put on an especially snazzy, close-fitting sweater one day, and he was unbelievably enthusiastic about it, but somehow we got into a fight (we fought a lot), and I said, accusingly, “You like me better naked than in clothing,” and he tactlessly admitted it, saying, “You don’t care to dress carefully and all of your sweater / t-shirt combinations are shapeless and boring.” In my defense I’ll say I was living on a grad student budget in a climate where everyone wore layered clothing for five-six months a year. But maybe I should have made more of an effort.

At the same time, I acknowledge that especially then (when I had a really marked figure feature I was always trying to hide), it was a defense mechanism. I am not someone who wants to be seen, or noticed, particularly, except when I am supposed to be. Possibly another trait I share with Richard Armitage?

So it’s not just dirt, or smells, or not caring about clothes, or (as I can imagine Jane might be thinking right now) the charm of a man who doesn’t care all that much about his clothes, or about the perceived need to be alone, and the habits that build up the necessary barriers to the presence of others. It’s all of those things together, what they all mean, taken together, that make me shake.

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Back to the stream of consciousness that turns into a fantasy:

Oh, Mr. Armitage, that shirt might have needed to be ironed. And maybe you should have done up one more button … but oh, how I love that you’re obviously not looking, that in this moment you don’t care about propriety. There you are, chest unwaxed, shirt partially undone, completely untucked, shirttails peeking out from under leather jacket, casual, nondescript shoes, and you’re with an important designer, and you don’t take even a moment to look down and pull yourself straight. Todd Snyder says, “how ’bout a pic with me? In ‘my’ jacket?” and you smilingly oblige, not the broad smile for the camera, but the subtle one that shows you’re not exerting yourself, or you might even be able to say something, and you’re apparently not worrying your right index finger with your thumb as you do in some of these photos with broadcasters, just there in the picture, not quite unselfaware but more so than we often see you in this kind of photo.

You walked out of your apartment that morning in sneaks and jeans and exactly this top combination, maybe you ran a comb through your hair, but in general unworried about the weather or who might see you or anything else, to buy clothes, and you bought what you needed and when this picture is over, you’ll take your purchase back in bags, or have it delivered, and then you’ll walk out onto the street just like this and pull down the margin of your leather jacket over your hips and smile at the spring …

Do you, will you, whistle?

… and this is all happening in a world in which someone whose business it is to be watched, in fact someone whose every scheduled public move is starting to be watched by tens of thousands of eyes, and yet you go to the airport in your rattiest t-shirt, you walk around like it doesn’t matter, none of it, either you will succeed in flying under the radar, or you won’t, but if you’re caught, you’ll still stand and smile willingly, hesitantly opening your mouth in anticipation, as if the performance of the self doesn’t matter in the very least. Or you’ll walk off a plane with your shirt untucked and your jeans hem bunched up over your boots and shoulder your bag and walk on, apparently unburdened — at least to our eyes –by the heavy accoutrements of self that you have to put on for a red carpet, all the armor that make you into what you’re supposed to be for others, all the techniques and objects that facilitate that other kind of mostly silent performance.

Where is that self in this picture? As paradoxical as it seems to be observing this about a posed candid, it still manages to remain unburdened, uncaught, to keep itself hidden, somewhere in this complex of sloppiness and undone buttons and untucked shirttails and developing beard and nonchalance and organized mess and not shaving and not washing and grime and body odour and not going out and being happy at home where the need to be something for someone is not articulated in such visually violent ways … When you’re marginally unpresentable (in your case, a relative term), your self remains unpresenting and unpresented. And yet — it’s still you. A man who realizes that he can — and will — get away without a shave.

Seeing you like this in my fantasy, Mr. Armitage: In ways I can’t fully explain, it gives me hope.

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Wow, this got long, and I’m not totally sure I even said what I wanted to. I want to mention briefly that elements of this same theme appear to have struck a similar element in one other someone I don’t know.

~ by Servetus on April 23, 2013.