Swooning for Swinton

I  remember when I first fell in love with Tilda Swinton.  I was in high school and my friend and I had just watched the film Orlando, based on the same titled novel by Virginia Woolf, down in the basement of her parents house.  We barely moved during the film.   Barely touched our cheap red wine.  Barely smoked our clove cigarettes.  We were soooo goth, therefore cheap red wine and clove cigarettes were like, our lunch.  We just sat there with our mouths on the floor trying to contemplate what we had just watched.  For two, small-town Montana teens, this movie was mind blowing.  A human who lives for 400 years, starts out as a male and then miraculously turns into a female. Mind = Exploded.   And we loved it.   We loved it for so many reasons, but mostly because of the elegant, statuesque, other-worldly actress  who played the character Orlando, Tilda Swinton.  Without speaking, my friend got up, rewound the tape (yeah, tape, that’s how old I am), and we watched it again.  From there on out, the word “Tilda” was God on our lips and 16 years later, I’m still smitten, and I know I’m not alone.

Not only am I drop dead in love with her on film and as a living piece of art at MoMA,  I positively salivate over the fact that she is a style icon as well.  Having graced the covers of  Dazed,Variety, AnOther, Esquire, Candy, and W magazine (to name a few),  Swinton is as mesmerizing on glossy paper and the red carpet as she in on film.  So, darlings, I have compiled my Mundee’s Top Ten Tilda Swinton looks for you to shed a tear over the pure majesty of it all.

In kinda sorta no particular order…

10)

*shiver*

9)

Oh Tilda…? Where are you? Oh, there you are… just blending into the background like the resplendent chameleon you are.

 

8)

Positively vampiric Yeah, I just made up a word.

7)

Did I mention that I used to henna my hair so I’d be a red head like Tilda? No? Good. Because I could never be a red head like Tilda. Ever. And neither could you.

6)

On the cover of Candy magazine. A bronze goddess, scintillating in a custom dress. that I am positively gagging on, by Anthony Price.

5)

Part Iris Apfel, part Amelia Earheart. Part I can’t stand how beautiful you are.

4)

Tilda Stardust?

3)

*singing* Keep your ‘lectric eye on me babe. Put your ray gun to my head. Put your space face close to mine love. Freak out on Planet Tilda. Oh yeah.

2)

Smoldering, sexy, legs for a mile and looking like she’d belong in Agent Coopers dream in Twin Peaks.

1)

From the video for David Bowie’s The Stars (Are Out Tonight). Swinton and Bowie. Consider my heart stopped. Right now. I don’t even know how I’m typing this. Seriously. I just… *sigh*

 

There you have it.  This was pure torture. How could I narrow it down to just 10? Well, I managed it somehow and I’m sure after I publish this I’m going to go die on Google image in a sea of photos I should have shared with you.

That’s okay.  I wouldn’t mind dying like that.  Just make up something noble to say on my grave stone.

Mundee.