Don Giovanni's Room

Simultaneously sewing costumes for the Seattle Opera's production of Don Giovanni and reading James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room made me realize that the production's visual rendering of Giovanni nearly exactly matches the description Baldwin uses to paint a picture of the young men of 1950s French gay nightlife.

"It glittered in the dim light; the thin, black hair was violent with oil, combed forward, hanging in bangs; the eyelids gleamed with mascara, the mouth raged with lipstick. The face was white and thoroughly bloodless with some sort of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume. The shirt, open coquettishly to the navel, revealed a hairless chest and a silver crucifix...A red sash was around the waist, the clinging pants were a surprising sombre grey. He wore buckles on his shoes." -James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

The only difference I can find comes by way of the chest hair. Our gold Giovanni has his share; our silver, not so much.