Entry · catalog no. 1204
vogue femme
/ /voʊɡ fɛm/ /VOHG fem
noun; also verb, to vogue fem · New York City first; national and international through the house system · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
The newest of the three vogue styles in Ballroom, after old way and new way, built on exaggerated feminine movement and continuous fluidity drawing on ballet, jazz, and modern dance. It runs on five elements — hands performance, catwalk, duckwalk, spins and dips, and floor performance — and a walker is judged on how completely the five are held together rather than on any one trick.
“She caught the beat on the intro and stayed in it — all five elements, no seams.”
2.
Distinguished by register: dramatics, meaning stunts, speed, and theatricality, against soft — in the scene, soft and cunt — meaning grace, long lines, and smooth continuation from one element to the next.
“He walks dramatics. His sister is soft, and she has taken more trophies.”
Origin & Attribution
Ballroom — the Black and Latina and Latino LGBTQ scene, out of New York and now everywhere it has houses. It emerged in the early-to-mid 1990s, after old way and new way, and is now the dominant style walked.
1990
Paris Is Burning premieres, documenting old way and new way at the moment just before the new style takes hold
1995
Tara Susman later dates the style's arrival to about this point in her 2000 article in disClosure, the citation most often used for the three-style framework
2016
Leiomy Maldonado breaks down the five elements on camera for a general audience, fixing the canonical list in public
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
New York City first; national and international through the house system · 1990s
Spoken by
Black and Latina and Latino LGBTQ people in Ballroom; carried outward by dancers, video, and television
$VOGUEFThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring34 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
84/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1992
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Tara Susman, The Vogue of Life: Fashion Culture, Identity, and the Dance of Survival in the Gay Balls, disClosure 9, no. 1, 2000
journal · printed
■
Marlon M. Bailey, Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit, University of Michigan Press, 2013
book · printed
■
The 5 Elements of Vogue with Leiomy Maldonado, Oxygen, 2016
video · broadcast
■
+ Cite a sourceParis Is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston, premiered 1990, theatrical release 1991
film · documentary
Also spelled
See also