It may not come as a shock that Vanessa Williams, within the music video for her new single, “Legs (Preserve Dancing),” could be seen displaying off her legs.
Some might bear in mind her displaying off much more in a 1984 problem of Penthouse, that, after being printed, led Ms. Williams to change into the primary Miss America compelled to surrender her crown, a choice that the pageant’s leaders have since apologized for.
Her legs within the “Legs” music video, not like within the Penthouse pictures, are for probably the most half clothed. Moschino shorts and fishnets, a spangly gold bodysuit and a pink feathered outfit are among the many many objects Ms. Williams, 61, wears whereas transferring — principally dancing — between places that embrace a white-walled studio, a dimly lit limousine and a nightclub.
For sure viewers, Ms. Williams’s colourful wardrobe within the video would possibly evoke different points of her profession as an actress and singer, say, her previous function as vogue editor Wilhelmina Slater within the TV present “Ugly Betty,” or her upcoming function as Miranda Priestly, the Anna-Wintour-inspired vogue editor, within the musical adaptation of “The Satan Wears Prada,” arriving in London’s West Finish later this yr.
Ms. Williams, talking on a telephone name on Tuesday after flying from Japan to New York, stated that sure apparel worn within the “Legs” video had connections to a few of her previous roles. As an example: A silky chartreuse corset and matching cargo pants by Adrienne Landau, a label she has worn since her days on “Ugly Betty.”
One other ensemble of sheer black prime and zipper-covered pink pants got here from Trash and Vaudeville, the punk emporium in Manhattan’s East Village.
Ms. Williams, who developed her wardrobe for the video with the stylist Alison Hernon, stated the garments they selected have been items she feels comfy in and “that really feel comfy on my physique.”
She added that her outfits within the video for “Legs,” her first non-holiday-related single in 15 years, have been meant to not solely spotlight the track’s titular anatomy, but additionally what she described as its underlying message: That her decades-long profession is ongoing and ever-expanding.
“I’m nonetheless right here, nonetheless standing, nonetheless kicking,” Ms. Williams sings on the dance-pop single. “In reality, I’m one of the best I’ve ever been.”
“I’ve obtained a variety of stuff occurring,” Ms. Williams stated on the telephone. Her to-do listing contains plans to launch a full-length album on a newly introduced document label. She can be a producer of a brand new musical in regards to the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, which is coming to Broadway across the identical she begins performances of “The Satan Wears Prada” in London.
Ms. Williams has adopted a profession path blazed by Black performers like Diana Ross and Diahann Carroll, each of whom additionally served as inspiration for “Legs” and its music video, which opens with Ms. Williams dropping a cream-colored Michael Kors coat and a Price & Price hat — apparel nodding to garments Ms. Ross wore within the 1975 movie “Mahogany,” Ms. Hernon stated.
A line within the track’s refrain, “They are saying the legs are the final to go,” echoes the title of Ms. Carroll’s memoir, “The Legs Are the Final to Go,” launched in 2008. Its cowl featured a leggy portrait of Ms. Carroll, who died in 2019.
Ms. Williams, who starred within the movie “The Braveness to Love” alongside Ms. Carroll, stated that the title and canopy of her memoir mirror how, “with age, comes knowledge.”
“She’s realizing and accepting her physique form and all that comes with it,” Ms. Williams stated. “And that’s what I feel is mirrored in what I wished to say with this part of my life and in addition within the music.”
