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It won’t come as a shock that Vanessa Williams, within the music video for her new single, “Legs (Keep Dancing),” might be seen exhibiting off her legs.
Some could keep in mind her exhibiting off much more in a 1984 difficulty of Penthouse, that, after being revealed, led Ms. Williams to develop into the primary Miss America pressured to surrender her crown, a choice that the pageant’s leaders have since apologized for.
Her legs within the “Legs” music video, in contrast to within the Penthouse photographs, are for essentially the most half clothed. Moschino shorts and fishnets, a spangly gold bodysuit and a pink feathered outfit are among the many many gadgets Ms. Williams, 61, wears whereas transferring — largely 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 may evoke different features of her profession as an actress and singer, say, her previous function as trend editor Wilhelmina Slater within the TV present “Ugly Betty,” or her upcoming function as Miranda Priestly, the Anna-Wintour-inspired trend editor, within the musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada,” arriving in London’s West End later this 12 months.
Ms. Williams, talking on a cellphone 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. For occasion: A silky chartreuse corset and matching cargo pants by Adrienne Landau, a label she has worn since her days on “Ugly Betty.”
Another ensemble of sheer black prime and zipper-covered purple 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 tune’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 truth, I’m the most effective I’ve ever been.”
“I’ve obtained a variety of stuff occurring,” Ms. Williams stated on the cellphone. Her to-do checklist consists of plans to launch a full-length album on a newly introduced report label. She can also be a producer of a brand new musical concerning the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, which is coming to Broadway across the identical time she begins performances of “The Devil 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 Worth & Worth hat — apparel nodding to garments Ms. Ross wore within the 1975 movie “Mahogany,” Ms. Hernon stated.
A line within the tune’s refrain, “They say the legs are the final to go,” echoes the title of Ms. Carroll’s memoir, “The Legs Are the Last 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 Courage 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 believe is mirrored in what I wished to say with this section of my life and in addition within the music.”
