It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Miss Piggy is a fashion and pop culture icon. A recent foray into her early sartorial history revealed how the icon was created and just how incredible her mud to moire journey is.
Miss Piggy Lee (as she was originally named) was initially just a member of the Muppet ensemble, appearing in the background and in bit parts in the first two Muppet pilots. Like most Hollywood stars she’s had a few tweaks along the way, and as the photos show she’s no stranger to creeps.
The series ‘The Muppet Show’ was commissioned by British exec Lew Grade to be filmed in Elstree Studios in London. The series made it onto American TVs in the fall of 1976 and quickly became a global hit. Miss Piggy barely registered in the early promotional material; the focus was on the muppets Kermit, Fozzie the Bear, and Gonzo and the talented but well-documented Jim Henson and Frank Oz.
Less covered are the three women behind the Divine Miss P; Bonnie Erickson who built the original Miss Piggy; Calista Hendrickson, Miss Piggy’s first Costume designer and Polly Smith who took over when Hendrickson stepped back. Side note – amongst her many other achievements Erickson also is responsible for my hometown favourite, The Philly Phanatic. In a wonderful interview with the Maryland Centre for Culture Erickson says of Miss Piggy ‘We didn’t know she was a star but she did’. The Muppet Show was based on a backstage and front-stage view of a variety show format with a weekly celebrity guest. Skits and musical numbers performed on stage were interspersed with the action backstage. Miss Piggy quickly gained more air time with two recurring skits ‘Veterinarian’s Hospital’ a play on daytime soaps and Pigs in Space. Her raised status was recognised by her shift from the background of the theme intro to the spot right by Kermit’s side.
Fashion was inherent to Miss Piggy, with papers regularly mentioning her gowns, gloves, and jewellery. It seems hard to believe that it wasn’t until the second series was well underway that, outside of her skits, Miss Piggy wore anything other than her original silver gown. According to Calista Hendrickson, Henson and Oz took some convincing that the Muppets should change costumes. It was a break from traditional puppeteering where the outfits were a constant. It started with a feather marabou trimmed lounge robe, and from there Piggy’s costume designer Calista Hendrickson helped shape the style of Miss Piggy. Mentions in the press became full-scale features and by 1978 Miss Piggy was a full-blown superstar. Both Oz, who operated Piggy and Hendrickson had strict rules and vast imaginations when it came to her portrayal.
Her glamour had a self-perpetuating quality; the media coverage of the muppets (which was extensive) described her as such; recognising and amplifying her Golden-era Hollywood coding. Her original silver dress referenced contemporary designer Halston as well as the film goddesses he himself was inspired by. From the start, Piggy was a palimpsest of glamour, camp, and excess. So much so that essayist Elliott Sirkin wrote a love letter to her ‘A Sow is Born’ in the May/June 1978 issue of ‘Film Comment’.
PRESS
Within five years of her appearance as a chorus girl Miss Piggy had featured on the cover of People, Tatler French Elle, Le Figaro and had features in Vogue; Harpers Bazaar, and Seventeen as well as numerous national and regional newspapers. She’d been photographed by Irving Penn and Norman Parkinson. There was a steady increase in her visibility but 1980 was the year of the pig. Miss Piggy’s first calendar was released; and with the clever marketing that underpinned the Muppets it maintained a Hollywood theme, tying in with the TV special Muppets Go to Hollywood, and The Muppet Movie. Fashion had already been mining this aesthetic, most notably with Yves Saint Laurent’s Scandal collection in 1971 and vampy interpretation at Biba.
I’ve included a few images by photographer Ara Gallant and other comparables to highlight how from the start Miss Piggy was embodying multiple interpretations of glamour and excess in her fashion and expression.
From early on her embodiment of camp was clear and communicated. My inner feminist theory enthusiast was thrilled to see Judith Williamson’s pro-piggy essay in Consuming Passions. Although Piggy has been hailed as a feminist icon dissenting voices have questioned whether a puppet done by a man could ever be truly feminist. This is where we look to the words of Oz himself, who said Piggy was an outlet for him to explore the feminine side of himself in a society that might otherwise not be accepting.
‘She’s just a conglomeration of ideas of myself, exaggerated 100-fold, and aspects of lots of women and men that I know. “You know, it’s hard for a guy to project femininity…Fortunately, there is enough femininity in me to do it and enough masculinity in me to get embarrassed when I do it in front of people. It’s quite a dichotomy.’
The duality of Piggy is foundational to her appeal. She’s everything society frowns upon – too much of everything and yet the world bends to her will. There’s been questions about the violence Miss Piggy doles out to anyone who displeases her, but this is perhaps a too literal approach. A fantastic reading done by host Danny Horn and trans writer and broadcaster Becca Petunia on ‘The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast’ reflects on this. Many of us feel like society has certain expectations of us that we adhere to. Miss Piggy does what we could only dream of doing in the face of adversity – whether it be a snidey comment or an actual injustice. She karate chops the offender, flips her hair, and moves on. I’m sure we all have some moments we’d love to be more Piggy.
Whatever the inherent appeal her strong style was apparent from very early on, which might explain her relationship with high fashion.
Promotional materials for The Muppet Movie highlighted Miss Piggy’s 10 costumes and she was often interviewed and featured in newspapers alongside and treated as an A-list star. The Muppet Show was filmed in London and I wonder if Calista Hendrickson wasn’t influenced by this. One of the costumes she wears has a very Laura Ashley look, and another looks straight out of the 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock. And her Casablanca-styled fur coat and hat could equally have been straight off the racks of Biba. It took some excavating, but I was able to discover a bit about Hendrickson. She’d previously worked as a fashion stylist and designer and listed Halston, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga as influences.
In 1981 The Great Muppet Caper, the second Muppet film was released. The plot revolves around Miss Piggy and her entanglements with a high-class fashion house and the plot to burgle its head designer and founder Lady Holiday, played by Diana Rigg. The classic Hollywood references pile up higher then Mae West’s platforms. What’s interesting is what didn’t make it into the film. In order to promote the film Calista Hendrickson suggested several Hollywood costumers design outfits for the fashion show sequence, including Edith Head. There’s also a Halston sketch of a wedding dress included in the Caper fashion archives; I wonder if this was intended as the wedding dress that typically finished a couture show.
Miss Piggy’s star continued to ascend. In 1982 she released her own self-help book ’Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life’ and had her own TV special, ‘The Fantastic Miss Piggy’. She goes Jane Fonda for her ‘workout’ album Aerobique and continued to get extensive media attention including starring in a Polaroid commercial and print campaign.
Her Icon status was confirmed with the publication of November 1982 Tatler, where she was the cover star and dressed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chloe. The accompanying spread featured her in several straight off the runway looks. Lagerfeld wasn’t the only designer to express interest. In 1984 an Entertainment Tonight segment showed Miss Piggy shopping the Halston resort collection for her ‘trousseau’. In Muppets Take Manhattan Miss Piggy and Kermit are married, and Halston sent a letter of congratulations plus a box full of Halston cosmetics to the Henson workshop. To say thank you Jim Henson sent Halston a box of muppet memorabilia. Halston signed each item and gave them to Andy Warhol as a birthday present. They became the contents of Time Capsule 471. In the future, I might cover her later eighties adventures in perms in Muppets Take Manhattan, but for now please enjoy your early Miss Piggy high fashion style.
LINKS:
The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast:
https://www.toughpigs.com/fmpp
Miss Piggy, camp and the death of the movie star:
Styling Miss Piggy with Bonnie Erickson:
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