Saturday Night Social: Cardi B Asks 'What If Todd Haynes Made a Movie About a Rapper Who Keeps Bees?'

Todd Haynes makes prestigious period pieces about the ways human desire transcends cultural oppression, often having the stifling mores of the 1950s serve as antagonist and using the prim, restrictive clothing of the era to externally obfuscate characters’ inner turmoil. Cardi B makes music about the hypocrisy of villainizing the objects of our desire, often reworking traditionally stuffy men’s businesswear into high-fashion costumes to symbolize how lucrative it can be to exploit sexual taboos. Beekeepers cover their entire bodies with thick cloth so bees can’t harm them. Cardi B’s Paris Fashion Week outfit has caused me to realize that the commonality of these three seemingly disparate ideas is the notion of clothing as armor.

Here is the full 1950s housewife/beekeeper costume Cardi wore:

I love it. And what’s more, if Todd Haynes is not going to make a movie about it, I want to read an analysis of this outfit as a dissertation. Did anyone’s week involve writing me a comprehensive treatise on the intersection of rap, apiculture, and Eisenhower-era women’s fashion?