NEW YORK — At Screaming Earthworms, a luxury vintage store just south of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, store manager Dani Cabot offers an assortment of belts. “The Dramatic Moschino Moment”.
Actress Patina Miller weighed her options, but it didn’t last long. “We think high drama,” she said, as she fastened a gold buckle around her waist and smoothed the fabric of her skirt with Bill’s tiger print on her brass.
The 37-year-old Miller got her break almost a decade ago in a Broadway production of “Sister Act” and then starred in “Pippin,” for which she won a Tony Award. Or tight fit. While promoting the second season of the Starz series Power Book III: Raise Canaan, which premiered on August 14, she’s been appearing almost nightly as a witch in Broadway’s revival of Into the Woods. (She’ll be sticking with the musical through its latest expansion, which runs only on weekends, when the third season of “Raise Canaan” begins filming in September.)
Still, she snuck through racks of luxury vintage clothes on a recent weekday afternoon, looking for inspiration for her “Rising Canaan” character, Raquel, and herself.
“It takes hours to find something,” she says, heading to a rack of 1990s designer looks. “Sometimes I like to look around at all the colors I don’t wear.”
She wears dazzling shades including a purple gown with a cape in “Into the Woods”. Raquel prefers muted tones of mostly glossy black and blood red to convey her status as an early ’90s queenpin. (As an adult, Kenan was played in the previous “Power” series by Curtis Jackson, known as the franchise’s executive producer and 50 Cent, whose own mother inspired Raquel.)
This afternoon she wore her very own outfit, brown sandals, a brown and blue sundress, a blue straw hat, and gold hoops.
She held up a purple suit that felt like a Muppet.
As she sorted through her rack, she recalled acid-washed 90s styles modeled after girl groups of the day. Salt-N-Pepa, TLC, En Vogue. Those same looks are becoming fashionable again.
At the time, in small-town South Carolina, Miller’s clothes came from Goodwill, where her single mother, a pastor, could buy them. Miller’s mother paid for piano lessons with the money she saved to buy her clothes and encouraged her daughter to sing in her church choir. (That encouragement helped her secure a spot in Carnegie Her Mellon’s theater program, which propelled her to Broadway, after which she starred in shows like “Madame Her Secretary” and “Mercy Her Streets.” I was allowed to appear in.)
“This is the woman who gave birth to me at 15 with no high school education, but she found a way to raise me and invest in me,” Miller said. I’m from
Is she interested in her own strength and power? “I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you,” she said. “I want to control her life. I want to be as strong as she can.”
This, at least in part, explains why she’s built a career playing strong women. A witch can curse anyone within her radius. Raquel, the Iron Fist Clothed, proudly calls herself “the last standing bitch.” Both want to protect the children from the world, but the world and the children have different plans in mind. Playing as a villain is easy, but Miller prefers other options.
they are fighting for something They are fighting to be heard,” she said. “It’s more fun playing love,” she added.
She returned to the dressing room with a handful of hangers, appearing first in a Bill Blas skirt (“Oh, dress up!” she said) and a Gianfranco Ferré blouse with grommet studs. A hydra-dramatic belt turned the outfit into overdrive, so she switched the blouse to a more restrained Calvin Klein shirt adorned with bugle beads. I lowered my waist.
“My problem is my hip,” she said. Explaining Miller’s physique as a problem seems like a stretch. But sure.
She asked for some shoes, but the store had few size 10 pairs, and when Cabot brought her a pair of Ferragamo flats, Miller described them as “a little church girl.” I cleaned it up carefully. (She actually had more than enough Church-her-Girl looks in her ’90s.) Mirror was barefoot, and in front of her mirror she made a face like Raq, Cut out her eyes and set her mouth.
“Separately, they’re both vibes,” she said of the blouse and skirt. “And this belt, it’s definitely a vibe.” Next, she tried on her 1970s Missoni three-piece. “Not Raq,” she said, taking off her coat. “But for my skin tone, it’s perfect.” Still, the blouse fit was off. Return to rack.
A Comme des Garçons blouse was too girly and a white turtleneck too thick for summer. Halston kaftan in sea green? “I’m very bored. I always choose black,” she said. She tried on a pale pink jacket. And in the menswear section, Miller spotted a black blazer styled with a gold collar by Cabot, making Miller look like the queen of the dance floor.
“Very, very Beyoncé,” Miller said admiring her reflection in the mirror. “Beyoncé on horseback. It’s the vibe, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be me.”
She said she has worked to find vulnerabilities in the powerful characters she plays and find them within herself. rice field. “It’s not bad to be meek. Black girls can’t do that, because that’s the best way we know how to do it. But when I see the hardness and strength of the page, I always think, What else can you say?”
So she chose softer, more colorful items from her rack. Karl Lagerfeld blouse in rich emerald silk.
“That color will be great for you,” Cabot said.
“Oh, I know,” Miller replied.
She also decided to buy a blouse and a Donna Karan belt.
“Of course,” Miller said as he paid for the belt.
Back in her sundress, she stepped onto 14th Street. There, an image of herself as her Raq looked back at her from the bus shelter. “I am everywhere,” she said proudly.
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