I was fascinated with the Chris Brown eruption on "Good Morning, America," a couple days ago -- not because of what he did, but because of how he looked.

I happened to be watching the show over my morning coffee and old-school print newspapers when Robin Roberts was doing the pre-performance interview.

A couple of things occurred to me, one of which was why Roberts, a savvy journalist, seemed a bit tentative in the way she posed her questions about the Rihanna restraining order. She was stumbling over an awful lot of words before she got to her point. (But hey, it's live TV. I'd probably be babbling like a fool.) And of course, Brown was acting annoyed that she'd asked. He kept winking -- at her, at the studio audience -- as if he was trying to brush off violence against women like it was a petty annoyance. He didn't seem to have come to grips with the reality that that awful altercation is now part of his permanent record whether he considers himself rehabilitated or not.

I believe in forgiveness and in redemption. But forgiving doesn't necessarily mean forgetting and that's what Brown seemed to have wanted.

Mostly, though, I kept staring at his new public persona. The bleached out hair and the full chest tattoos just didn't mesh with his implied desire to have folks forget what he'd done or decide that it was no longer worth discussing. Maybe he's been sporting this look for a while -- I admit to not being on the man's Twitter feed. Tattoos are hardly subversive anymore, but the abundance of them, plus the distressed shirt and his hunched over, laissez-faire body language suggested that Brown was going for a tough guy facade. Why do you dress like a thug if you're hoping people are going to forget your violence actions? A Hollywood costumer couldn't have chosen a better get up for "the bad guy."

And then you rip up a dressing room and go strutting into midtown Manhattan shirtless with your entourage in tow? It all seems like Brown was trying to make hay of something terrible. Like a rapper using his police record to burnish his image, Brown seemed to be using his past as a way of portraying himself as edgy.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a few tattoos and a dye job. But if you're out to rehabilitate yourself after behaving like a hooligan, those seem like awfully odd style choices. 

 

To be honest, I was never much of an Elizabeth Taylor fan -- at least not from a fashion perspective. I've never seen "Cleopatra," but I adored her in " Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

By the time Taylor began to register in my mind, she was no longer the ravishing beauty that so many have spoken of since her death. Instead, she was a middle-aged woman with voluminous hair and a voluptuous body. She didn't fit the cliche of a Hollywood movie star. And I noted that in my mind. What's all the excitement about? Somehow, Taylor seemed to get a pass.

What I most remember is her staunch support of AIDS research and education, at a time when people were still coming to grips with the disease and dealing with their own irrational fears and prejudices. I never really thought of Taylor as an actress but rather as a famous activist who got out there early and had staying power. And I suspect there are a whole lot of people much younger than I am who connect her with Amfar rather than "National Velvet."

I like to think that one of the reasons her beauty endured in the minds of so many people is because of her philanthropic work. She serves as proof that a generous spirit will always be more dazzling than the fashion industry's most ardent expression of glamour.