Couture Longing

Couture Longing

Under stylized high ceilings of art deco design, in a city that is not my own, I enter the gallery and see them waiting for me, composed and silent, like a flock of elegant birds with their wings folded - each one lovelier than the last, each one serenely posing for a visitor’s admiration.  As though inhabited by the ghosts of another time, these faceless frocks lined up before me offer shy suggestions of the women they once graced - the Audrey’s, the Jackie’s, the Suzy, the Grace.   Suddenly aware of my wild hair, my paisley jeans, my gladiator sandals, I find myself feeling a bit diffident, sentenced to wander this exhibition like a sartorially backward peasant, but one more than willing to be reprimanded, one starving for a taste of sumptuous inspiration.   And I am in luck, for this stage is set for a feast.  With strains of La Vie en Rose floating on the refrigerated air and Avedon portraits lining the walls, I am transported back, back, to a time of elegance unseen in this current age, back to The Golden Age of Couture.

 It began on February 12, 1947, the very day Christian Dior launched his couture house in Paris, and it lasted until Monsieur Dior’s death in 1957.  

It was almost as though an enchanted wand was waved over London and Paris, conjuring up artists like Dior and Balmain, Balenciaga and Chanel and creating a magical decade unlike all the others, ten years of resplendent fashion, now remembered with longing for their abundance of unparalleled creativity, quality and style.

As I stand before the most superb examples of the artistry of that decade, the hushed voices in the gallery recede into oblivion and I can almost see the women who once spent their days and nights in these creations........  

.........There in the corner wearing the Jacques Fath green tartan dress stands the enigmatic Scottish mystery writer waiting to board the train at Waverley station, on her way to London where she’ll meet her elderly uncle for tea at the Savoy.....

..........And over there I see clearly... a stone terrace on a spring night in 1949, when the air smelled like honeysuckle and orange Chinese lanterns swayed low in the trees, a winsome new bride clad in a Chaumont evening gown of hand-painted organza is nervously hosting her very first dinner party......

........And here to my left, it is a cold December day, and the tall brunette in the Digby Morton tweed suit turns her velvet collar up against the wind as she stands on the corner of Oxford Street, her arms full of Christmas boxes, her thoughts wrapped in tinsel as she waits for the light to change........

Oh, where did these women go?  When did the waspie waist become the low rider jean?  When were the garments created by dressmakers with “doigts de fees” replaced with those mass-produced and disposable?  When did the latest Sports Illustrated model knock Dovima off her throne?  When was elegance and grace regulated to history and fashion begin to strive more to shock than to adorn?  And, while we’re at it, when did plastic bags replace dress boxes?

Sighing, I take my leave of these ladies with reluctance, resolving to cultivate a more elegant appearance in the coming days.  But, stepping outside, I am hit with a blast of bombastic heat and I make my way to my car, all the while twisting my hair up into a knot and rolling up my sleeves, shamefully grateful that I remembered to pack these sandals.

But then,  I don’t know, perhaps Edward and I could take a few lessons from Dovima and Sascha.  

Should we revamp our image?

 What do you think?  

The Golden Age of Couture is ensconced in the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee through September 12th.  Culled from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, it is truly amazing and not to be missed.  See it if you can!

Christian Dior Fashion Illustration above by Rene Gruau
Photograph of Dovima and her dog, Sascha, by Richard Avedon

The Robin

The Robin

There is an old stone birdbath that stands, flower height, in the midst of a bed of pink vinca along my front walk.  In the center of the birdbath sits a small fearsome gargoyle, bravely guarding the feathered bathers from Milo, the neighborhood cat.  Apparently, the rather diminutive size of this scrunched-face stone creature in no way lessens his ability to perform his appointed duties with success, for this particular birdbath is quite popular, the pathway that borders it often wet from the enthusiastic splashes of jewel toned bathers.

One of these bathers is staring at me now, hot and impatient.  

At present, it seems that Mother Nature is too absorbed in the creation of her magnum opus - the hottest year on record - to remember her other obligations, so it has fallen to me to provide refreshment for the flowers that have begun to suffer from lack of rain and, as I stand with my watering can poised over the vinca, I can feel the Robin’s unwavering stare.  I glance at him over my shoulder, and the trees hear me mutter, “Oh, just go ahead and get in the bath.  I won’t bother you, you should know that by now.” 

And instantly, I hear a flutter of wings as the Robin lights softly on the bath at my feet.  Peering up at my face for a second, he proceeds to hop right into the water, gleefully splashing fat droplets all over my linen-clad legs.  Close enough for me to touch, he seems perfectly content in my presence, not unlike a Disney bird with a cartoon Cinderella.

I don’t think I’ve been paid a better compliment in years.

The Fan

Ladies born and bred in the South do not perspire.  A falsity oft repeated as fact, this old chestnut falls from the moss-draped trees that once surrounded those grand plantations of yore, where proper Southern girls would arrange themselves on verandas crowned with painted blue ceilings, with a cool glass of lemonade in one hand and a delicate fan in the other.  This misty image still hovers in myth, solidifying in the modern age only upon movie or television screens.

For those few who may still hold up that symbol of the marble-cool Southern lady as an attainable standard, this is shaping up to be a summer of extraordinary challenge.

It is hot.  Stifling, smothering - almost unbearably,  hot.  For the first time in memory, the hydrangeas that encircle my cottage - all 54 of them - have suffered the loss of their extravagant blooms.   Colourful, fat and blowzy were those blooms in May -  sad and brown are they now in July, fried to a crisp in this unusual heat. There will be none for drying; no lovely chartreuse hydrangeas to grace my wreaths this Christmas.   Chic summer ensembles hang ignored in my closet, pushed aside day after day as I reach, once again, for drawstring linen trousers.  Wearing my hair down  is unthinkable.  Make-up?  Please.

And then She arrives.

  Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, spent five and a half of the hottest hours on record in New York City this past week, and spent most of them outside, under a blazing sun that made lesser mortals faint dead away on the pavement.  Clad in a floral suit, matching hat, stockings, pearls and white gloves (gloves!!), she calmly greeted the Mayor of the city and graciously spoke to some of those who had braved the torrid heat to see her, remaining all the while, totally unruffled, cool as the inner seed of a cucumber, not a bead of sweat upon the royal brow. 

 Mind over matter. 

 She puts me to shame.

Not long ago, my Mother gave me an old, old fan that had  belonged to my Scottish great-grandmother St.Clair. Beautifully handpainted, and remarkably well preserved in spite of its hundred year age, I keep it by my favourite chair, within easy reach when I come in, limp, from the garden.  I think of the women who, down through the ages, have cooled themselves off  by the breezes it makes, exactly the same as I am now.  Amazingly, it does that job rather well.  There is an elegant quietude that descends when one uses a personal fan.  Cooling and relaxing all at the same time, it can be nearly meditative.  I can almost, almost, imagine one of those wide Southern verandas, almost feel the cold glass of lemonade in my hot little hand. 

Could it be that Her Majesty has a beautiful fan of her own?  Perhaps one owned by her own Scottish mother?  I do recall seeing portraits of both the first Elizabeth, as well as Queen Victoria holding one in their hand - a cool breeze at the ready, always prepared.

Maybe I have finally figured out what she keeps in that handbag.

“It’s all to do with the training:  you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.”

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 

Painting by Marie Spartali Stillman, Self-Portrait