There was a fashionable event in recent years that awakened something in me. There I stood, strapped into a corset stitched with a reproduction of panels of four women painted by Alphonse Mucha in 1896. Bustle bustling, hair height close to God. Someone across the room was frantically trying to adjust their powdered wig that was sliding sideways. I like my evenings artistic and unforgettable, and this was certainly one.
It was a Marie-Antoinette-themed birthday party (so much cake) and the glamor was intoxicating. Different time period from Mucha’s masterpiece, named Four Seasons, but the piece was revolutionary nonetheless. He painted them as four moods of a single life. Spring, she was innocent and flower-haired. Summer, languid and ripe as fruit on a sunny branch. Autumn, earthy, abundant and auburn. Winter with a still gaze and icy features. One could consider the cyclical nature of women, phases of the eternal. To wear all four of them, beneath a chandelier pretending it was 1789, called forward the past versions of myself to clink their glasses together.
Good corsetry is fundamentally engineering. Architecture. A cathedral holding up a roof to God. Your shoulders can soften, as the structure is doing the work elsewhere. Coco Chanel ended this trend to free women from the pain of them (although I find her shapes and fabrics to be a pain of their own). But really, stylistically, I think anything goes these days. Let your freak flag fly.
That night, I wore a little anatomical heart carved in black wood, suspended from a chain knotted with pearls. I found it in some petit, phantom boutique in Paris. The shop had maybe three things in the window. The woman who owned it spoke just enough English to tell me that a friend of hers made it by hand. I bought it before I’d done the math in euros…some things require you to be a little reckless.
I found that necklace to be particularly striking. The pairing: anatomical heart and pearl. The raw, red truth of the actual organ, strung against pearls, which they themselves are produced by pressure. Some foreign grit gets pressed into soft tissue until the tissue fights back and makes something out of it. Finding my femininity has felt a similar process over the years. Pressing the grit until something lustrous comes out. Refusing to lose either the heart or the pearl.
And then some glasses, to shake things up. A funky pair that I spent way too much on for them to not have prescription lenses. I love them for the same reason I love an oversized cuff or a too-red lip…persona play. You put them on and you are not exactly not yourself, just a different angle of yourself. People talk to me differently when I’m wearing them, and I talk differently back. Most literally, a conversation piece.
Without a romantic soul, traveling and antiquing isn’t possible. Learning a story behind an object turns it into treasure. It’s understanding that the corset carries something of 1896, 1789, and the night you wore it, all at once. If you don’t honor the ghost, then antiques are just dusty furniture and travel is just airports. Romance makes the magic available.
I’ve walked a long road in search of the divine feminine within myself. There were pieces lost along the way in order to survive certain rooms. Some pieces packed away because it didn’t fit the season I was in. I’m in the slow business of getting it back now. Trying to balance the softness without losing the edge that built me.
So, my style is a revolving door. You can find me in Rococo one week, sharp tailoring the next, a spiked collar paired with mink, the glasses, the heart, the pearls, or maybe the boots that have kicked through tens of countries. I no longer believe that I need to commit to just one. All four seasons can appear as they want. Reoccurring impulses return to me; the same silhouettes, the same colors (okay, mostly black). I’ve stopped trying to catch them in one net. I let them come back when they want and greet them like old friends. I only hope that the architecture of skin and metal, where the soft thing collides with the structured thing, is defiant in its union.
And so we wear our many lives…
The soft, the sharp, the old, the new
And learn at last what the body knew.
Anatomy & Affection: A Study in Intimate Patterns
There was a fashionable event in recent years that awakened something in me. There I stood, strapped into a corset stitched with a reproduction of panels of four women painted by Alphonse Mucha in 1896. Bustle bustling, hair height close to God. Someone across the room was frantically trying to adjust their powdered wig that was sliding sideways. I like my evenings artistic and unforgettable, and this was certainly one.
It was a Marie-Antoinette-themed birthday party (so much cake) and the glamor was intoxicating. Different time period from Mucha’s masterpiece, named Four Seasons, but the piece was revolutionary nonetheless. He painted them as four moods of a single life. Spring, she was innocent and flower-haired. Summer, languid and ripe as fruit on a sunny branch. Autumn, earthy, abundant and auburn. Winter with a still gaze and icy features. One could consider the cyclical nature of women, phases of the eternal. To wear all four of them, beneath a chandelier pretending it was 1789, called forward the past versions of myself to clink their glasses together.
Good corsetry is fundamentally engineering. Architecture. A cathedral holding up a roof to God. Your shoulders can soften, as the structure is doing the work elsewhere. Coco Chanel ended this trend to free women from the pain of them (although I find her shapes and fabrics to be a pain of their own). But really, stylistically, I think anything goes these days. Let your freak flag fly.
That night, I wore a little anatomical heart carved in black wood, suspended from a chain knotted with pearls. I found it in some petit, phantom boutique in Paris. The shop had maybe three things in the window. The woman who owned it spoke just enough English to tell me that a friend of hers made it by hand. I bought it before I’d done the math in euros…some things require you to be a little reckless.
I found that necklace to be particularly striking. The pairing: anatomical heart and pearl. The raw, red truth of the actual organ, strung against pearls, which they themselves are produced by pressure. Some foreign grit gets pressed into soft tissue until the tissue fights back and makes something out of it. Finding my femininity has felt a similar process over the years. Pressing the grit until something lustrous comes out. Refusing to lose either the heart or the pearl.
And then some glasses, to shake things up. A funky pair that I spent way too much on for them to not have prescription lenses. I love them for the same reason I love an oversized cuff or a too-red lip…persona play. You put them on and you are not exactly not yourself, just a different angle of yourself. People talk to me differently when I’m wearing them, and I talk differently back. Most literally, a conversation piece.
Without a romantic soul, traveling and antiquing isn’t possible. Learning a story behind an object turns it into treasure. It’s understanding that the corset carries something of 1896, 1789, and the night you wore it, all at once. If you don’t honor the ghost, then antiques are just dusty furniture and travel is just airports. Romance makes the magic available.
I’ve walked a long road in search of the divine feminine within myself. There were pieces lost along the way in order to survive certain rooms. Some pieces packed away because it didn’t fit the season I was in. I’m in the slow business of getting it back now. Trying to balance the softness without losing the edge that built me.
So, my style is a revolving door. You can find me in Rococo one week, sharp tailoring the next, a spiked collar paired with mink, the glasses, the heart, the pearls, or maybe the boots that have kicked through tens of countries. I no longer believe that I need to commit to just one. All four seasons can appear as they want. Reoccurring impulses return to me; the same silhouettes, the same colors (okay, mostly black). I’ve stopped trying to catch them in one net. I let them come back when they want and greet them like old friends. I only hope that the architecture of skin and metal, where the soft thing collides with the structured thing, is defiant in its union.
And so we wear our many lives…
The soft, the sharp, the old, the new
And learn at last what the body knew.