THE BRITISH BUTTERFLIES OF FASHION

My husband was once in the fashion business; he designed and sold clothes from his shop in London’s West End where he hosted many luminaries in the worlds of politics, entertainment, advertising, and so on. Although its outreach is global, the fashion business is a small town. Twice a year one tends to see the same people in Milan, Florence, Paris, Berlin, and London. They take the same airline, stay in the same hotels, eat in the same restaurants and find time to shop in the same stores when they’re not scurrying around to appointments.

My husband never did that. After his buying appointments, or after a big show, he drifted to out-of-the-way cafes in less desirable areas of town. You haven’t lived until you’ve lined up at the Hare Krishna cafeteria in Milan, or discovered the only vegetarian restaurant in Florence. A museum was more inspirational to him than the newest club or bar. And he usually shopped for antiques or furniture rather than spend moments of stolen time off in a clothing store, the pastime for the fashionista. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the Marais before anyone else would be seen dead there. At first my head turned towards the glitz and glamour of St. Germaine, but I soon began to look forward to the unusual.

The first time I went with him to Florence he forgot to warn me about the cobblestones and the long hours of standing and walking. I almost crippled myself wearing the wrong shoes. He also forgot to tell me that smoking was allowed in all of the buildings, offices and showrooms and that I would reek of it for a week. I came near to passing out from dehydration for lack of water and fresh air. The water was my fault.

Dog-tired at the end of a crazily packed day, there was nothing more exquisite than to sit at a table in a noisy but baronial restaurant with the fine aroma of juicy grilled portabella mushrooms served by career waiters who seemed to have nothing else on their minds other than their desire to see us beautifully fed. I held back from plopping my entire face into a bowl of lemon infused pasta made by the hands of an Italian mamma. To then further indulge in a plate of profiteroles smothered in chocolate sauce so delicious that I still remember the first bite, well… damn.

However, the habits of eating and sleeping came a lowly second to the rituals of clothes designing, buying appointments and the planning of a new season. The clothes my husband designed and sold were not cheap. But ten, twenty years ago more people could afford better quality clothes. And clothes were designed to be perennial. The new coat would pass fashion muster for more than one season. Labels were discreet. People desired to express their personality and weren’t swallowed up into a large corporate brand.

After he left the business to strike new stakes, there have been times when I have sorely missed those days of high fashion and the pleasure of the touch of hundreds of the finest fabrics. To have such luxury at one’s fingertips is a privilege. One of those nostalgic moments hit me solidly in the face when I found myself in Primark. I swore a private oath that I would never give in and step across the threshold. But I did. How do they do it? How can they sell clothes so cheaply? I bought a sweater for £3.97. I don’t think I’ll do that again. Surely and sadly there must be child slaves sewing away in some god-forsaken warehouse. Where is the Jamie Oliver of the rag trade? I don’t mean to single out Primark. There are plenty of wholesalers and retailers who sell their souls for a buck, a pound, a Euro.

So as this unexpected wave of nostalgia washes over me I give you circa 1820 drawings taken from a private collection. Unfortunately, not mine.

OVERHEARD IN HOLBORN

One doesn’t much think of anything particularly exciting going on in Holborn, and with good reason. Holborn is the “small town” of lawyer-ville, a solicitor’s haven, if you will. Men and women carry black leather box-like briefcases. Assistants roll flight bags behind them and women wear sturdy shoes and clothes that make them unhappy. The Royal Courts of Justice live in Holborn and have done since 1882. Quaint streets are hard to find and the pubs and nightspots have serious names like The Knights Templar.

But there is a small plaza in the center of it all, an unlikely location for a very nice little hair salon where I go to touch up the roots with K. who survived a three-week tour of Mexico oblivious to the panic that surrounded her. She thought that for some reason everyone wore masks in Mexico, quite like the Japanese when they have colds.

I can’t read without my glasses and I can’t wear glasses in the salon or they’d look like a room full of infants had dragged them through brown paint. So I try to write. I’ve read that many writers can work anywhere. I can’t. I need a semblance of calm and most of the time the slightest whimper can blow my concentration to smithereens. And it is for this reason that I spend about a half an hour eavesdropping; although the falderal that takes place is so loud I can hardly be accused of being a nosy Parker.

A middle-aged woman bursts into the salon with a teenage girl trailing her.

“This is Lucy" (not her real name). She booms. “She’s just won a BIG talent competition and she’s going to be a BIG STAR. She’s down to London to record tomorrow and we want to make her look really, really rock and roll. We want her to look edgy, really trendy, and really rock.

K. smiles and nods, “Okay.” And then wisely asks if she has something particular in mind.

Oh yes. Oh yes.

The lady, who seems to be Lucy’s advisor, friend and expert, gets her arms and hands going and says extremely loudly, “I’m thinking purple tips. You know, put some layers in there, tip them with red or purple, you know, very rock and roll.” As if we needed reminding. “Yes, I think purple, yes purple.” Lucy, who looks very sweet, but not very rock and certainly not very roll, has not said a word. She’s very short and petite, and I’m wondering how long ago she gave up dolls.

K. nods again with a forced smile and I think is struggling with the idea of ruining Lucy’s gorgeous waist length, thick brown hair.

Next up, the stylist. He arrives quietly at Lucy’s side, makes mirror eye contact with her, says hello and asks, “So what are we doing today?”

The lady, horrified, says, “Oh! You haven’t been briefed?" He says, no.

“Lucy has just won a huge talent competition and she’s going to be a very BIG STAR …” Word for word she goes through it again – we all do.

The stylist gets the picture and goes away to leave K. to begin the process of livening up poor old Lucy’s dull hair, which of course is not dull at all. Meanwhile, the lady pulls out a bottle of makeup remover and cotton pads from her bag. She begins to dab at Lucy’s eyes until they’re smeared with the last traces of her mascara. Finally, after three dabs Lucy is without. I wonder if this was pre-planned. I carry a lot of things in my bag, but never a bottle of eye makeup remover.

“Promise me something Lucy.” The lady pleads confidentially.

“Okay,” Lucy speaks.

“No, really. Really promise me something.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me that you will never, ever wear black eyeliner ever again for the rest of your life.”

“Okay.”

“You’re going to be a BIG STAR. You have beautiful eyes and you don’t need black eyeliner.”

In comes lady number two with a camcorder.

Lady number one: “Okay Lucy we just want you to do a short piece about how you’re here at the salon and you don’t know what’s going to happen and you’re really scared. Ready? Go.”

Lucy: “So here I am at the salon with K. and I don’t know what she’s going to do to me and I’m really scared.”

And then - can you believe it - I have to have my hair washed.

Back at my station I hear lady number one say, “This is going to be very rock, very rock,”

In a small, soft voice that I think must turn into something unrecognizable when she sings, Lucy says, “But I’m singing pop songs tomorrow, not rock. I don’t sing rock.”

I’m always in such a hurry to get out of the salon, but not today, a day when I am desperate to see the purple tips, the layers and the pale eyes of Lucy, the young girl approaching BIG STARDOM. I’m done, blown dry as a bone, a dab of shiny product rubbed on to finish and I can’t think of one good excuse to continue to sit in their company without appearing to be the eavesdropper that I am.

LET’S GET POLITICAL

 

It’s been the worst week for modern British politics, and for many of us, maddening.  Forget the expenses debacle, although how could we.  It’s those two seats won by the British National Party that deeply worries me.  There goes that trip to Yorkshire this winter.  All other parties have condemned the vote and the BNP, but there exists an anger and dissent that runs so deeply in the UK that those who feel disenfranchised have lashed out with their vote.

We’re told that many who voted for the far, far right aren’t aware of the bigoted and racist past, present and future of their new party.  Their representatives have disguised themselves in a dangerous cloak of rhetoric regarding their genuine care and protectiveness of the British people.  Good god, they even spout that they’re not racists.  They represent themselves falsely.  Their additional mission’s bulls eye is immigration.  I’m an immigrant.  Should I take this personally even though I’m a white American and not the brown and black skin they normally target?  Do they mean to target me as well?

And what a blow to those veterans who walked and wheeled themselves to Normandy again, sixty-five years later, only to be slapped in the face with the victories of the same sort they fought so bravely against.  Is the irony lost?

The leader of the BNP received eggs in the face today outside Parliament, but somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.  A small little town, a village of unwieldy bigotry is growing here.

 

 

The Expert at the Card Table

He looks like Hugh Grant except everything about the conjurer is longer; his face, his limbs, and these days, his hair.  His name is Guy and he’s a full time barrister who moonlights as a card sharp.  There’s something to say about that, but I’ll leave it to his clients. 

He walked onto the stage in white tie and tails, the Full Monty, as it were. By the way, did you know that the Full Monty is not about taking your clothes off, but putting them on?   In the early 1900’s a three-piece suit tailored by Sir Montague Burton, creator of the largest menswear manufacturing business in the world at the time, was known as the Full Monty, and customers asked for the Full Monty by name.

Guy said something about being overdressed as he removed his jacket, hung it on the old fashioned coat rack and then reached for a book that lay on a Victorian card table.  This book has been in publication since 1902 and is the grande dame of all books about card manipulation, also known as cheating.  

Guy’s slight of hand was interwoven within a narrative about a card sharp in the early 1900’s who because of his cheating ways was responsible for the death of an opponent who committed suicide when he lost the shirt off his back and everything else.  Guy isn’t an actor but I found myself more involved in the story than in the tricks, maybe due to Neil Patrick Harris’ direction.  Yes, Doogie directs, it was his first.  This directing debut took place at the Mernier Chocolate Factory in Shakespearean Southwark, our old stomping grounds.

The Chocolate Factory houses a full restaurant, a theatre and an art gallery. 

A small, but important note here about the absence of chocolate at the Chocolate Factory.  We had dinner before the show and there was not one sliver of chocolate to be found - not even on the dessert menu.  Good lord.

I admit that I’m not too impressed with card tricks, but my husband loves them.  I appreciated that a large flat screen TV, previously hidden on a black draped wall above Guy’s head, came to life.  It ruined the Victorian atmosphere, for suddenly we felt like we were the audience members of the gambling channel being treated to an intimate look at Guy’s incredibly long fingers as he did the deed.  

The narrative was compelling in that tale of trickery, deceit and death kind-of-way and he told it seamlessly while he used audience members to prove he was the real deal.  Couldn’t resist that.  Guy’s best trick was The Reformation in which a card was torn into quarters and restored in front of our very eyes.  Great, but… WHERE’S THE CHOCOLATE?

LANG MAY YER LUM REEK, MS. BOYLE

 

Unless you’ve been as secluded or sheltered as we perhaps mistakenly thought Susan Boyle has been, you’ve seen the clip or the show in which Ms. Boyle unexpectedly, but so beautifully knocked our socks off.  And there’s plenty to read and watch about the event, some pleasant, some condescending and one outing I mention here that disturbed me.

 Tanya Gold can be a controversial journalist.  She drove home her controversial-ness in her Guardian article about Susan Boyle.  I was truly shocked when she described the latest phenomenal singer on Britain’s Got Talent as a piece of pork on a doily.  Is this the way a woman supports and defends another when she’s been made a laughing stock?  A munter?  I had to look it up.  It’s British slang for an ugly woman.  That Gold uses this noun so freely is appalling.  I don’t think in this case Tanya Gold is being a journalist.  I know, I know, who is these days, but anyway…She didn’t say anything new about much of anything in her article.  Everything she described about the show is true, but it’s all blatant and transparent to anyone with two eyes and ears and saw the show or even the clip.

Tanya Gold continuously writes about her fight with obesity and former alcoholism.  Surely, with the help of insight, there could have been a better way to write her way though this without further demeaning Ms. Boyle and finger pointing people who had nothing to do with the evening, as she did with a list of fellows she thinks are ugly.  So what.

The thing that is different here that no one has mentioned is that in Britain, back in Vera Lynn’s days, a woman or man who wasn’t good looking could easily be recognized for their talent. 

 

Loads and loads of performers who looked like housewives or garage attendants sold records, took to the stage and made films. 

Miriam Margolyes

These performers were never treated with the disrespect with which Ms. Boyle was treated by the public, the judges and Tanya Gold.  I think that America for the most part was different from Britain in this way.  Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Barbra Streisand come to mind as a few exceptions, but mostly the US has always been attracted to the attractive – not so in Britain, which makes this whole thing all the more disheartening. 

It demonstrates the spiraling down of decency in the UK.  But isn’t that what the show is about anyway?  Relishing the opportunity to point out someone whom you think is in some way worse off than you; it seems to be less about talent until we are stunned by the real thing and then suddenly everyone remembers they’ve come to see some talent.

I never considered Susan Boyle ugly.  When I see a photo of a rapist on TV – he’s ugly.  When I see a child bullying another one – that’s ugly.  I think people are far too interesting to be ugly unless the ugliness is in their actions.  So for Tanya Gold to shove down our throats that she thinks Susan Boyle is ugly then she really can’t be that much different from Piers, or the crowd she writes about – can she?

 Lang may yer lum reek, Ms. Boyle. (That’s Scottish for “May you live long and stay well.”) 

 

How Far The Vances

Meet the Vances – Stella and Jefferson.  This rootin’ tootin’ farming couple are my great-grandparents. They wound their way from Virginia, through Tennessee and landed on this farm in Kentucky.

Now meet my grandparents. Katie and Jim Tom. (No relation to Stella and Jeff.)

They were farmers, too.  I come from a double-sided group of land people, growers of things like food and hunters of things like food.  Here's a week's supply of quail, or pheasant, or rack of pigeon..hard to tell.

How far removed am I?  This is the question on my mind lately.  I’ve never grown anything, never lived on a farm; in fact, I’ve lived in three of the largest cities in the world for most of my life now.  When I ran across these photos I felt these hearty, hard working people peering intently at me and asking, ‘Where’s your land, girl?  Where do you get your food?’

Well Stella, for a couple of years my husband and I lived in the converted Hartley’s Jam Factory near Bermondsey. 

    The Jam Factory 1902

T

The Jam Factory 2009

Mr. Hartley grew his own fruit trees on the expansive property. The fruit was prepared and packaged in our building. Someone gave me an original glass Hartley’s jam jar when we moved in.  Once, a cab driver tried to drop us off at the Bacon Factory by mistake. Slightly further afield was The Hop Exchange where they sold hops like stocks. And down the road The Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange was doing something with animals that didn’t involve eating them. You could tell which street you were on in this part of the world by the use of your nose. But that’s all over now and none of this makes me a land girl.

During the time I lived at the Jam Factory, Borough Market was my grocery store. London’s oldest and largest farmer’s market is the Disneyland of the British food world. 

I watched Jamie Oliver feed one of his children here. Mario Batali scoured the market with his entourage and Ainsley Harriott gave me a friendly smile as we stood over a huge cauliflower. The polish wore off after a while. Imagine digging your money out of your pocket a hundred times, watching helplessly as the coins roll under a display of a large dead hare. Imagine carrying ten different bags, or a single large one that’s so heavy it’s like lugging an alligator around. Imagine your local grocery store is a world famous tourist attraction. Every Saturday was a suicide in an effort to fill even the smallest of British fridges. Jeff and Stella don’t look like they’d have the patience for it either.  (Don’t you think they look like Granny Clampett and Uncle Sam?)  

Although, I'm sure any of my relatives would kill for one sip of Monmouth coffee, which is by far the best coffee in all of London town. Monmouth is right on the edge of the market on a cobbled street. It has three walls, the fourth is open to the street and the scenery of the market - even during pelting rain and on the most frigid winter days.  I tend to proselytize and evangelize when dragging friends from the States to the place. People who don't usually drink coffee are stunned to find themselves acting like a kid who's tasted his first milkshake when they try Monmouth coffee, as witnessed by my friend D. who NEVER drinks coffee. I still buy my coffee there and travel across the city just to sip one of their cappuccinos.

Now I buy most of my food at Waitrose.  Just the other day I found the zucchini/courgette section empty. Kaput.  Nothing.  Frustrating to no end.

“Excuse me,” I said to a Waitrose worker. “The courgette bin is empty. Do you have any more?”
No, she shook her head.

“You mean you’re out of courgettes?” How could this be possible?
“We didn’t get our shipment from Spain.”

So there you have it. Britain is perfectly capable of growing a courgette or two, but we eat Spanish courgettes.  The UK imports so much food that the supermarkets display large signs whenever they get their hands on British produce.  ENGLISH STRAWBERRIES! BRITISH POTATOES!  Jefferson and Stella, and Katie and Jim Tom, all long returned to the earth, would find it hard to fathom.

Jeroboam's Whiskers

Guess what. It’s raining. Not sprinkling, not a shower; it’s raining cats and dogs, cows and tortoises, all day, not a moment’s respite. That’s the way it rains here, unlike any other place. Everything you’ve heard is true. And if you’re reading this next week, or last week, I can assure you it’s probably raining on whatever day you 

read. We live under a daily threat.

In the city of London, in the Borough of Camden, in the hamlet of Hampstead there is a wine shop, ahem, a fine wine merchant that I rushed into immediately creating a puddle on the floor. I set my big black umbrella (I have eight) by the door, and wiped my leopard rain booties (cheap as a nylon vintage shirt and more cheerful) on the coconut coir mat and pulled back the hood of my rainproof jacket. I could describe the wide-planked wood floors and the deep wooden shelves that hold very fine vintages about which I know nothing, but that might give the impression that this wine shop, ahem, merchant, might be a nose above, say, Oddbins. It might. And when approached by a young man, trying his level best to grow a set of whiskers in mutton chop form on his still tender skin, I am initially softened by this attempt to make me feel as if I’d just popped into a costume drama.  He wears a long hunter green apron and I wonder why.  Are there dusty catacombs in the bowels of Heath Street where he battles cobwebs to retrieve a rare bottle of port?

“Good afternoon.” Of course he would say that.
“Hi. I’m looking for an Italian red that I once drank in the Holly Bush pub up the street and can’t find anywhere.”
I search in the pockets of my jacket for the little piece of paper with the name of the wine, but it isn’t there.
“Gosh, it’s terrible out today, isn’t it?” I mumble still searching.
“I’m so glad you came in. You’re the first customer I’ve seen, the first person I’ve seen all day. I’m so bored. It’s so boring. What can I help you with? Can I tell you about this wine?”
AND HE WAS OFF…Like a smooth Kentucky filly he was speeding through the wind in rapture describing a red wine from god knows where, his whiskers whisking furiously. He rattles on non-stop, shows me around the place, and take a gulp of air after he asks what I plan to eat with the wine.

I don’t normally drink, but when I do… I just want a nice bottle of red for a lunchy-do and now that I can’t find the blasted piece of paper, I don’t really care from where it hails. When I tell him about the mushroom lasagna his face turns quizzical.

“I’ve never heard of that dish before.”
He wasn't joking. I didn’t know how to respond.
“Well, it’s lasagna, but instead of meat sauce it’s made with wild mushrooms and cheese.”
“Oh,” he said tugging on the ole whiskers, “that sounds very interesting. You’re making me very hungry. I was bored, and when you leave I'll be bored and hungry. We must find an earthy red to go with that.” It seemed he remembered I was there for a reason.

I mention a Shiraz. He looks appalled and spends an inordinate amount of time badmouthing it. He keeps glancing at the door and I silently question whether he has vain hopes for a crazy Monday onrush of customers, or perhaps he's thinking of locking the door and making me his listening slave for the rest of the day. It’s still pouring out, I've not chosen a wine yet and I really have to go.

Finally, we narrowed it down to two; one was a little more expensive, more than I really wanted to pay. I knew we'd only drink a glass or two; it was destined to sit on the baker's rack in my kitchen and turn to vinegar before I had a chance to give a marinara a kick with the remainder. But I bought it. I bought it because in spite of himself, he sold it to me – something about the earth, the grape and those mushrooms. I was beginning to feel badly about leaving him there for the rest of the afternoon. A sad look washed over his face when I picked up my umbrella.