Material Girl

The Calico Toile

Sometimes it is not until something beautiful or revolutionary is delivered unto our consciousness, born from the commonplace, that we will appreciate what can be forged from a raw substance or material. Our instincts may remain muted, our intuition nestled in shadow whilst our daily lives are crosshatched with routine. Though our ability to detect potential and produce ideas may often lay dormant, there is little doubt that with the right stimulus, knowledge and skill, even the smallest idea may be brought to fruition. Freeing these ideas from our brains and watching others do so is like observing butterflies flutter from the cocoon, riding the breeze for the first time. Creativity is a form of liberation.

It might seem a little incongruous then, that I should then turn to the material calico as my particular source of freedom. Shouldn't I be contemplating jeans or the push-up bra to highlight the brilliancy of modern inventions and their emancipatory effects? Not necessarily so. Calico is a material used for constructing a toile; a prototype of a handmade garment in the art of dressmaking. It is raw, unyielding and holds an inherent beauty in its plain weft and weave. Most importantly it is impressionable; perfect for moulding, dying and scribbling on. It is an integral part of a creative design process and stimulates my obsession with bringing just a little more beauty into the world.

On a personal level, calico bears holds many different threads of significance. It is the means by which my mother was able to start her fashion emporium; her boutique Calico Casa, when she was twenty years old. Calico enabled her to hone her bespoke tailoring abilities; it was the means by which to produce 'first-drafts' of numerous silken creations. It was and still remains a trusted companion; for if a prototype fits in calico, you can be sure it will fit in pretty much any fabric you can possible imagine. It is partly the reason that I am able to sew; and furthermore give life and body to ideas that would otherwise be destined to lie silently in the damp recesses of my mind.

When I was but a little chocolate haired child watching my mother sew, I understandably could never grasp the importance of this hallowed fabric. But it is with the addition of wisdom, passion and skill that something so seemingly inconsequential such as calico can suddenly reveal the most amazing metamorphic capacities. By absorbing my mother's instruction and knowledge, I was able to produce tailored garments. I began to view the human form through a new analytical lens. I learnt how to flatter different forms, conceal bodily quirks; in essence, how to tailor to an individual frame. In a miraculous Copernican shift I saw when I worked alongside my mother that we were not simply producing garments for a body; rather, the body was inspiring and governing what we made. The seamless undulations of a slender waist, the majesty of the shoulder blades, even the delicate ridges of the ankle could fuse together in synergy with our creativity and of course, calico threads.

Though they might be unaware, I have watched calico impact upon many people's lives in my lifetime. This modest, creamy material permits designs once conceived in the imagination to become airborne. But these designs have to start somewhere. It is so easy to be swept along on the conveyor belt of fast fashion where all one ever witnesses are finished products hanging uniformly on silver rails. We may never know a shred of information about how that piece came into being. Fashion gives people the opportunity to live their lives in a majestic art form, which is wonderful. Though I like to view life from the seamy side, so to speak, and often ruminate on how a particular garment may have been constructed. We use and wear other people's creations everyday; but I think the mentality that we too possess the ability to think creatively and produce innovative designs is somewhat lacking in today's society. We don't have to aim for world domination with design either; but as Theodore Levitt once succinctly professed "ideas are useless unless used".  

The toile that I am showcasing here is part of a bespoke wedding dress I helped my mother design and produce. The bodice was panelled and boned (notoriously tricky) with decorative piping and hand turned loops and buttons; a nod to our individual sewing style. I think it is always important to show the real interior of a garment and how it has been produced. These stitches, seams, pintucks and pleats are all aspects that need to be duly observed just as a cartographer identifies hills and valleys on a map; and to some, hold infinitely more beauty than the perfect flesh of a garment itself.

The bride was married on a sunny September afternoon and the dress has been spirited away to sunnier climes. The toile remained hidden, until one rainy afternoon this summer I plundered a drawer in my mother's workshop full of old patterns and prototypes, and decided that the toile deserved to see the light of day once more. This is just one footprint; or more suitably, handprint in a trail of creativity I hope to showcase on my blog in due course.

 

Mapping Modern Day Creativity: An Evening with Zandra Rhodes

Two weeks ago I was sitting bleary-eyed alongside my kind, personable morning friend, my mug of tea, as I ploughed through my Twitter notifications; until an excitable tweet from the Fashion and Textile Museum stating “We're getting ready to be In Conversation with @Zandra_Rhodes this Thursday 31st May!! Tickets still available..” shook me from my stupor.

I’ve been aware of Zandra Rhodes for as long as I can remember; a true iconic New Wave fashion designer famed not only for her creative legacy but her shocking pink hair and eclectic appearance. Scrabbling madly for my credit card and diving for my phone, I was soon begging the indifferent receptionist on the other end to reserve me a ticket; who gleefully rejoiced in playing me excerpts of tubular bells whilst she checked the legitimacy of my claim to be a student.

Eventually I managed to pre-book a ticket. Upon perusing Google maps I discovered that rather embarrassingly, the Fashion and Textile museum is literally two streets away from my apartment. So I have no excuses for not having previously visited this little educational haven before, considering I live in the capital city and culture seeps through every thoroughfare. Thoughts of possible outfits to wear when meeting the fabulous fashion maverick had flitted through my mind; but I know well enough by now that although London can nurture your identity and strengthen your style inclinations, there are times when you have to let sense occasionally reign over ones fashion fantasies. Seeing the headline on the Southwark newspaper booming “Could this be the Bermondsey rapist?” only that very morning in Tesco, coupled with the inevitable strained pleas from my mother on speakerphone imploring me not to wear anything “strange” meant I donned my much loved ensemble of white shirt, jeans and blazer, and trotted off in the evening sunlight.

For anyone that's ever visited the Fashion and Textile Museum, you’d know that the building is no shrinking violet. I was beadily scouring the boutiques and restaurants on Bermondsey Street like it was going to be carefully concealed in side alley brickwork like Diagon Alley. Until I saw a bright orange and pink building that stands in rather provocative contrast to the beautifully married muted pastels and red brick buildings surrounding it; almost an asymmetric sister building of the Weasley household.

Once inside I was given a programme for the current exhibition on ‘Designing Women: Post War British Textiles’ and a complimentary glass of wine (which I politely declined after I was obliged to nurse Tom recently after typical overindulgent fresher consumption of Rosé) Incidentally, the exhibition features some incredible modernist textile works from some pivotal female designers of the post-war period, such as Lucienne Day, Marian Mahler and Jacqueline Groag. I bought a copy of ‘Textile Revolution: Medals, Wiggles and Pop 1961-1971 Zandra Rhodes’ by Samantha Erin Safer and nipped up the glass staircase to get a good seat in the conference room. 

As I sat eagerly with my notepad and camera poised on my lap waiting for everyone to arrive, I occupied myself by gazing at the array of fabric montages and inspirational quotes on the walls; only vaguely aware of colour and movement shifting on my peripherals. Until I looked around me and saw fabulously eccentric individuals (of a more mature age) materialising through the cream doorway almost like it was a magic portal connected to another world. I’m positive they had equally creative personalities to match. The room was a melange of dyed hair, feathers, fascinators, tie-dye and the soft jangle of Indian bangles. There I was sat in the middle of the room, forty years younger and looking about as bright as an eclipse.

And then a hush fell upon the room. Our little colourful congregation turned our heads simultaneously as we heard a  distinctly audible rustle of taffeta skirts, in time to see Zandra Rhodes sashaying up the aisle in a magnificent magenta ballgown, vermilion patent heels, piles of costume jewellery and a wry smile And of course the brilliant pink bob.

Samantha Erin Safer, the author of Zandra Rhodes’ new book was present to interview Zandra on her life’s achievements and lead the discussion. She had also prepared a Powerpoint presentation to accompany the talk which was entitled “Zandra Rhodes and the Swinging 60’s; Textile Revolution at the Royal College of Art and the Rise of British Fashion”.

The talk began with Safer distinguishing Zandra as a British fashion and textile designer, “prolific draughtsman” and all-round revolutionary figure. My Mum had always talked to me about precisely why Zandra was so influential; because of her proficiency, first and foremost as a textiles designer, concerned with producing new and innovative fabrics and constant consideration of how this fabric would sit on the body. Zandra began by stating that “textile designers are the Cinderella’s of the fashion world”; for without textiles, designers would have nothing to forge creative visions from.

The more Zandra fed us anecdotes from her incredible past the more I was reminded of snippets of wisdom I had been nourished on from my mother. She emphasised that she was lucky to be a ‘spark part of the bonfire’ that had ignited in the revolutionary 1960’s. That inspiration originates from the simplest everyday influences. To be your own boss and believe in your own talent (Zandra was never offered a job). To know that if you choose to do something you truly love, you will never have to work a day of your life.

The most intriguing parts of Zandra's talk came spontaneously when she would drift off on a tangent and bestow fragments of personal opinion. She talked about the amazing flux of ideas that is naturally proliferated in youth; and how, often, a design process is one of re-visitation and renovation; taking old ideas, coming back to them later in life and injecting new energy. It reminded me of something one of my English lecturers had noted about a particular piece of poetry; how the words grew out of one another like intertwining briars. Zandra said the same thing happens with fashion collections.

Safer asked Zandra about her signature ‘wiggle’ motifs used in so many of her textile designs. Zandra said that wiggles were something she had been drawing since she was a little girl; something innate and integral to one’s creative identity. It reminded me of how my Mum’s illustrations will always feature tiny dots somewhere in the clouds of billowing watercolour.

What really caught my attention was when Zandra addressed the direction of creativity nowadays; a topic that has recently become quite a strong interest of mine. Zandra was not a natural tailor and never possessed the skills to sew until she learnt from friends. But she was taught to draw; and being able to draw stems from an ability to really look. I suppose this sounds like rather an illogical proposition.

I cannot describe how many times my Mum has reprimanded me for ‘looking without seeing’. In essence, this means cursorily glancing at something without really observing the layers of depth and meaning; whether in art, literature, architecture, or textiles The ability to visually examine, is, in my mind, to imagine oneself as a microscope, able to identify and magnify detail that would ordinarily be invisible to the careless human eye.

Rhodes lamented the modern age which has spawned a generation of hopeful designers who are reliant upon a computer to produce drawings. That the technological age, which undoubtedly has its significant benefits, has also ensured that young people really don’t have as much of a grounding in basic technical drawing or possess many fundamental any technical skills to enter the artistic arena. One ends up living what should be a raw, exhilarating creative process through a machine.

Of course this is all subjective. It is not that one cannot get ahead in creative industries if one does not possess any rudimentary technical skills; but isn’t it preferable? I believe these vital technical skills not only make an individual more artistically proficient but help to build an inquiring, flexible mind. A mind well versed in manual improvisation and the generation of new ideas and solutions as a force of habit, not a forced discipline.

All Zandra's designs revolve around a policy of ‘handmade’. She draws all her own designs, cuts her own patterns, screen prints samples. It is not pure romanticisation to think that we should all revert to such processes; but it is vital to create a subtle balance between technology and hand production.

When one audience member asked Zandra to give some future advice for any young people thinking of going into the fashion industry, she simply replied “everything is challenging”. Every industry has its trials and equally has its special rewards. It is ultimately dependent on the individual to make a success of their career.

My mind was having its own rave by this point given all the cultural stimuli, which was perhaps a fitting moment for Zandra’s PA to close the discussion and announce that Zandra would be signing books if we quickly queued at the front. Naturally I assumed the obligatory role of that that irritating person bobbing around in manner of a hyperactive gnat, snapping away with my camera. But it yielded a personal message from Zandra inside my book and a nice photograph so I walked contentedly out into the warm evening renewed with energy and ideas. 

It was only sitting in bed that night reflecting on the evening that I remembered something that had been bothering me from earlier. I cannot remember seeing one young person at the event. I remember thinking beforehand that I would be have to be shoehorned into a room full of young students and fashion entrepreneurs. It couldn’t have been for want of a lack of publicity; not in the technology dominated world that Zandra Rhodes had lamented. This was one of the occasions I felt like I should have been born in a different era; an era filled with days of fast-paced creativity in attic workshops, not days filled with electronic messaging and educational restrictions. Then again I’m probably just dreaming of a revolution. 

Primrose Daydreams

Around Eastertime years ago in the heart of the North Norfolk countryside, the spring sunshine would glimmer pleasant warmth upon that classic English perennial; the primrose. This was a time when wildflowers carpeted the rural landscape like a floral patchwork quilt. Families of primroses assembled round tree trunks in coppice woodland or freckled damp meadows.  

On a somewhat overcast day in London, my fellow flatmates of 103C have dispersed like seeds in the wind, back to the Rhine, the Welsh valleys or similar. I, however, am alone in my room, surrounded by a legion of formidable library books. Paradise Lost and a yellowing copy of Beowulf from the fifties lie abandoned as I endeavour to decipher meaning in old English lyrics. Outside on the street a youth speeds past with ‘Soldier Boy’ thumping out of the speakers.

Before wishing us a Happy Easter my tutors casually bestowed five essays to complete in two weeks. I am frantically typing as well as worrying about sitting two exams on Early Modern and Classical and Biblical literature a week later-yes Biblical. Tears, tantrums and copious cups of tea have already been spent fighting through the Book of Psalms. Needless to say, with the demanding workload, I decided not to go home for Easter festivities as I know my work will lie neglected.

Halfway through note-taking on Ars Moriendi, The Art of Dying (cheerful I know) the phone rings. It’s Mum. I have to answer otherwise she’ll leave five voicemail messages before instructing the security guards of halls to conduct a personal search and rescue mission.

‘Hello darling!’, Mum twinkles down the line, ‘just calling to see how you’re doing’.

The secret is to never bemoan the workload, or actually, moan in general. Usually I measure the mood of the voice on the line; if it’s relentlessly chirpy, like today, I just say I’m fine. It’s so much easier. Mum was blessed with the amazing ability of not appearing as if she’s listening to a word you say, ruthlessly ploughing over you with anecdotes of Yorkshire pudding success stories and babysitting triumphs. In fact, she skilfully files every scrap of information she hears; any deviation from cheery optimism and she can craftily use it as ammunition the next time I fall ill and then declare 'well that’s because you didn’t take those multivitamins I sent you in the jiffy bag last Friday'.

‘Mum’, I warned, ‘I’m in the middle of writing an essay’, as I displace a pile of papers with my elbow that cascade off the top of my desk and mutinously drift about on the hideous nylon carpet. 

Of course that was selectively filtered out.

‘Anyway darling, I was just remembering how you used to make a Garden of Gethsemane for the Chuch display every year when you were little! Do you remember?’

I pause, fountain pen hovering above the lyric “with the precious river that runneth from his womb”, caught on the one hand between impulsively decoding Mum’s possible motivations for this trip down memory lane, and mulling over the nostalgic memories flooding my mind on the other.

Every year, the children in our village would be asked produce their own interpretation of a Garden of Gethsemane. The garden is located by the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, where it is said that Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before his crucifixion. In Greek, ‘Gethsemane’ means ‘olive press’, and the garden in Jerusalem today is filled with gnarled olive trees standing proudly like war veterans; adorned with silvery green foliage that glint like medals upon the lapel and clusters of white blossom.

Armed with little fruit baskets, my sister Annabelle and I would go questing into the woodland for mats of velvety emerald moss, fragments of lichen covered bark and ferns that nod their heads in the slight spring breeze. These forest riches would beautify the little paper maché cave I made with newspaper and that special concoction of flour and water. The cave would be positioned on an old cake board, decorated with greenery and perfected with a tiny gravel path winding through the garden up to the cave entrance. I can’t remember ever using plastercine, reels of sellotape or ready-made craft materials that children seem to require nowadays. We weren’t the obsessive ‘living off the land’ type or bohemian children of nature; our happiness was found in being instinctively artistic and making our own entertainment.

Those memories never leave you. Of course I hadn’t forgotten. I thought we were on track for a nice reflective conversation.

Cheerfully bludgeoning through my reverie , Mum swiftly progressed onto asking whether I was going to nip out and get myself a chicken, turkey or something equally as ridiculous to roast on Easter Sunday.

‘You’ll never be able to do any decent work if you don’t feed yourself properly, next thing you’ll be having fainting fits, remember all the trouble we had with you at school?’ she chastised. I rolled my eyed and looked over at my sixteen-pack of brioche rolls from Lidl that I’ve steadily been working my way through all afternoon.

The time for mother-daughter chit-chat had unsurprisingly expired. My woefully incomplete essay sat winking at me and I was losing the fight with my instinctive urge to run and glug caffeine. Mercifully, Mum announced that she couldn’t stay on the line (in standard subverted Mum-logic) and promised she would ring to check how I was tomorrow morning, probably at the unsavoury hour at 6am or similar.

There are times when we all wish everything were simpler. When we find ourselves wistfully reminiscing about those carefree childhood days. When we long to drop whatever we’re doing and bask in the spring sunshine just because we feel like it.

The photograph above is my two year old self doing just that. Staring intently into the face of a wild primrose hoping to unlock some worldly knowledge. I know I won’t be unearthing a woody glade stitched with these little effervescent beauties tomorrow. But I can always sit on the square of lawn at the back of our apartments to satisfy my countryside homesickness. There’s always ways and means if we look hard enough. It might make reading medieval literature a little easier.

Happy Easter.