By Design

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Fashion and style for the middle markets. San Francisco, 2008.

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Yesterday and Today Himself: Swam, job hunted, grocery shopped, played Mass Effect II. Herself: Swam, worked on the chapbook, et al, ditto, and worked more on the chap book. Printed out a fresh dummy and discovered that I lost page 15. Gratitude: That I can see the end of the chapbook at last?

I’m taking part of the day off. It’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to which G has already got tickets. So after work at the shop, and before dinner out with Dot. Which seems to have become an every week occurrence to which she pays. Somehow this bit of life has become out of balance in my mind, but Dot and G said they have a handle on it.

I certainly don’t have a feeling of solidity on the chap book. It’s my elephant in the living room today….still. I’ve taken the machine to the shop….tension problems, got a cheapie cover for the Bernina…since I gave the cover that came with it away with the antique Elna, and the cutting mat is out and waiting. I’ll take the chap book to class with me Thursday, and if there aren’t any objections, I’ll get it printed.

Here’s another design…published here before, mea culpa, not graphic this time but fabric. It’s a more comprehensible read if you understand the details….such as Schiaparelli was noted for one particular shade of powerful pink that she used year after year in her collections. Do you remember the Rudy Gernreich topless suits. I do. I wore my hair a la Sassoon in those years….when it wasn’t covered with a scarf, paint, or clay drippings.

Then of course, there were the Nixon years. Did you know there was a student “bad guy” list?

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By Design
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The hot winds of fall blow
Schiaparelli like in their passion
scarring the land pink with their heat
piling the warmth of the day
into Hartnell like towers of profusion

our heated confusions
resemble Gibb’s romantic
medievalism,
and we melt.
into our Rudy Gernreich topless
swimsuits over our own
rotund inequities
our own muffin tops,

only to find ourselves naked,
bare, as summer ends, and we are
chilled
poured
sandwiched
molded into facades of
militaristic Guy Laroche shapes
wrapped in Leger elastics
caught by Lloyd’s shimmering floats
or Betty Jackson’s joyous layers
finally finding ourselves reflected in
Paco Rabanne’s sharp plastics.

When winter arrives
we shyly ask ourselves,
does anybody make a plain cloth coat?