Five Questions answered

[anna_wing]

The Five Questions meme. I will ask, if anyone would like questions from me.

From oursin:

1. What would you like your garden to grow that it doesn't, for whatever reason?


Brugmannsias! Utterly the wrong climate: too hot, too wet. I could grow daturas, but they're too close to the ground, my witless cats would nibble them and be very sick if not dead...


2. If you could conjure up a couturier from the past to design a wardrobe for you, who?

Madeleine Vionnet. I'd love Erte or Poiret or Callot Soeurs or in fact any of the great 1920s couturiers, or even Worth post 1910 or thereabouts (and Lucille for my loungewear...), but Vionnet was the mistress of them all. Or of course Issey Miyake, who sadly would now qualify too...

3. Seashore or mountain?

Mountain, absolutely, especially when cool and forested, with onsen at judicious intervals. What with tsunami and cyclones and riptides, and too much sun, I regard the sea with vast suspicion. I suppose the seashore in a temperate climate and not in summer might be all right.

4. A book that has not been written that you wish would be or had been?

Too many, so for 'wish they had been written' I'll go with The Universal Pantograph, and Hope Mirrlees' second novel. For 'wish they would be written'...City of Opal and City of Pearl by Jane Emerson aka Doris Egan.

5. Favourite poet/s?

Rudyard Kipling, with Edna St Vincent Millay and Ogden Nash close behind.

Comments

[flemmings]

Oh, so that's what those trumpety looking flowers are. They grow in my neighbourhood. Good thing I never tried smelling them.

[anna_wing]

Some cultivars apparently do have scent, but ones I've come across don't. Datura cultivars have a bit more.

[lferion]

I was so sad to read of Issey Miyake's passing -- fabric origami! One of my very favorites.

Oh, I could make a new Miyake coat out of waffle linen, that would be fun. I have many but not all of his Vogue Individualist patterns in my pattern collection (I don't think I can call it a 'stash' when it fills a commercial 4-drawer pattern cabinet, and Google tells me no few of the patterns now go for quite amazing prices).

We get datura wild by the roadside here in Arizona. It is very pretty.

[anna_wing]

That sounds brilliant, which pattern did you have in mind? I have several of his Vogue patterns but have never actually got round to having them made up, tailors find them a little daunting. I could never afford his main line except at a huge discount, but I have a few of the Pleats Please line, which are extremely handy for business travel.

I have an actual vintage Vionnet pattern, but it's a very simple straight dress of the early 1920s style. I've used the Betty Kirke book and the Kyoto Costume Institute books to have several of the classic ones made up, though. And I discovered a fashion company online based in Singapore, whose style is very clearly inspired by her designs. I buy a lot from them whenever I happen to be passing through, because their sizes and styles suit me very well.

https://ingoodcompany.asia/products/women-dresses

[shirebound]

I had to Google Brugmannsias. There are so many lovely colors!

[anna_wing]

They are absolutely gorgeous, super free-flowering, and I've seen them do very well in quite a wide variety of climates, from a desert oasis in Chile to a hill-station in Myanmar.

Unfortunately, that climatic range does not include either my current location or my actual home.

[sartorias]

Ohhhhhh Vionnet!!!!!

[anna_wing]

Yup! That scene in the Disney beauty and the Beast where the chest of drawers erupts with all manner of gorgeous clothes is my fantasy, except they would be Vionnet, Miyake, and all the great 1920s and 1930s fashion houses. And shoes made to order.