February 12, 2012 |
FROM THE VAULT (WINTER / SPRING 2012)
“It’s still not right!” screamed Vincenza at her interior designer. “The energy is all wrong. It’s like a stagnant swamp in here. How many times have I told you it needs to flow? In and out. Of me and the rooms. I need to be able to chant and I CAN’T.” She pulled her custom-made jewel-encrusted Cartier whip from her boot. She’d been to the boutique not a month ago and was so taken with the Chinese-inspired antiquities, she’d had them whip up a whip for her. The black lacquer added to its dominatrix feel. “Bend over,” she said. Suddenly, something caught the corner of her eye. “What is THAT?” she screamed as the whip came down. “It’s burning my eyes.” “But you said you wanted a Buddha. For your chanting.” “That is not a Buddha,” Vincenza screamed. “I wouldn’t feed my dog out of a tin that cheap.” “It’s 167 BC. The first Chinese Buddha. The last of its kind in the world,” the designer protested. “I spent three months searching for it. In China. I ate sea cucumbers for that Buddha.” “Stop wailing,” barked Vincenza. “That is junk. I was planning on some vaginal rejuvenation today, for Lorenzo, but he’ll just have to spend one more night without me. We’re going to Cartier. Today, you are going to find out what a Buddha is,” Vincenza leaned down, tied her whip around the designer’s neck and dragged him to the car. She pulled up outside the Bond Street boutique with a screech and rode her new “pet” through the doors. “Take me to the archive,” she commanded and they were ushered into a private room. The Buddhas were waiting. “A Buddha,” she began, “is not a Buddha unless it is sculpted from the very finest rose quartz and has Cartier inscribed on its behind. It must rest upon a box of black enamel set with sapphire cabochons. Its lips are to be made of rubies and its eyes sapphire. There must be gold detailing. The head and tongue and hands are to be articulated. It must,” she turned to the history sheet the shop girl had handed to her, “capture the calm, the soothing poetry of the bald, joyful little man. Does that thing you bought capture the poetry?” The whip cracked on the wall. “He is to be,” she continued, “a disturbing, bold combination of fetishism and rationalism, narration and abstraction, which creates the stylistic link between Cartier and China, of yesterday and today.” She looked down at her pet. “Do you understand now?” He nodded. “Good. Now, how many do you think I’ll need?”
by Natalie Dembinska
