May 4, 2012 |
After much office discussion, we have come to the following conclusion about the Jil Sander collection that was shown in Milan back in September… The heroine, let’s call her Josephine, likes to wear her Jil Sander in vast minimalist spaces. White walls to match her white creations. Preferably a space designed by Mies van der Rohe. He designed the house she lives in on the outskirts of Milan. He is best suited to her outfits. She likes her hair scraped back, worn with a dour expression on her face. She’s very serious. The wife of a renowned collector. Personally, she doesn’t care much for “modern” art. That’s why everything is in storage. The only piece allowed is the Picasso that he painted for her many summers ago in Cadaques. The only warmth, her net curtains from which she peers into her courtyard. They are much like the veil she wears, through which she peers at people while running her errands. Which is why she feels such an affinity with Raf. Even though the show featured Picasso faces knitted into the jumper, she called Raf up one day and asked him if she could commission a jumper with her Picasso as the focus and he kindly agreed. She had three made and hasn’t worn anything else for a month. In fact she bought three of everything that was sent down that runway. Something about the white just spoke to her. So pure, so practical. So strong looking, and yet so soft and feminine at the same. Just like her. She had congratulated Raf post show. He told her then about his couture trilogy, how it had started a year and a half ago with the brightly coloured ball skirts paired with white T-shirts, how he had moved the idea into mid-century skiwear, the kind you’d see, say, a CZ Guest wearing in the Swiss Alps in a Slim Aarons book, and how this collection was the conclusion of that: the bringing together of the two separate strands and distilling them to their essence. She had always thought Raf a genius, and always believed all great things come in threes – the Godfather films, blind mice, courses of meals. Why, she even kept her vast Jil Sander collection in three storage hangars, and lived at number 3, was born under the third sign. It was her lucky number. Her favourite part of any trilogy had always been the third act. Which is why she made a vow that day to only ever wear the third act in the Jil Sander couture saga.
by Natalie Dembinska
