December 1, 2012 |
Exhausted by dealing with her wayward sister, Vincenza was lying on the Ercol chaise in her parlour and contemplating the direction of her life. A Margaret Howell look book had arrived a in the post a few days previously and she hadn’t been able to stop flicking through it. Something about the clothes spoke of female renegades in the French Resistance. Maybe it was the hats perched just so on the head. She’d likened them to berets until Dimitri had taken it upon himself to point out that their pompoms made them Scottish in style, so their correct name was tam-o’-shanters. True, Vincenza had decided to try following a path of doing charitable deeds, but ever since she’d sent him on the self-improvement course he’d been self-improving at an alarming rate and she was regretting this new talking-back attitude it had encouraged. As punishment she made him pumice her feet as she figured out how to transform herself into a modern-day female Robin Hood. Before anything was decided, though, she realised she would need the correct wardrobe. “Dimitri,” she barked, “grab and pad and a pencil and take this down. I need you to call the Margaret Howell shop and order me Looks 1, 2, 8 and 25 from the autumn/winter look book. If I’m going to take from the rich and give to the poor, I must look the part. A tweed greatcoat in charcoal or moss will give off the right air when I am galloping through the fields towards a small village to shower them with coins of gold from my sister’s allowance. After all, why redistribute one’s own wealth when one can redistribute the wealth of others? I want that effect of fabric billowing behind me, like a modern Heathcliff on the moors, a Peter Lindbergh photograph come to life. In fact, maybe Peter could follow me around and document my good deeds. Chica, would you mind calling him and asking? Tell him there’ll be a gold coin or two in it for him. And a personal order at Margaret’s. Actually, if he says yes, I’ll need more than work clothes. I’ll need something feminine, too. Something that will mark me out as a delicate flower with a will of steel when I hug the children in their natural habitat of squalor. Something silky. Maybe the emerald dress from Look 5. Or the navy silk dirndl skirt worn with the blue shirt and navy cardigan from Look 15. Just order both. I’ll need outfit changes. If these pictures of my good deeds are to make the cover of Vogue I can’t be photographed in the same outfit twice. My transformation from evil, money-grabbing queen to princess of the people won’t be complete if I’m not on the cover of Vogue atop a shetland pony dressed head to toe in Margaret Howell. Do you think Margaret sells shetland ponies in the Wigmore Street boutique? Be a doll and ring them, will you?”
by Natalie Dembinska
