russe

DUST LIGHT, LEAVES

Above autumn's burgundy
and rust,
beyond the orange groves
chafing and ruddy in the frost,
a cloud lifts into blue . . .

the west goes up all haydust, flame,
and the flat land glimmers
out to it on the day-stream--
it is Millet's sky of "The Angelus,"

that nine- teenth century sky
we have only in paintings
and in these few still moments
in their rose and amber rags.

As a child, I remember this . . .
standing on the creek stones,
dusk moving over the fields
like a ship's hull pulling away

with that first sense of loss
and release; I saw it was
all about the beginning of dust
rising into the long sky's seam.
into my own two eyes and hands.

A chalk-white moon overhead
and to the right, umber waves
of sparrows back and through
the empty trees . . .

Soon, stars will draw analogies
in the dark, but now the world
is simple as the dead leaves
glowing in this late hour,

simple as our desire
to rise lucent as clouds
in their camisoles of dust,
the cool air burning though us

over leaves drifting on a pond,
over the last memory
of ourselves looking up,
stunned as a carp blinking at the light.

Christopher Buckley

(this whole exploration in hue began when i noticed, in the metropolitan museum's collection, the oddly matching color schemes of the (at top) dagobert peche textile and the callot soeurs gown. i am not sophisticated in color theory, but i poked around until sense seemed to begun being made. the ballet russe had a tremendous influence on design in the first quarter of the twentieth century. how those became the colors of the ballet russe, and how these same colors came to become circulated around the western world, i do not know. but know that matisse as well as bakst designed their costumes, then carried the language of their colors into the world.)

becoming lily pond

NIGHT

I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets' drowsy
Singing in the sunshine...

I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple...

And I cannot sleep.

I have minded me
Of a lily-pond,
Where the waters sway
All the moonlit leaves
And the curled long stems...

And I cannot sleep.

Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914)

people change their names for many reasons: for luck, to hide, to reveal...

For Thais, names are loaded with significance and having the wrong one can bring untold misfortune. Over the past 10 years, the trend for changing one's name has grown alarmingly. Last year in Bangkok alone more than 50,000 people registered new names. And they weren't just changing their first names. Thais can also change their surnames whenever they like, as long as they choose an entirely unique name.

Unlike the West, where parents often choose a name for their child well before it's born, Thais name their children when they know the exact date and time of birth, consulting books, monks and astrologers. Some dates are particularly auspicious - such as the King's and Queen's birthdays. Those lucky enough to give birth on those dates can apply to the Palace for a name. If you're not willing to trust to luck, doctors are more than happy to book you in for a Cesarean in advance.

--Sarah Strickland 1

many jews changed their names when they first arrived at ellis island. or had them changed. then after the second world war, many first generation American-born jews went into an all-too-understandable hiding, and names were changed so success may be pursued.

but for me, it was instead a revelation. since i was 14, tigerlily had been my secret name. maybe i got it from peter pan. it just felt more like my real name than the one i had been given (which, not coincidentally, had been yelled so often i wanted never to hear it again). nine years pass, and i am a hippy in san francisco. i've left the haight behind and now live in the castro near a wonderful health food store named agapé.

i needed to be free of some people i had gotten involved with, so i moved, left no forwarding address, and changed my name. since i had a friend staying with me at the time whose name was now fern blossom, i decided now was the moment to take my 'real name.' i needed a last name too, so i became lily pond.

it was 1973. it was around this time of year so why not?: today marks the official 35-year anniversary of my name. but wait -- i said something about revelation. isn't this just as much about hiding too? it was at first. but the name took root, and the symbol became increasingly important to me. i went to kyoto to tour lily ponds. i built one.

my name was revealed to me, and, thankfully, i listened.

sui generis

anna sui lists among her favorite artists George LePape, Christian Berard, Aubrey Beardsley, John William Water- house, and Edward Burne-Jones, and Paul Poiret among her favorite designers. 1

to my eyes, her fall/winter 2008 collection owes even more to the designers of the wiener werkstatte. this may not be surprising, given poiret's inspirations.



[In] May 1903, Koloman Moser and Josef Hoff- mann, with funds supplied by Fritz Waern- dorfer, Hoff- mann's patron, and the advice of Charles Rennie Mackin- tosh -- founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) for "the promotion of the economic interests of its members by training and educating them in handicraft, by the manufacture of craft objects of all sorts in accordance with artistic designs drawn up by Guild members, by the erection of workshops and by the sale of the goods produced."

These artists wanted to institute a par- ticularly Viennese style and to produce ensembles in which all elements would reflect the same aesthetic principles. They looked back to the Biedermeier period of the early nineteenth century as the last great era of genuine Viennese design. The artists of the Wiener Werkstätte regarded the tradition of handcraftsmanship as basic. Machines were used, but the artist maintained complete control over what was produced. Wiener Werkstätte textile and fashion divisions were opened in 1910, and Paris couturier Paul Poiret was among the first to visit them.

Critics of French decorative arts urged artists to learn from the effectiveness of the German and Austrian workshops in presenting designs in a single overarching national style. Ironically, French attitudes toward luxury and quality seemed to be part of the problem. French artists, instead of joining to form workshops to produce practical, well-designed objects for the middle class as in Germany and Austria, worked in isolation as fine artists making handcrafted individual pieces aimed at the aristocratic luxury market.

French designers decided to band together to form the Société des Artistes Décorateurs in 1901. Artists in many media took part in its exhi- bitions. Jacques Doucet, Jeanne Paquin, Paul Poiret, Sonia Delaunay, and the American Mainbocher represented fashion over the years, while Émile Jacques Ruhlmann and Louis Süe, among many others, produced ideas for textiles because of their commitment to the decorative arts. This gave designers more visibility through annual exhibitions, but the French still could not agree on a central design philosophy. The debate raged throughout the first decade of the century. What style would be exclusively French and exclusively modern and could compete in the marketplace with industrial creations?

Couturier Paul Poiret, who had been considering these issues even as he looked back to the Empire period for his influential straight loose gowns of 1907, was also acting to develop a new French style in textile design. By 1909, he had already visited Germany, where he showed his collections to great acclaim. There he purchased a group of German and Eastern European decorative arts, which he regarded as akin, in their "primitive" simplicity and vigor, to all of the various artistic expressions mani- fested by the Ballets Russes, founded by Serge Diaghilev with painter Léon Bakst and choreographer Michel Fokine and then the toast of Paris.

In Vienna, Poiret had been captivated by the Wiener Werkstätte with its cooperative spirit among architects (Josef Hoffmann), decorative artists (Dagobert Pêche, Koloman Moser), and painters (Gustav Klimt, whose companion, Emilie Flöge was herself a fashion designer with a salon in Vienna).

In Germany and Austria, Poiret encountered the new modern styles on their own ground. He purchased textiles. He went to every decorative arts exhibition possible,

meeting Hermann Muthesius, the Prussian architect and critic; designer Bruno Paul; and Gustav Klimt. He wandered the streets looking at new buildings and visited every recently completed interior to which he could gain admittance.

He was especially struck by the products of the Wiener Werk- stätte, and on his return to Paris he decided to adopt the Viennese workshop concept and to strive for the freedom and spontaneity he had observed in both French and Eastern European folk art. Poiret rejected the idea of employing highly trained artists or craftsmen. Thinking of the peasants who had made beautiful objects without any formal art education, he decided to experiment with new designs by untrained artists free of what he called "false principles" learned in school. 2