Vivienne’s Diary – March 2015

Now that we understand that Monopoly Capitalism is the cause and effect of our environmental and financial problems, I decided to address the fact that many people don’t know what capitalism is – including people of the left that I call Left-over Marxists. I have been putting together a piece on this. link. I read the Communist Manifesto and the chapters on Marx in Freedom and Organization by Bertrand Russell.

Tue 3 Mar: I have arranged to visit Julian the first Tuesday of every month. I would like to see him more often but I know he’s busy. Ben takes him lovely Japanese food – vegetarian, organic – a couple of times a week made by Tomoka. I know it’s good because he drops a little of the same to me for my lunch at work.

Julian thinks it’s good that I and Climate Revolution are supporting the Green Party. He says the public debate is far more important than the election. It immediately clicked, yes, what about the Social Media? Opposition to being governed by these main parties is growing like a tidal wave, so its good, Julian says, if the Green Party, being part of that opposition  can take the debate into Parliament. Julian is excited about all those SNPs. I say, if only they can tip the balance away from disaster.

So what can people in England do? Vote Green and also add your power to the power of the Social Media which has access to true facts, form true opinions and smother the lies. Go on demonstrations. Start by stopping fracking. Inform yourself, talk to people.

We, especially Cynthia, have been working with NGO partners to organize our demonstration “Time to Act”. We designed the poster for the London March and a T-shirt for the Gold Label in Paris. At the same time as the march our models are walking the catwalk and I will be sending a video message from Paris.

Wed 4 Mar: On Eurostar (the Tories have just sold it off in one of their corrupt bargain sales to the monopolies) to Paris to prepare our Gold Label show.

 Alexander Fury from the Independent asked Andreas and me how we worked together. I include the answers here as he only used some snips. The Independent interview. This will give you some idea of what Andreas and I have been doing over the last weeks – how we build the collection.

In the Paris showroom we meet Sabina who is working on the casting. She is a terrific stylist (never satisfied until she’s tried everything); Helping with the show, we’ll be able to leave a lot to her. The clothes are nearly all arrived which will make a total difference. When the clothes arrive late we’re working all night before the show. That won’t happen this time.

Sat 7 Mar: Catwalk music: Die Hartjungs live. This collection is something else! Unisex: The same size suit (Savile Row tailoring – from Huddersfield) fits a woman – bolero with shoulder pads buttoned inside –, fits a man (model size) – sleeves and pants too short. (Cool!); the exact same dress fits woman/man. They look like queens/kings. I liked the make-up idea: frowns. Paz and Marcus were Bride and Groom.

Gwendoline Christie did our show and after we went straight on and did our shoot with her and Leebo and with Juergen Teller for our advertising campaign. Done! Everybody satisfied.

At dinner I wanted to talk to my friends especially Pas and Marcus but they were so polite and considerate – they left me in passionate conversation with Gwendoline. We were talking about Shakespeare.

Mon 9 Mar: My young French friend Gaelle who used to be our fitting model is now an actress and I met her and her actress friend, Marie to discuss an idea I have – a 2 woman show – to be called “Culture for Beginners”. When they start to get it together I will tell you how it is supposed to work. I mention it now just because I love Gaelle, and Marie whom I just met is a powerful, intelligent force.

Tue 10 Mar: I had the pleasure of meeting one or two more friends and beside that we began an important discussion regarding Q v Q with our people working in Asia. We need to continue before one director goes back to Japan. This will be on Friday in England. Therefore we will have to cut short the little break we had planned, whilst in France.

Gare de Lyon. It’s so romantic for me, travelling down through France. My English education is so connected with its history and culture. We are going to Perpignan close to the border with Spain, in Carcassonne at the foothills of the Pyrenees. As we near our destination the train stops more often. The names. From Nimes we come to Montpelier. We are by the sea with etanges and flamingos along the coast. Narbonne. Tizer meets us in a hire car. We are staying in her mother’s little house in Padern. – Out of the way. No shops – when a van of produce arrives each week a loudspeaker from the Marie announce the opportunity to stock up.

We just loved it. The house so rudimentary, collecting kindling and wood from the side of the little road which wound up the steep hillside to the Château of Padern. Tizer cooked and put us a hot-water-bottle in bed.

Wed 11 Mar: The weather was glorious blue. We only had one full day and we went to Peyreperteuse. This is the most dramatic of the castles built on and embedded within the outcrops of limestone which rise up crowning the hills. The castles run along the French-Spanish border.

I have never seen this kind of limestone terrain before. They are in the foothills of the snow covered mountains in the distance – covered in evergreen shrubby trees – which could be one of so many different kinds of oak. Rivers crashing and winding, deep pools where you can dive and swim. These are the cascades  where in summer many gather, staying on the rocks all day – to picnic and talk. Tizer has been coming here with her family every summer. Hippies live here. Organic markets with fantastic wine. The crops you see are vines and almond trees in blossom amongst the landscape.

Anne, Tizer’s neighbour tells us the Romans were here – ancient tribes always stay near water. They mined, tin – I can’t remember what else. How did hunter-gatherers before that survive? I’ve never thought of this before. They must have known so much that we don’t know. It was the novelty to me of this old landscape that made me think of it. How did they survive anywhere? Here there are wild boars and in a section of a stream we saw dozens of big frogs just floating or mating.

Thur 12 Mar: On our way to the airport we passed a sign leading to a Neanderthal cave. We couldn’t go. No time. The Neanderthals were here for 200,000 years before homo sapiens came to Europe 45,000 years ago and within 5,000 years of that event they were gone. The theory is that we were cleverer at getting our food. Recently dogs’ bones dating from 30,000 years ago were found. They were like wolves but with shorter snouts suggesting that our ancestors tamed and bred dogs from wolves –  If we had hunted with dogs (hairy mammoths!) that would have been lethal.

An interesting article in National Geographic (Jan. 2015) found that art forms of primitive people lasted in one place for a time then stopped and were never repeated.

 

Wed 18 Mar: Amnesty came to interview me for a film about activists. I remembered Rachel Corrie, a young woman 23 who travelled to Palestine to join a group trying to stop Israeli seizure of Arab land. She wrote a diary for this experience and this was turned into a play which I saw. She began, “My name is Rachel Corre”. She was in Palestine only 2 or 3 weeks. She stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer which kept coming and killed her. Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie

Fri 20 Mar: Andreas is in Italy and so I gave his ticket to my son Joe. The Barbican, pianist  Evegny Kissin: he first played a Beethoven sonata. Dramatic and so fast you could only just keep up with him. Beethoven is self-consciously clever, he sounds like he’s showing off and he seems to hammer the point by repeating himself. It conjured up a picture of charming Victorian ladies in crinolines self-consciously appreciating the countryside. Next Prokofiev. This is great. I wished I could hear it again. Either I didn’t concentrate enough or I did not let myself go enough. I don’t know. Except I did know it had the integrity of great art. After the interval came Chopin and this carried me away. It was like Kissin owned the music and gave it to you, communicated it to you. I was now completely opened up. Next Liszt, and ravished with pleasure we travelled on with Kissin into eternity.

Saturday 21 Mar: Attended the Green Party meeting and I’m going to tell you all about my experience working with them in my April Diary.

Wed 25 Mar:  Mark, the artist cab-driver called for me and he interviewed me in his cab – video. He’s really engaged with what is happening in the world and is desperate like me to expose the criminal political- financial structure that kills us. When we said goodbye – Gosh!- he gave me the sweetest smile.

Thu 26 Mar: An evening event in St Margaret Pattens church in Eastcheap next to the Monument. Our host is Jenny Tiramani. She together with my friend Santina Levey are dedicated to their work. They are costume historians, researchers, curators and they develop, promote and publish the work of Janet Arnold. Janet Arnold, to whom I am grateful as I discovered historical cuts from the diagrams in her books. Santina is a leading expert on lace and Jenny was costume designer at The Globe. They founded their own school, The School of Historical Dress. This occasion was a book launch produced by the school. Footwear by Alan and Vanessa Hopkins.. I talked to Vanessa and Alan who had done the photographs and the lay-out. The lay-out is different than any books published today. Alan said, “When you employ a designer you pay for white spaces.” There are none. But the real difference is the love he put into it. The school hopes to find a house – open to the public for their archive of historical clothes. And Andreas and I say to anyone interested in fashion to support the school; it is so important and depends on public subscription.

Drinking wine, listening to speeches from people with such knowledge and passion in this treasure of Wren’s church architecture is typical of Jenny. Everything she touches is exquisite and the best. At the end she asked me if I had anything to say. – I just thanked her. Andreas jumped in to say this book is the best shoe book ever.
Jenny didn’t want to sell the book on Amazon so the Amazon site says the book isn’t available but it’s available here.