Connections
The link between a person and a garment can never be planned for, but has lasting impact when a garment becomes a life-long companion. It reveals the potential for change in each individual and often marks that in the associations with a piece, for single, small actions can have big effects.
Work and pleasure
"I know this jacket as my ‘Cherubino’ jacket. I was working at the
National Theatre when I bought it. It is almost knee length and it’s cut
quite formally rather like an eighteenth century frock coat, although
the fabric is so fluid that the formality isn’t sort of very obvious…
and of course eighteenth century frock coats weren’t worn by girls, they
were worn by chaps… About 10 years ago I was having lunch with an opera
singer and I was wearing this jacket and almost before he’d said hello
he said, “Oh, I see you’ve come as Cherubino”… Cherubino is a character
in Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ and he is a character who is a boy, in
the story, but is always played, sung, by a girl. And so ever since…
that’s what it’s been… it has a sort of theatrical resonance. It speaks
to me about the difference between clothes and costume and links
different parts of my life."
London - January 2010
Photograph by
Sean Michael
