IS THIS THE WORK OF KIM JONES?

EDITORIAL PAISLEY FROM T MAGAZINE

France has always been in love with technology. It has even figured out a corporate way to have a mother ship in the U.S. that links into all Louis Vuitton stores. There are phone agents who take your requests and contact the appropriate store. In my case, I just wanted the name of the PR agency that handled Vuitton menswear or at the least affirmation that the LV's menswear style director, Kim Jones, was responsible for the outstanding paisley shirt that appeared in the spring-summer T Magazine from The New York Times.

No go. After many, many tries at the mother ship, I called Paris LV. When I told them what I wanted, I was disconnected.

The shirt in question featured a brilliant fabric design, bringing bandana-inspiration to a new level of sophistication and worth every bit of the $815 listed as the retail price. And if it is the work of Mr. Jones, someone please give him my congratulations.

However, I am concerned about the model. It seems as if he is role-playing the waif, having spent $1,020 on those Bottega Veneta pants with their paper-baggy-looking front. It appears that he hasn't had enough money for food in quite a while. JP

PROVENÇE BLUES

Giant 1970s paisley grouping from the book, Pantone: The 20th Century in Color.

Pantone, the New Jersey company that standardized color production and gives the world seasonal charts of what colors are trending in manufacturing, produced an interesting book, Pantone: The 20th Century in Color ― and paisley is treated as part of the 1970s.
The copy opines that just as van Gogh escaped some of his woes by moving to the Provençe of the late 1880s, the visual remembrances of that countryside have also soothed some of the stresses of the 1970s for everyone. And paisley, with the popularity of Pierre Deux and Laura Ashley, was part of that treatment.

The book features giant 1970s lavender motifs against a Mediterranean blue-green. Provençe-based fashion professional, Deanna Littell, said that from her view on a recent trip to St. Tropez, the sea was indeed aquamarine, the painter's word for blue-greens. What she likes about Provençal paisleys is the mix of monotone colors. She pointed out that Pantone's example of a Mediterranean blue ground with lavender paisleys made her think of fields of lavender against a deep blue sky.

It is also interesting that blue-greens have been on the fashion Pantone charts for a few seasons now. JP

THE AMERICAN ART OF PAISLEY

From Textiles in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lift-out from the American rug.

In early-19th-century American textiles, an occasional paisley shows itself as sort of a streamlined reference to the fine, complicated work that was done in India and Persia, Europe and Russia.  One of these exceptions is an embroidered carpet of wool by Zeruah Higley Guernsey Caswell, (1805-1895?). Castleton, Vermont, 1835. 

Known as the Caswell carpet, it is said to be made of wool Zeruah sheared from her father's sheep, then spun, dyed and wove this spectacular rug into its fabric base. Each square was embroidered with a chain stitch. Eleven years after the work's completion, the artist married Mr. Caswell.  The carpet spent many years in the family's best parlor. The piece at lower left is a rectangle designed to be lifted out and laid over the parlor's empty hearth. 

In the lift-out photo, the man seems to be leading the woman into the next frame ― a fantasy forest.  Over their heads, three paisley motifs join to look almost like the focal point at the front of a church. JP

ANTONIO'S PAISLEY SKETCH

FROM A 1981 BLOOMINGDALE'S NEWSPAPER AD

The sublimely talented fashion illustrator and artist, Antonio Lopez (1943-1987),  student of The Fashion Institute of Technology and a million other achievements, has been on my mind for some time now.   The artwork shown, from a Russian-themed Bloomingdale's ad from 1981, was used for the fall/winter 2012 cover of FIT's excellent Hue alumni magazine and was put aside for this blog to illustrate yet another paisley story.

Obviously, lots of other blog ideas seemed to have crowded ahead of Antonio. But when I read Elaine Louie's touching "Charles James and Me" feature on the front page of The New York Times ThursdayStyles (April 24), there was Antonio again to remind me.

This past May, in the UK's Business of Fashion, Colin McDowell recalled that in the 1970s, Antonio and his partner Juan Ramos set about to create a drawn record of James's work,  which took the pair 10 years ― and seems to me to be such a loving project for them to take on.  Louie writes that the June 1975 "Charles James" exhibit at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, featured 250 drawings by the designer himself plus 50 by Antonio. The writer also recalls how her friends Antonio and Juan called upon her to act as  "walker" for the star designer on opening night of the Syracuse exhibit. Her mission: to keep him from mentioning Halston and Diana Vreeland, both of whom lived with public CJ feud-clouds over their heads.    

Louie and I talked on the phone occasionally, she as editor of Art Direction and me, an editor of publications about advertising.  When I was doing a story on an artist for his striking Bloomingdale's fashion campaigns and probably called her, wanted her thoughts on the work. I remember phoning Antonio for an interview and somehow blurting out something like, do you know what a special talent you have?  What could the poor man say after that!

I believe it was also 2012, at The Morgan Library & Museum exhibit of drawings from Renaissance Venice, there was a little sketch of a piece of fabric being draped by a hand, I cannot remember whose.  It seemed that one could actually feel the fabric on the hand, on the skin.  "Antonio, you drape like that,"  I told the spirit-him.

In any event,  hopefully there would be some of Antonio's drawings in the "Charles James: Beyond Fashion" exhibit.  Located in the lower-level portion of the two-part exhibit, I could spot only two Antonio drawings among the designer's selected portfolio pages,  both with strong, bold lines that perfectly represented the designer's work and attitude.

Walls that edge the Met's main floor exhibit area are filled with sparkling, opinionated quotes from James.  One of my favorites:  "My dresses help women discover feelings they didn't know they had."   I can just imagine the power and fantasy I would feel wearing the displayed Charles James straight-line gown with its enormous, frothy sheer tail, much like the powerful rooster tails of hydroplane speed boats when they seemed to break the sound barrier in races on the Detroit River.  Dangerous. JP

"Charles James:  Beyond Fashion" remains at the Met through August 10, 2014.

WORDS OF ANN HAMILTON/ BUTA OF INDIA

INDIAN PRINT FROM THE J. FORBES WATSON COLLECTION OF SPECIMENS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TEXTILE MANUFACTURERS OF INDIA, LONDON, 1873-1880. Photo by Jolie Stahl.

I was very lucky to have chanced upon the late February NPR program, On Being, when Krista Tippett interviewed exhibition "maker"  Ann Hamilton, professor at Ohio State University,  Columbus,  and the person responsible for last year's exhibition at New York's Park Avenue Armory.  (Hamilton prefers to be called a "maker" rather than an artist.)

In that huge Armory exhibit, "The Event of a Thread",  New Yorkers were able to climb onto swings attached to giant white curtains that hung from mile-high vaulted ceilings.  Somehow, as  swingers swung, the curtains opened and closed.  Facing the swingers was a row of stenographers working away on endless rolls of paper, totally unconnected with the fellow humans visiting the exhibit.  It was all quite visceral, and somehow I didn't want to linger too long.

What intrigued me in the radio interview was the elegant expression of  Hamilton's  theory that thread and textile were both important forms of communication.  She told Tippett that when she first started making things out of textiles she thought of the textile as an animated surface that both covers and reveals, a place of embodied knowledge, the first house of the body.

She recalled body memories of sitting close to her grandmother as a child, knitting or doing needlepoint as her grandmother read aloud.  The rhythm of the two acts were remembered together.  The threads of needlecraft and the threads of ideas produced the same experience for her.  She continues to find a tactile experience in words.

With me, textiles often evoke a tactile emotion, sometimes a happy one, sometimes one full of wonder, sometimes a sad one.  Examples from J. Forbes Watson volumes of Indian fabrics, published in 1866, were on display near The Metropolitan Museum's Antonio Ratti Textile Center,  coordinated with The Met's major exhibit, "Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade".  The exhibit's long run ended late last year.

Watson was a doctor who traveled to India with the Bombay Army Medical Service in 1850 and lived there for three years. There is no accounting for his interest in Indian fabrics.  The fabrics he presented in his pattern books were manufactured in India and "were meant to inspire textile manufacturers in India and England."

Admittedly the paisley or boteh/buta motif is too powerful for eastern cultures to keep just to themselves.  Shown above, a charming floral with budding branches that turn into the teardrop motif.  But it is just so hard to see India at this point (1866),  losing what was left of its industry to a more industrially-savvy country.  It was even sadder when I came upon a pattern book at another library that showed a cotton print of English roses mixed with the motif, intended to be sold back to the Indian customer. 

Still the small exhibit was a welcome one and part of our shared embodied knowledge.  As Hamilton told Tippett, text and textiles are always woven experientially for her – as they can be for us all. JP

BRAND PAISLEY

Green bottle with motif center and upfront displayed at The Art of Arab Lands, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. Below: Vera Bradley tin for mints.

We are at a silly point in U.S. marketing, where humanity is being drained out of advertising and public relations communication.  The symbol or graphic image is all, and the product is lifeless.  Years ago, the ultimate branding concept first sent shivers down my spine when Martha Stewart told PBS's Charlie Rose that she wanted to become a brand.  Yes, from a corporate sense, it was a logical decision.  After she is gone, the corporation will have an identity.  But at what cost to her humanity?  I remember Ms. Stewart  from her early days in the Kmart licensing program.  She may have acted up behind the scenes, but she was still human with a lot of great advice for home and table.

On to the green-glass bottle that was displayed in The Art of Arab Lands at the Metropolitan Museum of Art over the past spring-summer.  Some smart person in the 17th century decided to do a nice fragrance bottle with a large boteh (paisley) motif simply placed up front and center.  It wasn't designed to sell billions.  It communicated love of the motif, and it was probably a pleasant experience to use that bottle.

Vera Bradley, a successful gift company both online and in stores - known for its prints in fabric totes, home accessories and children's wear - produced the little round candy tin pictured.  Lovely to put in a handbag.  This year, they even have a paisley Christmas ornament.  I don't think paisley is the total branding message for them but I am sure that the gift customer loves the beautiful design when it pops up in the collection.

Perhaps the point of all of this is, perhaps we should get back to making products that are pleasant to use and stop obsessing about vacant, unhuman brand images. Remember, humanity separates us from the limiting world of the algorithm. JP

PS: VB candy tin is courtesy of Dodie, who is this blog’s copy editor.

THE FABRIC OF OUR LIVES

Edoardo Nesi's book, Story of My People, is an emotionally difficult book to read. It takes you right into the Northern Italian city of Prato and its ghost-town of empty factories and of factories turned into sweatshop dormitories. Nesi's book also reminds me so much of my hometown, Detroit. In one of my first blogs, I wrote about visiting Prato and seeing first hand how the spirit was cut right out of its textile craftsmanship and its community.

As Nesi points out it had a long tradition of the highest level of work, patronage and commercialism that dates back to the 15th century, the days of Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici. In fact, it was a chance to see Lorenzo's final villa located close to Prato, that brought me there in the first place. And it was the overwhelming sadness of the current Prato that made me flee once I had visited the villa – a villa which Lorenzo planned but never lived to see built.

We are coming to realize that globalism for the sake of chasing the lowest price will not only lead to corporate riches but also to the grief of individual societies and to the destruction of highly-developed and century-honored trades.

For Detroit, the motto is "Speramus meliora, resurget cineribus." (We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes.) This is from a quote from Fr. Gabriel Richard after a terrific downtown fire in 1805 that included his parish. And people of Detroit are talking about that motto today.

In my opinion, for an understanding of the true spirit of Detroit, the best book is Detroit City Is the Place to Be by Mark Binelli and for Prato, it is Nesi's Story of My People.

In the most recent decades, Prato seems to have done more fine menswear stripes and plaids than paisley motifs. But since the teardrop is a symbol for life springing forth, maybe someone in town will weave a little paisley for me? I also recommend that Mr. Nesi read the story of the Highland Park firemen in Mr. Binelli's book. It will give him heart but also might make him cry.

The urban struggle and struggle of the spirit are not new. Marsilio Ficino – translator of Plato into Latin and mentor to both of his patrons, Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici –wrote in one of his loving letters to mankind: "Labor so that you may be good and shine with beauty; suddenly all things are good and shining with beauty for you." This, even when the outer world looks like hell as it often did in Ficino's Florence. JP

PAISLEY AND THE ART OF HOME ECONOMICS

PAINTING ON A WOODEN SLAB  PLUS PAISLEY FABRIC. ARTIST  JOLIE STAHL REFERENCES THE KEELING HOUSE, VIRGINIA BEACH,  CIRCA 1740.

After the first appearance of the woven paisley shawl in 17th century Kashmir, some citizens of the Middle East expanded shawl usage for the home.  They hung shawls as wall coverings for warmth and beauty, placed  them over windows and doors as shelter from the sun and used border strips to accent shelves .Shawls were spread on the ground for lush banquets.  In the late days of  the 19th century, retailers sourcing The East India Trading Company,  developed an Empire cache by popularizing paisley upholstery and wall covering. And  of course, there was the ubiquitous shawl that got draped over the grand piano.

Now, working artist Jolie Stahl , has incorporated  bits of a fine paisley-printed scarf fabric into one of her house paintings-and-found-object collages being prepared for an exhibition titled Home Economics. It will be held at New York's Hudson Guild Gallery in Chelsea, starting March 20, 2014. Stahl is also curating the show that will include the sculpture of Tom Otterness.

Here, Stahl shows a home referencing the American Colonial period circa 1740, not that colonials had a lot of paisley to work with..  It took another century for  both Queen Victoria and Napoleon to create a full-on paisley-at-home trend in Europe with their sharp eyes for local fabric industries.

Stahl says that the dismal home foreclosure figures of the past seven years prompted her to focus on the future of the American home and what the dramatic changes might mean to our culture.  The artist is also director of Ddora Foundation which is dedicated to preserving applied arts. JP

WHO WORE IT BETTER?

Above: Madame Riviere, 1805-6 by Inges.  Below: Madame de Stael by Gerard

The reading of Paula Byrne's The Real Jane Austen brought me to finally pick up Madame de Staël by Francine du Plessix Gray.  It appears that Austen passed up meeting Madame S at one of her publisher's Mayfair salons in 1812.  Possibly the Force of Nature that was Madame S might not have been Austen's cup of tea.  But since we are all fashion obsessed these days, who would have worn her shawl better?   Austen, with her fine shawl shown in a previous blog? Or Madame S, who despite the fact that her father, Jacques Necker, began his financial career as "a brilliant head of the East Indian Company," liked her shawls solid color with geometric patterned borders?

Why are there no portraits of the fashion rebel, Madame S in a paisley shawl?  Perhaps as French cultural historian, Dr. Joan Rosasco, points out, Madame was more interested in imitating the classic drapery of Greece and Rome.  It might also be that the non-paisley look was part of her anti-trend stance.  Her turbans rather than wigs fit into this pattern as well. 

But who wore it better?  My vote is neither.  In Madame Rivière portrait, 1805-6,  by Inges, Madame R,  the wife of a Napoleonic empire government official, wore her shawl most beautifully against the whites of her silk gown and muslin veil.  Art cognoscenti have called it a symphony of textures. JP

FROM THE LAUDER POSTCARD COLLECTION

PAISLEY'S FORM AS A SYMBOL FOR WACKY WEATHER

 

 

The viewer can feel the power of nature in this graphic from The Leonard A. Lauder's Collection as shown in 2011, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  It somehow seems appropriate to show this wonderful wave in this season of wacky weather.

Artists have long been inspired to use paisley-like shapes for droplets of water or giant waves, tree leaves or huge trees, sparks of fire or tongues of fire over the heads of Biblical apostles, a single puff of air or a wind storm.

Many postcards from the Boston exhibit are still online for your enjoyment.  Mr. Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estèe Lauder Companies Inc., has promised this collection of 450 cards to the museum.   By the way, the lower-left box was neatly designed for the card's address, leaving the entire back for the message.

 JP

PAISLEY AS KING

Above:  Corner of  Ralph Lauren shawl. Below: Heraldic-like paisley at the center.

This Ralph Lauren shawl from c. 1986 is an excellent example of Paisley as a Royal Symbol.  The large center motif is shown as almost a heraldic coat of arms with the paisley forming several outer frames.

Of course, when the Mughal King Akbar set out to establish shawl production in mid 16th century Kashmir, the intended target customer was the royal male.  The shawl was worn in a variety of ways, diagonally across shoulder and chest, around the waist, as a turban. 

Part of the Lauren design dynamic has always been paisley and after Bill Atkinson Ltd. had closed its doors in 1982,  Jeanne Atkinson was recruited as Director of Ralph Lauren's Designer Division. It was an excellent match from both design and financial perspectives. Unpublished figures show a sizable turn-around profit for the division in 1986.  The shawl is from Atkinson's personal collection.  JP

TWO OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS WERE INFLUENCED BY PAISLEY

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne is a treasure of a book. Austen's life spins out through the writer's focus on a few well-chosen objects. One of the first objects is "The East Indian Shaw,l" with its bit of the shawl history.and the use of the correct term for paisley, boteh.

 Byrne mentions Austen's Aunt Phila,who was sent a shawl by her husband living in Calcutta in 1772. She also references a story that the young Jane created in 1792. Catherine, or the Bower was modeled after Phila who traveled to India in search of a rich husband. The book provides a color plate of what could be the young Austen sisters wearing shawls loosely around their shoulders with as much flirty charm as today's woman wears a multi-looped scarf around her neck. And there is second color plate of what might have been Jane Austen's fine red-yellow-and-tan striped shawl with tiny boteh within some of the stripes.

Henry James's Washington Square also has its wonderful reference to boteh when Catherine brings a statusy shawl back to Aunt Lavinia after an extensive European tour. In the most recent Broadway production, The Heiress based on the James novel, costume designer Albert Wolsky has his looks pitch-perfect. And actress Judith Ivey plays Lavinia and her shawl beautifully. Lavinia self-importantly drapes it on her shoulders, takes it off and folds it as if it were a Cloth of Gold. One can see that the shawl was not only an object of desire in this era but part of the mannerisms of the day. JP

MUGHAL FLOWERS IN DETROIT

Paisley motif is formed of regal flowers in a vase. on an 18th century shawl.

 

 

 

The book, "Mastery of Mughal Decoration:  The Art and Architecture of Islamic India" helps recall the beautiful exhibit perhaps four summers ago at the Detroit Institute of Arts, "The Private World of India's Mughal Emperors".  This Kashmiri design is especially refined with its little floral tips dipping to let us know that this really is the boteh (paisley to the English-speakers) motif.  In 18th century India, the long shawl would be worn by an important man in the society either on the diagonal over one shoulder or as a waist sash.

However, there is another flowering in Detroit that is just as beautiful to me.  It is the new Shinola craft-and-e business concept based on the establishment of local crafts shops.  In the majestic Argonaut building, inside the College for Creative Studies, there is watch factory built on the Swiss crafts model.  In Ste. Genevieve, Mo., there is a leather goods factory.  In Waterford, Wisc., there is the Waterford Precision Cycle Shop. In Chicago, there is the Horween Leather Company.  In Ann Arbor, Mich., there is the Malloy Paper Works.

Often as I read and write about the brilliant days of Kashmiri weaving and see what happened when Europe took over the "paisley" shawl craft, I think of Detroit.  Past mistakes are past mistakes and now Shinola is building small and carefully. Interestingly, the Shinola watch is already a male status symbol, just as the boteh sash once was. Hint:  Shinola.com.  JP

JEANNE ATKINSON'S SHAWL HAS BEAUTIFUL MEMORIES

Early Etro camel-and-maroon shawl was an accent for Bill Atkinson Ltd. fashions

Atkinson's beautiful Etro shawls have been housed in their drawers in recent years, at times taken out and worn, but mostly they have just nestled in with other wonderful memories of her days as the dynamic CEO of Bill Atkinson Ltd.,  1974 though 1982.  These were the years when Ms. Atkinson's late husband Bill was the Coty-award-winning creative director and heart and soul of the designer sportswear company that kept customers of the best specialty stores in America beautifully dressed.   Ms. Atkinson merchandised the line, got it manufactured, sold to the stores and then flew around the country twice a year, doing the personal appearances that went along with the trunk shows.  This plus caring for a husband, two children and a big house.

During the late 70s and early 80s, Mr. Atkinson really believed in the magic of the shawl.  His wife thinks this shawl magic was ignited when the designer disappeared into Italy for a month.  When he had emerged again, he told stories of  spending time with Gimmo Etro, about falling in love with the paisley patterns, the Italian workmanship. He also produced a deal allowing his company to distribute the shawls in the states.  During these early years, the shawls bore no logos.

It had become sort of expected of Bill Atkinson, that he would pair beautiful Etro shawls with his fall-winter fashion collections.  The camel-and-maroon shawl shown here marched down the New York Fashion Week runway with a reddish-brown suede jacket and a sweep of black suede skirt with vertical bands of brown. For added charm, the designer had a paisley pattern cut out on the shawl collar of the jacket.  To Mr. Atkinson's educated eye, shawl and separates colors were meant to blend but never, never match. The sienna brown of the jacket and true brown of the skirt details just lived happily with the earth colors in their shawl. 

The shawl we show has always been one of Ms. Atkinson's favorites.  Now as manager and member of Global Marketing Strategies LLC in New York, she enjoys wearing the shawls and separates occasionally.  When last I saw her, she looked very 2013 in one of the Bill Atkinson gentle black suede skirts with a black jersey top and graceful gold-chain necklace. When she went out for her day, she could easily have added the shawl. JP

A PAISLEY CELEBRATION FROM UZBEKISTAN

Luscious 19th century coat from the Bokhara province, located on the Silk Road

This, from Asian Costumes and Textiles from the Bosphorus to Fujiyama, (Skira editore, Milan, 2001), a book lent to me by the fashion legend, Gloria Sachs.  The brocaded Chinese silk robe was made for an Ottoman dignitary.  Its embroidered design is a red fruit-like paisley, framed by two white-and-airy paisleys. The lining is a Russian cotton print in a flower-filled paisley. Border trim, inside and out are perfect counterpoint prints for the paisley. All in all, the coat is a four-print smash-up that sings!
And the photo by Mauro Magliani is a dream. JP

HOLIDAY PAISLEY FROM THE RUBIN MUSEUM

Metallic gold and green design of graceful vines that have grown holiday paisley

When Akbar, the famous mughal emperor (1542-1605), first got the inspiration to bring Kashmir's yarn producers and spinners, dyers and weavers together — both Moslem and Hindu — for his important shawl project, it was with the knowledge that the boteh or paisley motif that would be used in the designs was sacred.  It was to be worn only by very important men.  Somehow through centuries of weaving and printing, we continue to recognize the power and dignity of the motif when it decorates clothing, home furnishings and stationery, even birthday cards and shopping bags.

Above, a hand-stamped design on a card from The Rubin Museum of Art gift shop, New York. By its very two-color simplicity on a blank card, it offers a special inspiration. 

Happy holidays. JP

NOTICE-ME 1970s PAISLEY

Jonathan Adler's paisley print for upholstery

Madison Avenue window

Isn't it interesting that giant prints for home, fashion and art are making a  retro-return right now?  Take a walk down Madison Avenue.  We are seeing them in on the upholstery of Jonathan Adler furniture and in fun-and-statusy Milly dresses.  Stop at a news store.  We are seeing them on the 40th anniversary cover of W magazine with Rooney Mara wearing a geometric-patterned Prada coatdress. Make a turn onto Fifth Avenue and there are two gigantic Warhol flower prints taking twin-star positions on either side of The Met's main entrance doors, matched stunningly with equally gigantic real flower arrangements in the flower niches.  Take Fifth down to around 24th Street and there is a brand new Marimekko store with the same outsize poppy prints that made them a sensation from the 1950s to 1970s.

Admittedly, these giant prints are not always paisley, but there are enough paisleys to  make a noise about them -- not only Adler's upholstery, but single-paisley area rugs, giant paisley drapes, pillows and tablecloths from a variety of design houses and catalog companies.

It seems time to celebrate the Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) -- a generation influenced by 1970s-80s  Me Generation and rushing towards grandparenthood.  As Stéphane Houy-Towner observes, "Design fashion usually skips a generation.  The new generation likes to look back to its grandparents".  Perhaps Gaga's Little Monsters are not far from the Me's.  Both generations want to be noticed.  And yes, we do notice!  JP

TRIGḖRE WAS PERFECTION

Outsized paisley print gown from the 1970s.

Society ladies of the 1960s through the 1990s always talked about how well made her clothes were, how the Trigère brand of glamour gave them a special confidence.  French-born, she was one of the first American designers to adopt pants, not because they were trendy but because women wanted to wear them and she could make women elegantly sexy in them.  A couple of years before her death in 2002, Pauline Trigère appeared on the F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology) stage during one of those famous Monday seminars, showed her audience a large bolt of fabric, cut it in one swoop and then easily draped and pinned that fabric into a perfect garment on her fit model.  Those 15 minutes or so demonstrated an unforgettable blending of talent, taste and incredible craft.

Then there was a party for her jewelry where the designer pinned a turtle pin in the perfect position on the dress I was wearing.  I wore it until the day the dress needed cleaning and in taking-off her turtle, I knew that I could never, never get it in the perfect Trigère spot again.

We are showing a giant 1970s version of a Trigère evening paisley, probably outlined in beading.  Even though the print is outsized to our 2012 eyes, there was an elegance of cut and pattern placement that again is perfection. 

Like the motif itself, her memory has the power to lift our spirits; much needed in the wake of Sandy the storm. JP

THE MET'S 17TH CENTURY ELEPHANT

ELEPHANT IN NEW YEAR'S BEST WITH BOTEH NECKLACE

This charming water color and gold-gilt work on paper, and cartouche with the possible calligraphy of Shah Jahan (1610-1666) was presented to Mughal Emperor Jahangir, Jahan's successor, during a New Year celebration of March 21 (year not given).

Elephants were prized possessions of the court at this time in the Middle East and this is a particularly proud elephant!  He or she is beautifully outfitted with a special necklace of boteh (paisley), in addition to other jewelry and tapestries.  But my teeth sort of ache for the way the poor tusks have been dulled and decorated.

The New Year's elephant is currently in the galleries of the Art of Arab Lands at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  JP

HE PROMISED ME A PAISLEY WITH FEET

PETER ELLIOT'S PAISLEY TIES, SOME KITON FROM ITALY, SOME NEW-YORK MADE.

I once encountered a man with a special tie, the paisleys all had feet.  Not so far fetched a design idea when you think that the Victorian explorer William Moorcroft thought that paisleys were rather humanoid designs. I thought I would see that tie again but never did.

Visiting the Peter Elliot Men Madison Avenue store in late summer, photographer and web designer Isabelle took photos of Elliot's wonderful Italian-and-New-York-made paisley ties for this blog.  I consider the owner, Elliot Rabin, one of the Princes of Paisley and so asked him about the paisley-with-feet concept.  Always enthusiastic, he said he had a paisley-with-feet-fabric somewhere in his office and would find it for me!  Forgiveably, Mr. Rabin appeared to have more pressing issues that month than paisley with feet.  In September came his letter to customers explaining that the upper Madison Avenue store was closing but that Peter Elliot Women and Peter Elliot Blue for Men and Boys would remain open.  He hasn't said why he is closing the one store but I tend to believe that it must be that the New York store-lords are continuing their efforts to stamp out all smart small businesses.  (One wonders how many Sephoras, H&Ms, Bananas and Gaps the upper eastside can profitably hold.)

In any event, I have faith that when all the changes are completed, Mr. Rabin will find that paisley with feet!  JP