Image: Girl in Style illustration of Dior AW19
The painting was removed from the study. Silently, gracefully, life continued with no trace of him. Had he been a ghost? She hunted for his reverie; disallowed to pine over the Artwork.
The tenor of their interaction consumed her like a mania. Their exchange had, without warning,
awoken something; (akin to what she could only assume was) her heart. 'Pay attention', the 'thing' (read: feeling) hummed as an odd pulling sensation seemed to constantly berate her chest.
An unwavering epiphany and the absolute greatest of nuisance. She rarely swore and had yet adopted a new mantra: “oh f**k off!" Which she repeated to herself every time the thought of him popped into her head.
She wore scarlet, her body bound by corset. The train of her skirt, wide open, floated around her legs as if to make the force of her presence even more tenacious as she grappled a glass of champagne (shoulders sharp in defiance).
Of course, his entrance had been nothing of the sort (tenacious). Meandered like a cool wave but so mighty was the mere fact that the ocean grew loud with rage. She couldn’t swim.
These parties were constant and nothing. And him? As though all of the patience in all of the world would be enough for her to yield.
Instead, as it turns out, she was an extraordinarily impatient woman. Truthfully, she had known instantly, but pushed the thing (read: feeling) aside with great assuredness that it had to be a fluke.
Really, she did the only reasonable thing. Ignored him and remained hopeful that he'd continue to pursue her anyway.
In this instance, the empty, tartan-wallpaper-laden wall in the study rather inspired her. Why, just the next day did her tartan trousers precede her as she embarked on a morning walk with weekend guests (she looked fabulous). And in conversation too, she seemed remarkably present save for her mind obviously conjuring daydreams of his car pulling up to the driveway at that very moment.
In her vigour though, she was soft. Grandiose notions of sharing her perceived weight of legacy with someone she felt to be equally gutsy proved too fantastical (at every level) to be worthy. Unreasonable perhaps and yet it was these precise illusions that had survived her the most insurmountable of feats.
So she waited for a while to see if he could read her mind and join her above the ridiculously high bar she'd set. An idealistic prophecy: great love (and not one she would ever admit to aspire to).
After all, she was herself wavered in such beliefs. By 'semi-heroic' was not a musical score she could sing to; another of her raucous melodies on the stereo. Rather, it felt a black hole that instilled in her the fear of almighty. For her to save him, he needed to save her first.
“Aren’t you meant to be fearless?” She would ask him (fairly aggressively) in her mind's eye.
Alas, despite the fortuitous paradigms that existed between our two heroes was another rather trickier commonality: such inevitable armour (hers happened to be Dior). So as they both rode aimlessly around on their white horses, it became apparent that two heroes needing to be saved meant neither could surrender.
Instead what was certain was that which showed itself in plain sight. She retreated thus back into an un-magical land called ‘logic’.
Still, she sat by the fireplace beside the empty tartan wall; a sip of cognac and a heavy heart hummed, “If only, we had the courage to believe we could meet such Great Expectations’.
To create the 'exceptional' cannot be achieved without, in equal measures, near-illusionary dreaming and the tenacity, relentless doing, a pinch of logic (just a pinch) and belief that you can bring it to life.
Dior's AW19 collection both with the classicism of its tartan (hence the nod in our story) and romanticism of free-flowing frill is evidently the result of aforesaid. And certainly, Maria Grazia Chiuri conceives what Christian Dior himself did - the understanding of Art; the passion and thrill to create it and the smarts to take something beautiful and honour it completely.
What else contemplates the trueness of 'Great Love'? And though our heroine might be wavering slightly in her stance, something tells me; she might indeed be the most fearless of them all (in that dress, certainly).
Love,
Girl in Style