2020-10-01 Creative Dressing with Lapis Lazuli
Creative Dressing with Lapis Lazuli
Location: Winters Retreat
Date and Time: October 1, 2020
Summary: A new collection is born
Mood Music: Mocean Worker - "Tres Tres Chic
The Chantry bustles with activity to a House beat. People move about with such energy that it’s hard to tell how many people have gathered. At least a dozen, their outfits utilitarian and personal, and yet trail blazingly fashionable; this is a portrait of next year’s ‘lookbook,’ and they’re not even really trying. Makeshift workstations have been set up around the space, allowing for hard work and spontaneous collaborations. Some are sketching out designs, others working with a variety of materials, and then of course there are the models.
The Design House exists as symphonic chaos, with Luu as the conductor; an efficiently bitchy fashionista who knows exactly what she wants, she just hasn’t seen it yet. With hair dyed forbidden future neon cyan, she wears a dark blue floral print post-cottagecore Celine dress, as she whips her minions into an artistic frenzy.
It’s all Triangles, that much is clear, but what is the perfect Triangle? That’s something they need to find out through action, as they leave the purely intellectual realm in order to bridge the gap between mind-body-spirit through material excess. It’s not a matter of right and isosceles, acute and obtuse. The euclidean is merely a starting point by which we see vantages of hyperbolic and sacred geometry, the ‘simple’ Triangle it’s fundamental.
Various fabrics are being examined in terms of their physical threads and patterned designs. The center they all swirl around is precious lapis lazuli, as much the substance as the idea. Fashion is more than just cloth, and metals are being tested for the purposes of jewelry.
Along with the fashion items themselves, the creative process seeks their proper context. Books -- some, almost tomes -- are piled up to serve as needed reference material, along with cuneiform tablets displayed on more modern digital ones. Artists work on paintings and sculptures that will appear in photographs, becoming linked forever to that which will be worn, even if this link is only visible to all for a short time.
“Try changing the angle one degree,” Luu says as she passes by one station. Which angle she is speaking of is not made precisely clear, and that is her intention. There is Craft and Science to what is being done here today, but it is fundamentally an Art, and these ambiguities are part of how she teases a performance out of others. The way she manages people with a subtle touch is the paintbrush by which she brings her inner world out for others to see. To work through them, she must first collapse their prior understandings, and then the magick happens.
+ROLL/+DICE> Jinny: Intelligence + Style vs. 6 -> 2 successes. (10 9 6 2 1)
In her own way, Jinny has been busy. While her work doesn’t necessarily require cloth, needles, thread, and the like, it does require creation in its own sense. Careful layering of color over uneven surfaces using stencils, straight edges or, in many cases, a well-trained eye and trust in the Muse that oftentimes rides on her right shoulder. The pair worked efficiently, one pointing out places that could use a bit more color, even if it’s difficult to find, the other making those spots of beige a reality in color. That’s what makes the journey of creation that much more fulfilling to Jinny - the thought of someone discovering what she’s done, where she’s been, and that moment becoming a memory that will be cherished and, perhaps, might shape the way that they view the world, or how the world views them.
Her latest work took her most of the night. Located around the doorway of a run-of-the-mill taqueria in West Adams, from a distance leafy vines of all colors seem to drape around the frame and over the transom, the brick transformed from dull brown to something more vibrant. It’s only once you get closer that it’s clear that the vines aren’t vines, but triangles intricately woven into vines, leaves, and fruit, the lines narrow enough for one’s eyesight to blend them into something else, only to reveal the secret when you step closer, and easily overlooked if you’re not actively searching for it. There are layers, too, that aren’t easily seen. In the dark, the yellow light of the bulb above the door washes out some colors, making them appear darker and changing the motif from vines to figurative hands, each one clawing up the wall towards the window above, towards a small silvery triangle at the peak of the transom window that only appears when you stand just so. In the light of the rising sun, the art seems to be made of words. Probably latin. ‘Exigo a me non ut optimis par sim sed ut malis melior’ from bottom left to bottom right. How she managed to get that to work is a testament to her artistic talents and the time she spent intricately winding layers on top of layers. And all of this? Triangles.
She was proud of her work, standing back and reveling in it, taking a quick picture before cleaning up and heading home to shower and sleep. She'll show Luu in the morning.
Arriving home to a quiet house, Jinny took a quick shower to scrub off the grime and the paint spatter, pulled her hair back, pulled on her pajamas, checked briefly on a dozing Luu - who was there and was dozing - and immediately headed to her room to fall into a deep, dreamy sleep. There was supposed to be work going on in the morning - hopefully they're not too loud.
Some time later, Jinny awakened to the sound of someone opening the door to Shoe Antechamber 4-B, slipping inside, and taking a canvas out that was against the wall next to the door. Pushing herself up sleepily, she could hear the person calling out to others as they went back downstairs, sharing that they had found something inspirational. This stirred Jinny who, in stocking feet, panties, and a t-shirt, meandered down the hall to the bathroom to take care of some urgent business and brush her teeth, pausing at the sound of people - a lot of them. Luu did say that there was some work that would be happening in the house that day, but Jinny had no idea that this was the kind of work that was meant. She thought there might be a painter or two, or a plumber. If it were art, maybe an additional two and perhaps as many as many as five people in attendance, scattered around the estate in various states of consciousness, all working toward a single goal, but this? Jinny can only stand there in the doorway of her room, listening, struck dumb and wide-eyed from the amazing spectacle, the chaotic choreography thet shouldnt make sense, but somehow does.
Listening for a few moments, her bag set aside in the closet just inside the door of her room to make herself more aerodynamic, Jinny spends a moment making herself a shade more presentable. With the ease shown by the people here, it's easy to develop a complex if you think you may not be matching the level for style being put on display. Sure, as a sh aman she might not be expected to match the high style that Luu so effortlessly puts out, but a girl still likes to fit the motif. She had been hitting the vintage shops for quite a while, occasionally coming up with gems that she could pull out when she wanted to impress. Today’s choice was a 1950’s style sweetheart dress in a cornflower blue, the skirt hemmed scandalously short, a pair of dark hose that ended about mid thigh, just below the hem of the skirt, and a pair of blue and black highlighted golden goose sneakers that, somehow, matched the outfit. She didn't put on any makeup, trusting that her skin would be the last thing on anyone’s mind, thanks to the pace they were keeping with Luu at the helm. Checking herself in the mirror, Jinny stepped out into the hallway and then down the stairs.
“Think like a Triangle,” Luu explains to one of the creatives, before giving a slight shake of her head and stepping past. Lifting a sketchbook, she points to the corner of a Triangle and eyes the artist until they take back the book.
“The color is only singular once it’s been ground down,” she points out to someone regarding the transformation of lapis lazuli to ultramarine. Is the intent to grind down the artists or to have them push back to create an ore deposit? Yes. We must suffer for beauty, and this is a fashion workshop.
Lifting some fabric, Luu examines the pattern and feels the material before she hmms and moves on. Not taking the time to sit, she scribbles on the page some notes in Sumerian on the left side of a page, before filling the rest with croquis in a royal processional. With a hand on a young designer’s shoulder, Luu points to what she’s drawn. “Clothe them,” she says before stepping away.
It’s then that Luu notices Jinny emerging from her slumber. “You’re late, sleeping beauty,” she says to the other woman in a dryly bitchy tone, placing her hands on her hips and tilting her head slightly as she keeps her focus on the other woman. There’s the tiniest face made for a moment and with her eyes and lips almost seems to be apologizing to Jinny, as if to say this is the role I need to play right now, take me seriously, but don’t take it seriously.
Gesturing with a hand towards an empty seat, Luu walks towards the table expecting Jinny to follow. Places around this space are various drawing implements, sketchbooks, and numerous reference books. On top of the pile is Luu’s cellphone, which she lifts up and begins to scroll through as she waits for Jinny.
Stepping down the stairs into a whirlwind isn’t something one would normally expect. Where silence and the occasional skittering sound were before sits a throng of people, each working busily on their own projects in pursuit of the perfect triangle. She feels a few eyes on her as she hits the landing, pauses to survey the swirling throng and then steps down into it, summoned by the lady of the hour.
“My apologies.” she says softly, ducking her head slightly while still maintaining eye contact. “I had a very late night painting. It won’t happen again.” that little face is noted, the eye contact a connection that says ‘I understand and I don’t hold it against you.’ Being the head of a group of people as headstrong as fashion folk means you must keep a tight leash on things, and insubordination is almost like meat in a pool filled with piranha - if you aren’t careful, you might get eaten alive. So she falls into her role, moving from her spot at the bottom of the stairs to the indicated seat, hopping up, smoothing her skirt down to keep from flashing her undies to anyone, spinning in a circle once and then stopping, facing the table, the blank sheet laid out there as daunting as any wall she’s faced before. “Someone took one of my paintings this morning.” She says to Luu as an aside, scanning the table. Thankfully her pencils, the ones she uses for sketching, are there, all ready to be used. Taking one up and sharpening the lead with a little tool, she holds the pencil lightly in her right hand, takes a breath, and lets the spirit take her where it will.
Abstract shapes start to flow from her pencil, connecting, intersecting, intertwining, much as the vines from the previous evening did. The triangle kick continues, the broad three pointed shape distilling down and then complicating itself into mathematical forms, fractals, tessellations, honeycombs, each made of triangles in the same sense that a computer graphic is made of triangles distributed in such a way that the shape appears curved and smooth. Cuneiform is laid over it too, almost as an afterthought in places, shapes made from triangles and lines fitting between, in the spaces that the triangles are not, the page seeming to deepen, the eye drawn to particular points that aren’t even there. Areas of blankness that, by virtue of having nothing there, mean that something is there, the mind filling in the holes.
Jinny does not know cuneiform. At all. Yet, here it is, copied from glimpses as she was passing by. Two simple shapes in the negative space of the page. A diamond and a square, each filled with its own set of strokes. Love. And surrounding it all? A triangle.
Glancing over to Jinny periodically as she works, Luu begins to page through one of the nearby books. The selection is a large red hardcover, almost a textbook, with faded golden lettering. It takes some time perusing before Luu finds what she was looking for in the text. Carefully setting it down before Jinny, the book is left open to a photograph of ‘The Burney Relief.’
The Ancient Near Eastern terracotta depicts a posed Goddess surrounded by -- and even standing on one -- a variety of animals. While there are no ‘simple’ Triangles in the image, Luu begins to point out where they do exist. Tracing her finger along the image, she points out the Triangles in the visual structure and flow of the relief. Of these there are numerous, and there almost seems to be simpler geometric shapes concealed, or perhaps revealed by the artistry of the work.
“Our wormhole will soon open for us,” Luu informs Jinny, as she refers back to the sketching of a few nights ago that led to today’s creative explosions. Scrunching her face slightly, Luu finally becomes cognizant of something Jinny said. “They took one of your paintings?” she asks, a bit of concern as she thinks about how she might have to right this ship, and what that might mean. “Someone did. Borrowed it, more than likely.” Jinny responds, fingers smudged with graphite as she sits back, a tendril of hair falling down over her eyes to be blown away by a puff from her upturned lips. “Out of my room, when I was waking up. They said something about finding something inspiring. I think they were talking about the negative space triangle painting I did the other day.” She settles back in the seat, scanning the room for her canvas which more than likely won’t be too easily hidden, considering the size she had to work in to get all the details in without the paint bleeding through which was a chore in and of itself.
And there, against one of the side walls, surrounded by almost anything triangular that could be found in the entire house, leans Jinny’s painting, resting on its side with one of the many, many acolytes in the house leaning close to study a particular portion, taking note of something in a spiral notebook, and then noticing something else and doing it all over again. It’s a canvas about 3X5, with a riot of colors that draws a viewer in but, when they get closer, the white lines formed by Jinny laying down hair-thin tape, painting over it, and then pulling it off to reveal the canvas beneath. It’s a technique she got from her father when he painted cars, and wondered why she couldn’t do something like that with paint. Settling back in her seat, Jinny adds a few more details to the sketch she had put down on the paper, a fingertip sliding over the graphite-slick paper, the ridges and whorls of her thumbprint left in the dark lines. “Gold, maybe…or that greenish stone Lapis armenus…” she muses. “Veins of the stuff, shot through with gold…”
She blinks, her head swiveling towards Luu. “Kintsugi. Have you heard of it?”
There’s a look on Luu’s face that suggests she’s somewhat unhappy with the idea that someone went into Jinny’s room and took a painting, but she let’s that pass. “I like that painting,” Luu says, as she gives the other woman a smile that eludes most of the other workers. “I’ll be sure to find out where it went off to,” she notes to JInny, adding, “but I guess I wouldn’t mind if they were inspired by it.” Hands on her hips, Luu’s gaze scans across the room as she looks for where the painting might be at this moment. Not seeing it, she eventually gives a shrug, figuring she’ll find it later.
Looking over Jinny’s drawing, Luu listens intently as the inspiration behind it is described. A few moments are taken to consider this, not saying anything. Finally, she turns her head to the side and calls out something. It might first seem like a name, but as Luu continues, it seems clear that she’s saying something in Japanese. The only word that is unmistakable is ‘Kintsugi.’
A few moments later, a short and effeminate Japanese man in a fishnet shirt appears, hands full of supplies. Placing the supplies on the table, he begins to study Jinny. Having figured out what he needed to figure out, he begins to reach for Jinny. Grasping her dress, he artfully tears it again and again, almost not paying attention to the fact that someone is currently wearing it. Likely he’s used to working with models like this. Having left Jinny’s dress slightly tattered, he reaches into the bin and retrieves golden thread, which he begins to use to mend the dress with a slightly showy stitch.
As the man proceeds to alter the dress Jinny is wearing, Luu looks on with a slight smirk at the flurry of activity. “Good idea,” she says to Jinny, and she does in fact look quite pleased with the concept.
Her painting didn’t grow legs, so it can’t have gone too terribly far, and if, for some reason it did, it’s just an excuse to make another one, then another one, then another one after that. Art begets art, Jinny has found, with one building on the foundation laid by other, earlier works. It’s not a great loss, other than the time spent, and the lessons she learned while painting it will make the next one go that much faster. So when Luu turns to call out to someone, Jinny is in her own little world, only catching that last word, Kintsugi. Blinking curiously, she turns and tilts her head, wondering what, if anything, the technique of mending things with golden lacquer is going to be used on.
The short Japanese man appearing at the base of her stool is a little surprising. She’s not really used to being studied in such a way, sitting straight as he studies the dress and the body inside it, almost like she was a dress form or a mannequin with the dress on top of it.
“Ah…Sumimasen…?” Jinny asks, her Japanese marking her teacher and, likely her family lineage, coming from the Southern part of the country. “Ah!” She jumps when the man reaches out and artfully tears her dress at the seam in one spot, on the skirt in another, then turning Jinny on the stool and then ripping a third part in the back, the cloth fluttering as he draws his remarkably strong fingers away. “Furugideshita…” she murmurs to herself, plucking at the rip on her skirt, only to be shooed away by the man as he starts to stitch it up artfully. Switching to English, Jinny looks to Luu. “Had I known I was going to be the subject of Kintsugi, I would have worn a different dress….” It had already been altered once to get the skirt shorter, but now with the golden thread, it’s becoming something else entirely. That said, she almost certainly would be able to find another one of these dresses to bend to her will or, more likely, just get one custom made to go with the tights and the Mary Jane shoes….hmm, maybe those champagne Manolo Blahnik heels she’s been eyeing…
Jinny submits without a word to the will of the mistress of the needle, remaining still as her dress is expertly stitched. “You know…” she murmurs. “There is always the patchwork version of Kintsugi. You could always substitute a different bit of cloth entirely for what has gone missing.” She looks at Luu with a playful grin. “If I’m going to have a dress sacrificed to the gods of Fashion, I’d like it to be something memorable.”
With a snap of her fingers, Luu gets the attention of someone else. A quick gesture sends them into action, and it’s not quite clear whether Luu is using actual magick, or just knows how to get people to read her mind in a less literal sense.
A few moments later a young woman with a bleach blonde pixie cut is showing Luu a series of fabric samples. The ones that get her approval are placed on the table by Jinny. During this process the young man is leaning quite close into Jinny, practically on top of her, as he uses the gold thread to sew up some of the fresh rips.
“You were the one who suggested it,” Luu states in a ‘you should have known’ sorta tone that offers no sympathy for Jinny’ predicament. A tiny smile flashed to Jinny suggests that Luu does in fact have some sympathy, she just can’t show it right now. Besides, she’s quite amused by the whole situation.
As Luu finishes going through the fabric choices, she gets hit by a fashion revelation. Grabbing a sketchbook, she begins to plot out the Triangles of her dreams, as the other beach blonde woman with a pixie cut begins to work with the effeminate Japanese man to refashion Jinny’s dress.
She probably should have realized, yes, but she didn’t expect it. Watching Luu work with her coterie over the weeks that she’s been here, she definitely noticed the way that they seem to respond to unspoken directions almost automatically. Combining that with the way that those unspoken directions are acted upon so quickly, there simply would not be time for her head upstairs to get out of her dress before the next challenge made itself known. No, better to take care of the direction now, with the dress draping in the right places over Jinny’s body to negate the need for dress forms, fittings, and the like. Marylin Monroe was supposedly sewn into the dress that she sang to Kennedy in, so it seems Jinny may be joining that exclusive club.
“I hope I don’t need a bottle of baby oil and a knife to get out of this dress when they’re done.” Jinny says with a squeak as a strip of cloth is quickly ripped out of the bodice and tossed away dismissively, a contrasting color held up and studied intently for a moment, before another is added and checked, and finally a third, the woman with the pixie cut looking to Luu to make sure that, yes, this is the right one to do for this particular spot. Jinny, during all this, stands straight, thankful that she decided to wear her cute underwear before coming downstairs, otherwise some of these artful tears would definitely be revealing more than she would be comfortable revealing. These people are used to Fashion and casual nudity in the pursuit of Fashion, while Jinny’s just a Jinny who prefers being naked with one or, perhaps at most two people at any one time. Those people have places on a very short list; one that includes a few Hollywood starlets (Emma Stone, Ana de Armas, Emelia Clark, Zoe Saldana) and one - only one - of the people presently in this room.
She lifts her arms as the pixie-cut blonde and the asian man start working on her dress, cloth falling away, getting replaced, the dress being reconfigured on her body. Needles are close to skin and she forces herself to relax, the Japanese man making a stern sound when she shies away from his needle. He hasn’t stabbed her yet and isn’t going to now - not unless Luu calls for a little blood sacrifice to the Fashion Gods, that is. The segments of the dress that have been removed are quickly replaced with contrasting swatches of fabric that, when looked at closely, appear to be made of triangles woven-together in impossibly high thread counts. The simple 1950’s dress Jinny had thrifted and was so proud of, already hemmed to have a scandalously short skirt for the decade it was created, is altered even further at the hands of Luu’s acolytes.
As she stands, she watches Luu’s drawings, the woman seeming to be on the cusp of a breakthrough…
Drawing in the sketchbook in the grip of the muse, Luu’s attention is only briefly pulled away by Jinny’s comment about a bottle of baby oil and a knife. A slight smirk and a raise of an eyebrow, before she assures the other woman, “You’ll be fine,” and then goes back to her drawing.
The sketch Luu is working on seems based on the various sacred geometries that had inspired this whole project, except the triangles in this case begin to get bent into almost fractal patterns across a hyperbolic plane. Two of these patterns are made, nearly identical on first look, and yet a careful examination will reveal them to have several incredibly subtle differences.
Completing the patterns, Luu encases them each in a circle. Then, dropping her pen, she grabs a blue colored pencil and begins to carefully shade parts of the pattern. The distorted triangular shapes are alternated between, shading some and leaving the others as is.
Finished with her shading, Luu jots down some quick notes on the side in handwriting that would embarrass a doctor, along with several intricate sigils and sumerian cuneiform markings. Standing, she tears out the paper and calls for yet another assistant to take her notes and get to doing whatever it is they need to do with it. They’ll somehow understand what’s needed in the task, even if they don’t fully understand the task as they carry it out.
“I think I got it,” Luu says after handing off the paper. Then, looking at Jinny, she considers the dress for a moment. After examining what her workers have done, Luu reaches forward to Jinny’s chest. Instead of copping a feel, she tears the dress once more, and then begins to sew up the wound with golden thread. The stitch Luu uses is slightly looser than what was being done by her assistant, not pulling the dress together as tightly in this space. She creates an intricate pattern in the stitching, positioning her repairs on the other side of the dress, so that instead of looking like something has been added in repair, it looks like some treasure has been found beneath.
“That actually works,” Luu says as she finishes her sewing and steps back from the dress, giving it a more thorough examination. “What do you think?” she wonders.
Looking down at herself, and at Luu, as her dress is torn asunder - again - Jinny takes a moment to wonder how she got here and what she’s done to deserve this. On one hand, her beautifully vintage thrifted dress has been destroyed, the perfectly preserved cloth shredded and repaired - expertly yes - but still shredded, with some parts replaced. It will never be a dress like it was again. On the other hand, the old, thrifted dress that had already been altered once has been transformed into a work of art that fits Jinny like a glove, drapes like it grew over her, and flatters her curves while emphasizing the bits that a girl likes to have emphasized. The difference in the patterns of the cloth, the warp and weft of the weave, do look chaotic at first, seemingly haphazard in their placement and positioning, but the golden thread and the motif of the dress itself as a framework instead of a dress pulls it together in a cohesive whole. Turning, the skirt flaring out, Jinny giggles a little before catching sight of herself in the mirror that one of the myriad fashion cultists brought on some unseen signal from somewhere in the room, holding it so Luu can see the dress from all sides at once. The advantage of this is that Jinny can see herself, too.
While the dress still has the form that it arrived in, the artful stitching of the rips and the addition of the different cloth types elevates the dress from something simple to something more elegant. And looking down at her chest, the slightly looser stitching invites the gaze of a viewer to look, to wonder. A golden camisole beneath, or even a pale light, would be an interesting addition that she may need to look into doing. She turns to face Luu, clutching the edges of the skirt to spread it out.
“I think it’s wonderful.” Jinny says, taking a few steps closer and leaning over to give Luu a gentle kiss on the cheek.
It was wonderful. And it is.
