Skip to main content

Fashion world, Creative Eye






If one was to draw a Venn diagram of myself and the intersecting worlds I inhabit - myself and the world of fashion would overlap only to a small degree (though that is a change from a time when there would have been none). This would have been through disinterest rather than disdain though I do wish we could better distinguish a love of clothes, colour, expression from the apparent treadmill of 'fashion', the twice-yearly shows of new collections (but that probably reflects a more general disagreement with an 'economy' that colonizes every aspect of life and imagines constant change or 'growth' as a sign of maturity rather than of a deep lack).

But one intersection with it came through a friendship with Annette Worsley-Taylor, who very sadly and after a rapid illness, died last week. http://www.vogue.co.uk/suzy-menkes/2015/08/suzy-menkes-remembers-annette-worsley-taylor-british-fashion-council. She was a key driving force in shaping the fashion industry as an entity in the United Kingdom in the 80s and 90s, a force that the obituaries acknowledge had been underrecognized, but very real; helping many designers to be recognized and flourish, and, to which she brought steely charm, organizational gift and a discerning eye.

It was the eye that brought us together for in her last decade she began to suffer from macular degeneration a major cause of sight loss, advancing as the general age of the population rises. This led her to research the diverse challenges to vision that people face throughout their lives and the gaps in awareness and the provision of support that exist in the UK (and further afield). In response, she had an idea, as yet unrealized, to harness the creative industries, most of whom depend on sight, to raise money to support existing charities as they research, raise awareness and help people in the field of sight loss. It was to be called 'Creative Eye' and I, as a presumed expert in charity, became a trusted advisor on how such a vision might be realized.

Apart from anything else, this led to many delightful invitations to lunch and dinner, preceded or followed by earnest discussion of the proposed charity, whose basic insight I trust will be picked up one day by others and brought to realization. Sight is a surprisingly neglected area given how vital, when asked, we all feel it to be! A case of taking for granted the most familiar, until that is, it begins to leave us.

What I will most remember of Annette is her wonderful gift of being interested in you, your life, its condition and prospects, about which everything was wholly genuine and nothing feigned; and, her, and Anthony, her husband's, wonderful hospitality, as one obituary writer had, it was not always punctual, but it was always splendid - for eye, taste and intellect.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Buddha meets Christ in embrace

Reading Lama Anagarika Govinda is proving nostalgic on a number of fronts. I recall my first reading of it in my first year at university, bought at Watkins, the famous 'esoteric' bookshop in Cecil Court in London. I sat in my hall of residence room transfixed by a world made familiar; and, it was deepening of a commitment to contemplation (which has been observed fitfully)! I remember returning, at the time, to my school to give a talk to the combined fifth form on Buddhism and using Govinda as the backbone of my delivery (both this book, and his equally wonderful, the Foundations of Tibetan Buddhism). I was voted (I immodestly remember) their best invited speaker of the year. I had even bought a recording of Tibetan music as opener and closer! He reminded me of how important Buddhism was (and is) to my own thinking and comprehension of my experience. The Buddha's First Sermon in the Deer Park was the first religious text I read (of my own volition) at the tender age...
13 comments
Read more

Luminous Spaces - the poetry of Olav H. Hauge

Don't give me the whole truth, don't give me the sea for my thirst, don't give me the sky when I ask for light, but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing and the wind a grain of salt. It began with a poem, this poem, in Mark Oakley's 'The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry' - a wonderful series of meditations on particular poems, one each chapter. The poet is the Norwegian, Olav H. Hague (1908-1994). I immediately ordered, 'Luminous Spaces: Selected Poems & Journals' and was enjoying dipping until, at the weekend, recovering from a stomach bug, I decided to read them through and fell wholeheartedly for a new friend. Hague was born on a farm. His formal education was brought short by a combination of restricted means, an inability to conquer mathematics: and, a voracious diet of reading ranging beyond the confines of any confining curriculum. He went to a horticultural college instead an...
1 comment
Read more

Richard Hauser and the evils of Marx

Richard was a distinguished Austrian sociologist who had contributed to the Wolfenden report that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England, Wales and Scotland in the late 1960's. I was remembering him on the plane today because I saw a reference to his wife, Hephzibah Menuhin, pianist sister of the violinist Yehudi and human rights activist. I met him after responding to an advertisement in the New Society. He lived in a house in Pimlico, a widower, with a clutch of young people, running an ill-defined (for me) social research/action institute, that I visited several times and to which Richard wanted to recruit me. I was never clear as to what my responsibilities might be and resisted co-option. He was, however, extraordinarily charismatic and as a Jew had fled Austria in 1938 not without receiving permanent damage to his hearing, courtesy of Gestapo interrogation. I vividly remember one story he told me that gives you an idea of his character. He was invit...
17 comments
Read more