ICHI

Main Autumn 2012

The brisk autumn wind drags in her coat while she hurries up the ally to the castle. Inside the hall, the heavy oak door thumps behind her and echoes through numerous living rooms.
Her cheeks blush; there are raindrops in her hair – and a few brown leaves too. Yet, it is warm here behind the thick stone walls and the cold rain lashing against the windows is hardly audible.
She is in auntie’s distant castle, far from her vivid city. Tonight, her dearest friends will come by for a dream-like October weekend.
She spends the afternoon floating quietly through the rooms on thick carpets imagining hundreds of dressed up guest from past times’ hunting parties. Up the wide stairs and into the colossal dressing room, where as a young girl she loved to play and auntie helped her dress up for fantasy galas in corsets, silk and brocade.
In the evening in front of the crackling fireplace, she tells her friends how all this history is part of fashion, part of her inspiration everyday when she dresses. The past is still present, she says, and soon the present will be past.