SO Sophia Loren IKAT

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 There is a reason fashion interests me-for instance this:

VOGUE  November 1966,
Sofia Loren in fur lined sable- Russian crown sable- Ikat robes-  photographed by AVEDON. 

Posing in made to order Maxmillian robes of 14th century Tatary IKAT- the colors according to the text were meant for  the highest ranks of the culture of the period.  The simplicity of these robes is indicative of the style worn then and the sables would have been less luxury and more necessity.

 

 Map of Tartary, 1705

published by the Amsterdam burgomaster Nicolaes Witsen

Tartary or Great Tartary (Latin: Tataria or Tataria Magna) was a name used by Europeans from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate a great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean inhabited by Turkic and Mongol peoples of the Mongol Empire who were generically referred to as "Tartars", i.e. Tatars. It incorporated the current areas of Siberia, Turkestan (including East Turkestan), Greater Mongolia, Manchuria, and sometimes Tibet.

"Upon their cloaked heads there now seemed to rest tall, uncertainly coloured mitres, strangely suggestive of those on certain nameless figures chiselled by a forgotten sculptor along the living cliffs of a high, forbidden mountain in Tartary...", "Through the Gates of the Silver Key," H. P. Lovecraft

"amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track."-Mary Shelley', Frankenstein,

So? Well needless to say our trends (something akin to saying we get bored quickly) are just that. Ikats-like the dhurries, the suzanis, the toiles, the animal prints, the botanical prints,  the quilts, the washed linens. All fit into a culture or a history  that makes sense- one that consumers take little time to understand, respect or assess. In a world of trends-all that seems a bit meaningless. The push to redo our interiors constantly indicates boredom, and limitation and a false sense of our own good taste. If we love something- it should last longer than a few seasons of magazines and blog declarations. Don't pick an Ikat-if you can't live with it & love it for a lifetime-and at the moment throw away decoration is more a lack of world economics than the usual lack of knowing self  or just keeping up with the Jones.


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