The Rise began with a heroine whose heart had been shattered. In the story I wrote for autumn/winter 2010, she descends into an abyss and finds, at its very bottom, something formless that carries her back towards the light. I didn’t want to illustrate her journey on a coat. I wanted the garment to hold something of that experience: strength that doesn’t need to shout, the sense of being gathered and then given room to move.
I was looking at goddesses of fertility, war, learning and consciousness, not to borrow their costumes but to think about the qualities a woman might want to feel in herself. So the collar rises around the face, the waist draws close, and the hem opens out as she turns. Some of these shapes keep their secret until you see them from behind. I worked with wool, bamboo, cotton, cotton-linen and moleskin in midnight blue, olive, cream, brown and black. The materials needed to carry both the structure and the life inside it.
I’ve always thought a coat was worth investing in. Not because it belongs to a season, but because you might wear it for years and still recognise yourself in it. Move through the photographs, especially the back views. There’s more to the silhouette than the front can tell you. In the Diary I return to the moving body in What a garment lets you do.
