Written by Treasure Seeker Colleen
My days during COVID 19, seem to revolve around escape; I escaped to events like Art Vancouver, Art Downtown, and Vancouver Mural Fest, this summer, and now. As I visit a friend in South Granville, I walk to Granville Island to the new bookstore, Upstart & Crow, where I bought two books. whose titles: "The Midnight Library" and "The Glass Hotel" are places I have enjoyed escaping into. Imagine visiting a library where you could choose books that take you to lives you might have lived. And, if I were visiting the remote, rainy dark forests of Vancouver Island, especially around Port Hardy, I would be very intrigued by a sparkling Glass Hotel, accessible by boat only, and a destination for the rich. I know you are going to ask me where Fashion comes into my reading. I always imagine what the characters look like and what they are wearing. Because Vancouver Fashion Week has provided so many opportunities to see the work of local and international Designers, I remember the sets and runway shows and imagine how these might bring a book to a stage or movie. Having been so fortunate to bring Student Designers/Illustrators to Vancouver Fashion Week, keeps me thinking about new fashion perspectives for now and for the future. Here are Student Illustrators at VFW, not so long ago here.
Matt Haig, an award winning British author, introduces Nora Seed, who has great potential but has realized none of it and now, contemplating the end to a life of regret and unfulfilling routines, has a chance to look at how paths she now regrets not taking, might not have worked out as perfectly as she imagined. Although she wants her guide, a librarian from her high school days, to help her choose the book of her best life, she has to make the choice to make the life she really wants. For me, this was a longer read, one that took the same kind of persistence that watching the movie "Groundhog Day", took. I can easily envision Fashion Program students at any one of our wonderful fashion schools, taking on illustrations and outfits for each of Nora's incarnations: Olympic Swimmer, lead singer in a rock band, and many other ideal lives, none of which are her ideal until she chooses her own way to live her best life. I can imagine how they would bring fresh ideas to dressing the librarian, too, being mindful of stereotyping the job of librarian and her age. Our iconic Vancouver Public Library main branch would be the perfect setting for magic and transformation. I think Carolyn Bruce could easily design some symbolic book jackets and book marks and her steampunk/skull jewelry, especially brooches, and necklaces might enhance the magic and mystery of the characters and the setting. Here is Carolyn Bruce's staging and jewelry on stage. Matt Haig's writing takes readers to new places. So the subtitle on the cover page: One library. Infinite Lives, sums this one up, nicely. In 2020, there is a way out. More at www.matthaig.com
Emily St. John is Canadian and her latest, The Glass Hotel, is situated on Vancouver Island, and also in Toronto, and NYC, although the lead character, a wealthy New York Investment Businessman and hotel owner, Jonathan Alkaitis, works and has multiple residences all over the world. He is a confident, charmer, who offers Vincent, a beautiful bartender, a chance to join him in a life free of ever worrying about money, again. But there are hints of trouble from the beginning. Vincent, whose favourite quote, etched by her into a window of her high school, is: "Sweep me up!" And she is swept into Jonathan's Gatsby like world, where he never takes responsibility for the financial destruction of everyone's lives. A second quote, sketched by her older brother, another lost soul, on the lobby window of the hotel, "Why don't you swallow broken glass", is intended for Jonathan, but of course, he doesn't see it and avoids the threat. As St. John describes: "He carried himself with the tedious confidence of all people with money, that breezy assumption that no serious harm could come to him." So this is a story of being vulnerable, for many reasons: death of a parent, divorce, abandonment, poverty, to list a few reasons, and consequently being swept up and into addiction, ambition, greed, irresponsibility, and poor choices. One story becomes many lives that go well for a while and then end in catastrophe. And not only that, but there are ghosts and the dead are always there. They appear on the dance floor, on a ship, in a jail cell, a dreadful reminder of bad deeds done. In the end, the hotel is still there, empty except for the caretaker who will never trust another human again, and just wants to look after the glass hotel. This is another complex read, one that made me ask if there was any hope for any of the characters. However, there is retribution and that counts for something. Great writing and I would visit that hotel; imagine a glass and cedar monument to brighten, "...the forest outside (that) seemed mostly dark, the shadows dense and freighted with menace." We have so many special, local Designers who could easily dress and stage a show of "The Glass Hotel". As I was reading, I thought of Shelley Klassen and her store, Blushing Boutique, as a setting for Vincent's shopping on 5th Avenue, NYC. Giovanna Ricci's elegant designs would be great for Vincent's work at the exclusive hotel, and for her daily shopping expeditions with other rich friends, and Sam Stringer's evening dresses, maybe some green/blue translucent fabrics for that sea (swept away) connection or gold, for the story of money. For the ghosts, well, Evan Clayton could certainly create vivid, dynamic designs and sets that would compel one to look and remember and be afraid, be very afraid. After all, ghosts do haunt for a reason.
Two award winners and days of escape from here to there! A reminder that Fashion is the vision that brings story to life.
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