Infringement of Dress Code

Such a lot of fringes around at the moment. I counted more than eight fringed items in this month's Vogue US- bags, boots, sandals, dresses, vests, jackets, sunglasses. I am almost tempted, but I have not a flower petal of boho in my character. Fringes, especially the really long ones, are exactly the sort of habit my mother used to warn me against- just the kind of thing that might get caught in the closing doors of a subway train, and thus lead to the loss an arm or a leg, or worse. Quite a lot of these designs do look like the result of an accident with a paper shredder in the studio.

From my Files

Failing all else, here is an old picture from a period when I drew much less self-consciously, and artwork was always submitted as a piece of paper, scratched, pasted together, hand-coloured, imperfect. These days I rarely manage anything close to such spontaneity- pictures are often pinned down (to death) at the rough stage, and even after you've submitted the artwork, the implied ease & speed enabled by technology (photoshop, illustrator et al) means that alterations can be requested, almost ad infinitum, by the art editor, the editor, the designer, the journalist, the tea lady, the cleaner and any old passer-by.