Climate Revolution is working towards a new ethic, one which involves a hierarchy of cultural values. Particularly, it challenges the idea that wealth = consumption and acquisition. We need quality and less quantity of crap manufactures, we need more carers, teachers and thinkers, then money will circulate in beneficial ways.
We had snow. I loved it. We had a short blackout and my phone was cut off the whole weekend. Andreas went to Paris to check venues for our coming fashion show and he couldn’t contact me because I don’t have a mobile. I took a real break and stayed in the whole weekend.
I went to my friend Juergen Teller’s photo exhibition which opened with three giant nudes of me! Juergen is a splendid photographer, it’s a big honour.
MON 28 JAN TRILLION FUND
Meeting with Michael Stein of the Trillion Fund – one of the core members of the Climate Revolution cabinet. How do we get clean energy up and running and make the switch from fossil fuels? Answer: It depends on the scale of investment. The fund has begun and will soon be available to thousands of small investors, who can buy a bond for as little as £100. The Trillion funds acts like a bank – a new bank – because it can give a good interest rate to small investors, the reason being the limitless security of supply for the investment: the sun’s energy won’t run out like fossil fuels and because it’s clean it won’t incur the costs of environmental damage.
Talking to Michael, it seems that his studies and career changes have brought him to this idea; the people he has worked with, the contacts he has made seem serendipitous and designed to help him. I am particularly impressed by how well he knows the internet and by the potential of his vast and useful databases to help create a new responsibly human economy.
WEDS 30 JAN EMBROIDERY, HATS AND DEBORAH ROSS
Fashion is a daily job, sometimes from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., including weekends. All those thousands of decisions, all those fittings; you go through stages where you just don’t want to see another toile, correcting it with our dedicated pattern cutters. I say this because fashion students think it’s just drawing, filling boards with collages for inspiration! And then somehow you make the design – which will never turn out as you thought it would because you have no idea in the first place of what your drawing means.
Anyway, one of the things I did was four pieces of artwork for embroidery – for four garments (two dresses, a jacket and a long skirt) – using the drawings from the beautiful borders of illuminated manuscripts. Even though I got students to help me copy them out onto full-size templates for the dress patterns, this took a good week. This work is pleasant, easy and therapeutic and I felt guilty for doing it and taking so long because I was leaving all the hard slog up to Andreas. We have to delegate our work and unless we check constantly it will take a wrong turn, people will work for nothing and we will have to begin again.
I can’t believe how amongst all this Andreas manages to time, prepare and follow all the details for the final presentation so that it all finally happens – the venue, the lighting, who will do the music, the hats. He asked me to help choose what gloves to get made. I was busy and told him I couldn’t be bothered right then. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘There is nothing more beautiful than the arm of a woman, and the legs – and the face. What’s in between I don’t care!’
When my friend Deborah Ross came to visit us (she is the journalist who came with us to Peru), I was delighted to see her and took time off chatting. She asked what career I would have chosen if I had not been a fashion designer. My passions are reading and art, and I usually answer this question by saying I would like to write plays and design and produce theatre. This time, thinking of my therapeutic experience doing my artwork for embroidery, I answered that I would have liked to have been a painter. I realise I have a real talent for graphic design and a strong direct transmission from feelings and sensations to hand. I feel I could have done something, transmitted a vision of the world. It is true also that each fashion collection, though ephemeral, is a vision of the world and I’m looking forward to our Gold Label show. It will be beautiful. I feel as if I’ve been mining for treasure.
Thinking how I would like to spend more time with my friends, I told Deborah of a perfect situation, an idyll of friendship I had read of in a book by Marcel Aymé, Le Confort Intellectuel. Two men who each have a reason to stay away from Paris meet in a village on the outskirts. The book is an excuse for a highly original attack on the complacency of intellectuals, but it is the setting for their conversations that so appeals to me. They have made a temporary escape from the worries of the world; they come across each other in their walks in the winter woods and repair to the warmth of the village bar or their apartments. Security is a necessity for the intellectual life.
FEBRUARY 2013
WEDS 20 FEB LONDON FASHION WEEK AND JULIAN
For London Fashion Week, Joe Rush did a Climate Revolution artwork for our shop window in Conduit Street. In one half of the window he represents his view of the world: an iron cage with a man inside (though the door is open for whenever he wants to leave); a tree and a bird and a crab live outside the cage. These sculptures are re-made from rusty scrap metal. In the other half is a shining metal heart of ‘Victory for the Climate Revolution’ made from two recycled petrol tanks from a Triumph motorbike.
Joe Rush’s window for London Fashion Week.
I wore my ‘I am Julian Assange’ T-shirt at the Red Label show. Since before Christmas, I have wanted to find a way to address the confusion swimming around Julian. I believe that misapplied feminism is holding him in legal limbo; women living in the privileged world who blindly support feminism, not seeing the wood for the trees. The woman in question says she ‘did not want to accuse Julian of anything’; that it was the police who made up the allegations. Do women really want an innocent man to satisfy their wish and vindicate himself by spending the rest of his life in a US Supermax jail?
So I was sad and puzzled when my friend Jemima Khan joined the ranks of these irresponsible women, or as John Pilger puts it, ‘the pathetic animus of a few who claim the right to guard the limits of informed public debate.’ I phoned Jemima. I hope she will change her mind. I will see her when we are less busy. Pilger completely exploded Jemima’s opinions in the New Statesman one week later but by then her opinions had run through the global press.
WEDS 27 FEB SAVE THE ARCTIC
We go to Paris to prepare for our show, which is on Saturday. We are calling it ‘Save the Arctic’ and are using a design we did for Greenpeace’s campaign. It was Andreas’s idea to use the heart-shaped globe. The design says it all: save the Arctic now and we might save the world; the white flag of truce is blank, signifying that the Arctic belongs to everyone. Greenpeace is thrilled. It’s part of Climate Revolution!
MARCH 2013
FRI 1 MARCH LEONARD PELTIER
The really best news this month is that Leonard is to be transferred to a softer prison. After forty years in jail. We hope he will now receive treatment for his medical problems. Perhaps this move will be the first step towards greater freedom; perhaps he’ll be able to live on the Rez. He hasn’t moved yet but we are all keen to hear from him as soon as he does.
SAT 2 MARCH GOLD LABEL SHOW IN PARIS
We had our Gold Label show. It was at the Musée de l’Art Moderne in Paris, in a room too small and narrow for decor. Andreas decided to have it as just a black tunnel. The theme was ‘Medieval’ and the black allowed great focus and concentration. Lighting (misty, time travellers), as usual, by Toni, Andreas’s friend from his village. The models looked so beautiful (hair, Sam McKnight; make-up, Val Garland) and they loved the clothes; they were so happy. The music: we spoke by phone to a young composer, Dominik Emrich, ‘Medieval, not religious, troubadours, triumph, another world,’ we told him. He sent a CD: beautiful, timeless, modern. That was it.
It’s wonderful the help we get: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I must mention the Scottish mill – Begg Scotland – who made our blan
kets. I sent them the designs late. Their machines were in full use so they got people to come in to work at night. I adore our Climate Revolution blanket-cloak. Thank you.
SUN 3 MARCH ADRIAN CHENG
Paris showroom. I got involved in the presentation of the collection to the buyers. I have to secure all the links down the chain of our enterprise if I am to push for greater and greater quality. Whilst in Paris I met up with Adrian Cheng to discuss how we can launch Climate Revolution in China. Adrian’s into modern art. He himself paints – quickly: 23 minutes is his record. (Anyone can be an artist.) He wants to help art students. I wish he would give his money to the rainforests. I should have introduced him to my friend, Franz, who in his hôtel particulier houses his collection of modern art. At dinner, Franz told us he’s selling the house. The French government wishes to tax private art collections.
Our Climate Revolution blanket cloak at the Gold Label show.
FRI 8 MARCH GREENPEACE, PAMELA AND PETA
Back from Paris. I have managed to see one or two friends, read, caught up on stuff and I’ve been busy, mostly to do with Climate Revolution. The most concentrated day was Friday, working with Greenpeace using the graphics we designed for ‘Save the Arctic’. Meanwhile, there has been a competition for anyone from six to twenty-six, organised by the Girl Guides, to design an Arctic flag and we were here to judge it in my office/workroom – myself and two young women, very clever and articulate. We agreed on the winner, thirteen-year-old Sarah Batrisyia from Malaysia, and I had to phone her at home to tell her she had won. I felt quite emotional.
The winning flag and a time capsule containing millions of signatures (including Pamela Anderson, Andreas and me) protesting commercial exploitation of the Arctic, will be planted at the North Pole by a team of skiers on 7 April. Pamela had popped in to have her photo taken in our ‘Save the Arctic’ T-shirt. She came with her friend, Dan Mathews from PETA, who’s so passionate about his work that he’s done really outrageous stunts. When he was a kid, he was on the floor, winded in a fight, couldn’t breathe, other kids looking down at him, laughing. Soon after, his dad took him fishing and he was looking down at a flounder, just hooked and on the deck, gasping for oxygen, looking up with its two funny eyes and people looking down, laughing.
He told us that PETA has just stopped the culling of baby seals in Russia. Pamela went to see Putin’s lot and they won’t import the pelts. She’s full of relief. The fate of Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd, which is committed to saving ocean wildlife worldwide, is another of Pamela’s major concerns. Since skipping bail in Germany, where he was arrested for a confrontation with Costa Rica over shark finning, Paul is now confined to a Sea Shepherd ship that is unable to dock. Along with Julian Assange, he has been awarded an Original Nation passport by the Aboriginal people of Australia.
WEDS 13 – SAT 16 MARCH FERNANDO MONTAÑO
I woke on Wednesday with a head cold. It’s awful. I felt as if two stones had been hammered into my temples; stayed in bed but dragged myself out on Thursday night for the Friends of the Earth fundraising dinner to launch their latest initiative to put the onus on suppliers to offer shoppers green choices. I hate these auction dinners but the high point, of course, is the people you’re with, and that was all our important member friends of Climate Revolution, the first time so many of us had met. We all got on extremely well and there has been quite a bit of communication between us since.
By Saturday I was feeling well enough to read instead of just lying there in pain. So I re-read John Pilger’s terrifying The New Rulers of the World. In the evening I went to the Café de Paris to the Latin UK Awards. My friend, Fernando Montaño, was Personality of the Year and I presented him with his award. I really enjoyed myself; such good-looking people, all dressed up. My speech went like this:
Fernando is a wonderful personality because he is the loveliest person, but he deserves the award because he is a ballerina and in presenting him I’d like to acknowledge the others – Tamara and Carlos, they’re here – because traditional ballet is one of the high art forms of human achievement – along with Japanese Noh theatre and I think the temple dancing of South India – I long to see it. The training, the ‘turning out’ which makes possible the ‘line’ in three dimensions and which lends itself to a completed expression through dance. So many art forms come together in ballet. This is surely human evolution at its highest point.
Secondly, with the weakening of the US (the US may not look weak because it continues to boost its arms sales but it can no longer underwrite the destruction of the earth through war). It is so great to see the countries of Latin America take more control of their countries and face up to the US. (Huge enthusiasm!) In particular, I’d like to thank Ecuador for standing up to the US and protecting free speech in the person of Julian Assange.
TUES 19 MARCH DAVID BOWIE AT THE V&A
I started work on next season’s Gold Label and in the evening went with Andreas to see the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A.
I don’t know much about Bowie because at the time I was working with the Sex Pistols. It is possible he got his hairstyle from me as his then wife, Angie, used to come into our shop. He became famous very quickly. I first knew that because all at once people began to call after me in the street – David Bowie!
Bowie was a phenomenon: studying mime with Lindsay Kemp, terrific style, androgyny, each song a concept. I learnt about him tonight – it’s a very good exhibition. I liked best his acting in Elephant Man and the suits for a man of perfect proportions with a 28-inch waist. At the dinner I sat between the photographer, Terry O’Neill, and Kansai Yamamoto, who designed many Bowie outfits. I enjoyed myself but great as Bowie is, I’m not so interested in popular culture.
WEDS 20 MARCH BRADLEY MANNING
On February 28th at a military hearing Bradley Manning admitted leaking the biggest cache of classified material in US history – State Department cables that documented back-door deals and war crimes – to WikiLeaks. He said he was disturbed by the seeming disregard by American troops for the lives of ordinary people, being ‘obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists’; he was appalled by a combat video of a helicopter assault which killed eleven men including a Reuters photographer and his driver – ‘the seeming delightful bloodlust the aerial weapons team happened to have … similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.’
It is worth noting that Bradley first approached the New York Times (who didn’t return his call) and the Washington Post (who didn’t take him seriously) with the Afghan and Iraq material. Then he turned to WikiLeaks. How brave that young soldier was for making those calls and then exposing the cover-ups of the war propaganda. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s worth comparing Bradley’s statements with what Prince Harry said, comparing killing people to playing video games. Harry said that he was ‘good with his thumbs’.
THURS 21 MARCH PEACE SILK AND SIDDHARTHA
Andreas and I are at work everyday but we are not under pressure at the moment. We are working separately on the other collections and we have begun to choose the fabrics for the next Gold Label. I am clearing up bits and pieces and dealing with requests for all kinds of things that until now I didn’t have time to look at. Cynthia is working hard on Climate Revolution, connecting relationships and discussing events. I think it is so important for other NGOs we wish to work with to always state their policy from the platform: ‘What’s good/bad for the planet is good/bad for the economy’. If we can get the public to see our main message which is staring them in the face we will win the Climate Revolution.
We just had a note from Samata Angel, from Red Carpet Green Dress, the fashion competition we collaborate on, telling us why the ‘peace silk’ they use is better for the environment. She says it allows the worms to live out their nature cycle. ‘Normally silk worms are boiled to kill them and extract their silk (without them breaking the cocoon) as a single strand. With peace silk, it is only after the
y have shed their cocoon naturally that it is taken and used to make silk. This is why it is slightly ‘broken’ in appearance, unlike normal silk, as the cocoon has been broken when the worm emerged.’
I have been reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, because Andreas, whose senses are so keen, praised the beauty and originality of the writing. He couldn’t get over that someone could write like that, do what Hesse did: think it and find a way to say it; say so much in just over a hundred pages. The story moves along like the song of a river, repeating itself but always telling something new. The observations are tremendous. The Buddhist believes in the indestructibility of life and in reincarnation. He desires to escape from this cycle by losing his individuality in the universal life. Underlying this is the belief that the material world is an illusion – this probably accounts for the religious beliefs of half the people who ever lived.
I am not a Buddhist and don’t believe in re-incarnation or the life of individuals after death – I have no interest in it. Also what doesn’t appeal to me is that in acknowledging the unity of the world we therefore accept and love the good and the bad, the newborn baby and the murderer – for example a Buddhist once told me off for talking politics, telling me that the only thing you can change is yourself. I want to help make a better world.
WEDS 27 MARCH CELEBRATING WANGARI MAATHAI
Andreas and I went at 9.30 a.m. to an event at Kew Gardens to celebrate the life of Wangari Maathai. It was wonderful because we hadn’t been to Kew for so long. The magnolia were still waiting for the spring because of the freak cold weather and we had coffee in the orangery where we saw many friends from Wangari’s achievement, the Green Belt Movement. Speeches were by Wangari’s daughter, Wanjira, Prince Charles and Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Laureate. High points were songs by the Revival House Choir and Hummingbird, a play performed by the children of Stoneygate College, Leicester. This was so well composed and conceived by the teachers – words, song, music, costumes. The chorus wore black tracksuits, and half of them were trees – green satin leaves sewn onto the front of the costume and green umbrellas; half were a forest fire with fiery ribbons sewn on and a bunch in the hand to shake. When the fire attacked the trees they put the umbrellas down and turned their backs to us and twisted their bodies into black shapes. The strong animals didn’t know how to use their strength but the hummingbird brought water in her beak, ‘Doing what I can’.
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