Saturday, 7 December 2024

Milan fashion report

 What's 'in' this season: a light-hearted report from your roving fashion reporter ...

Hello, darlings, I've just parked up the Ferrari and have gone for a stroll in the Quadrilateral, Milan's fashion district. It's always a pleasant sight in the run up to Christmas, with special window displays, Christmas decorations and streets lit prettily. 

Via Monte Napoleone, the heart of the Quadrilateral, has just become the most expensive piece of real estate in the world. One square metre of retail space will set you back around €50,000, sometimes more, so even a small boutique needs an outlay of many millions. Ironic for a street that's named after Napoleon's ministry to manage government debt!

 

Via Monte Napoleone

It's more of a showcase rather than a place that actually does retail business. There are few price labels in the windows - frankly, if you have to ask the price, you really shouldn't be shopping here! And the fact that in many outlets the deliberate emptiness of floor and shelf space should tell you that here money should be no object. 

(There is a top tip from me right at the end of my post if you want fashionwear at reasonable prices in Milan or in most other fashion capitals.)

I'm not sure why the No Entry sign here is looking sinister but maybe the eyes were painted by someone who was squinting for non-existent price labels ... or one who found one and disapproved of what was written on it.

 

So let's have a look at some of the Christmas windows, some pretty, some over-the-top garish.

Here's Marchesi, a 200 year old sweet shop, always very elegant.

 

I think pink bonbons compliment the cerise font of this blog, don't you?

 

Mmm... In contrast, Cartier is trying to make a statement. I'm not quite sure what.

 

Hermès has gone for champagne-quaffing, jazz-playing horses. But of course.

 

I used to translate Acqua di Parma advertising briefs into English and their shop is always shipshape and not unpleasant, with greenery and fairy lights. Given that they sell cologne, it smells nice too. That classic shade is known as Parma yellow after its adoption for official purposes by the former sovereign Dukes of Parma.


These guys have gone for a more Santa's Grotto look.


Rosantica handbags has chosen a Russian nutcracker mannequin. A hand-made bag would suit any soldier, I'm sure.


This is a nice shop that sells nothing but gloves in all colours.


Loewe has gone for a marine look this year.


Marina Fossati jewellery is a bit chunky!

 


Plain but effective display from Bulgari.

 


Now, I always reserve a special spot for Valentino as their style and displays are somewhat unique. They first suggested to me that all-out pink was going to be the style of 2023 (which it kind of was but not as much as expected). Here's their store in the heart of the fashion district.


And some of the windows showing a decidedly '70s retro look, a sort of harem meets Abba style.






But it's this window below that had me agog! The gold minidress with sheer Abba-esque sleeves, turban and orange ribbed tights. So if you want legs like carrots, this could be the look for you...


 

What is more disturbing is that the next day, at the main station, this window display outside McDonald's had nothing but carrots in vases, each reflected in a large mirror to double the carrotiness. I have no idea what's going on with the carrot fixation around Christmas 2024, but I find it disturbing! 

 

Can you have too much Vitamin A? And if so, what happens? Presumably your legs turn orange, with or without the Valentino tights.

Back to the streets, now. This vintage tram is not spared retail excess, being decked out with Atmosphera interiors, including curtains!


And many large retailers also go for all-over advertising. Here's one of the many trams currently in Sephora livery.


To think that these classic streetcars still in everyday service are actually older than most in the tram museum I saw in Britain in September!

Enough of the brash clash with the classic for a moment, here we are in Via della Spiga, which is quiet as it's pedestrianised. A spiga is an ear of corn and the golden corn ears over the street are a nice touch, I think. I love the pretty little trees with simple golden fairy lights.


They're either native bay trees or fir trees, but every shop has one or two outside.


There's less in the way of dining here, but the entrance to this restaurant is in a very beautiful quiet courtyard and the warm Christmas decorations are inviting. 

 


Let me take you from the Quadrilateral now to the grand Victorian arcades, the Gallerie Vittorio Emanuele II. Sue's News & Views has been here before, of course, but every year is different.


A selection from the main four stores' windows, starting with Yves Saint Laurent:


Prada:


Giorgio Armani:


Swarovski:


There are, of course, other outlets here: boutiques, stores, cafés and restaurants. Marchesi again; their cake shop this time rather than the sweet shop we saw above:


Boutique with lovely bags:


Savini restaurant has been here since the arcade was built in 1867 and is a local institution:


Well, that's my necessarily select tour of the stores in the world's fashion capital this Christmas. I saw a lot else in Milan, like the Christmas market round the cathedral, ate out at various nice places, and also had an early Christmas dinner, but I'll save that for another time. I also hunted for and found a local inspiration for my American readers who may be fearful about liberty and democracy from 2025. 

Oh! My Ferrari seems to have been towed away by the police whilst I've been chatting to you. Such a bore! I'll just have to buy another. After all, money's no object, right?

Sue x

NB Sue's top tip: if you do want recent fashionwear, but at reasonable prices, then visit the fashion houses' warehouses where the last items in the latest lines and previous seasons' items may be found at much less cost, with some bargains.

Saturday, 30 November 2024

Black Friday, rainbow Saturday

 Two US festivities they've gone for here in Italy are Hallowe'en and Black Friday. I went out yesterday to start my Christmas shopping early so that the festivities don't become too stressful nearer the event. I really don't cope well with deadlines these days!

I got a lot of good discounts: 25% off a Christmas tree, 15% off books, 30% off decorations... That's how we like it! And it's more like how sales used to be - something off everything two or three times a year rather than the almost perpetual offers that have bedevilled shops in big cities over the last quarter century, where the only bargains are the unsaleable junk that nobody wanted to buy in the first place.

One of my earliest jobs was in London's well-known Harrods department store, shortly after Mohamed Al-Fayed had bought the shop after a notorious takeover battle with equally dubious businessman, Tiny Rowland, CEO of Lonrho (now Lonmin), an African mining conglomerate (the one that shot 100 striking workers a decade ago). Nice people both! But that's all history now. As are Al-Fayed's sexcapades, which were well known even then. Immediately he took over he started sending scouting parties to the Harrods sales floors to spot the most attractive female employees and invite them to work in his secretariat. Having pretty staff around him made him a better manager, apparently. I wasn't pretty enough, thankfully. I was there just to work over the winter sales period, when sales were on just twice a year because everything was discounted (i.e. reduced to what would be a typical high street price rather than the Harrods' markup). To be fair, there could be some genuine bargains on discontinued lines, which explained why some eager shoppers would queue for a day or even two beforehand. The unlocking of the doors on Day 1 of the sale saw a most undignified stampede very uncharacteristic of the well-heeled locality. I wonder if the poor doorman got a suit of armour and a cattle prod to protect himself! 

Harrods is a fascinating place, with an underground city to serve it. Our department's deposit was a good ten minutes walk from our sales floor by underground streets (with street names), with a constant traffic of electric buggies, loaders and forklifts; you'd go up and down in passenger lifts and goods elevators. Harrods has a vast staff canteen,  enormous staff bathroom with shower cubicles, lines of basins and dozens of stalls (with graffiti that expanded my English vocabulary considerably). Staff are forbidden from using the customer toilets (and a good job too if the staff graffiti is anything to go by). Harrods even has its own well to draw up the water it uses in its bathrooms, fountains and taps. ...I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this; maybe it's interesting, topical .... ah yes, because retail sales used to be a worthwhile thing and I got that feeling again this weekend.

On my way home with my bags yesterday, this glimpse of Venus above the palms looked so much like the star of Bethlehem of a million-and-one Christmas cards that I couldn't resist snapping it.


Next week I will be in Milan where the Christmas lights are always pretty, especially in the Quadrilateral (the fashion district). There's also a jolly Christmas market around the cathedral. So I hope to post some nice photos when I'm back. I will be seeing a family member so there will be no fem time, unfortunately. But I will be looking for a Christmas cosplay outfit as I enjoyed my Hallowe'en witch time last month and want to repeat the fun.

 

Rainbow solidarity

Thanks to Stana of Femulate for posting the photo I sent for her regular Femulating Out and About feature. I sent it for solidarity with my US trans sisters who are worried about the future. We are with you and will support you all the way. American trans bloggers like Stana, Hannah, Marian and others should be thanked for maintaining their trans blogs in the face of provocation.

I sent this pic as it's perhaps my favourite from this year and is similar to the one that has been the background image to my blog since its inception. I just feel at my most relaxed, happy and authentic among the quiet greenery in beautiful parks with trans friends with me. 

 

This was taken at Dunrobin Castle in the far North of Scotland in May.

The friend I was with on that occasion, Roz, has sent me a photo of her training as a conductress on the trams at the National Tramway Museum that I described in my last post and I've added it there as their trans-friendly recruitment policy was noteworthy. There are quite a number of trans women I know (at least three others in addition to Roz) volunteering at these heritage sites so they're obviously a bit of a haven for us. For me it was the art world that was a haven for my female side.

As this trans memorial month ends, I remain optimistic that most people are OK with trans people when they actually meet them. Governments (especially those brought in by Russian interference) may not be, but governments need a scapegoat or distraction from their own incompetence and machinations and it seems to be us this time. I hope those of us who are more out than average can find solidarity. The overwhelming majority of trans people are in stealth anyway, which means that any persecutions will miss that majority but could end up uncovering a lot of leading government and authority figures who were trans all along but were themselves in stealth mode. How embarrassing!

Sue x

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Stealthy conspirators, kitten cuddles and bone rattlers

 As an agent of the gender bender agenda to turn everyone in the world trans (as the righteous, true and oh-so-noble phobes insist) I need to meet with fellow conspirators from time to time so we can plot domination. So when I was holidaying in Britain in September, as well as Brighton, Bolton and Manchester, I went to the East Midlands to catch up with a couple of trans friends, Emma who has featured many times in these pages, and Lynn of YATGB and Nottingham Chameleons fame. What is truly sinister about us trans agents is that we don't always present in our preferred gender and can disguise ourselves as bona fide 'normals' and no-one can tell. We're that good at disguise. How can the anti-trans police deal with us 'pretenders in suspenders' if we won't make ourselves known at all times? It's a fiendish plot, eh readers?

Anyway it was very nice to catch up with these two stalwarts over brunch in a café in Leicestershire. Lynn mentioned this meetup at the end of this blog post of hers (and it took her less time to report back on it than it's taken me ...what? I've been busy!) It wasn't all trans plotting, of course, but chat about music, comedy, and other things of mutual interest. I hope to be back in that area again soon.

I also went to stay with a family of friends in Nottingham who have just acquired three very sweet kittens, and the kittens and I got along very well. It's not always easy to drink a mug of tea when you are the new designated kitten mattress, or you are trying to dress but the kittens are turning your bedroom into a playground, but we managed somehow.

I took a trip with my friends to Derbyshire. Cromford is a charming village with a mill pond and dramatic scenery, and a bizarre multi-storey bookshop, Scarthins, more or less built of bookcases groaning under the weight of tomes, including one case that turns to reveal a secret room behind, like the sort you'd find in some Scooby-Doo haunted mansion for Velma to fall behind. In this case the secret room is the café (with garden) where they cook a fine homity pie (potato, leek, onion and cheese). It's mad and fun. And, appropriately enough, the manager is one Mr Booker!

A short distance away is the National Tramway Museum where a large number of historic trams are nicely preserved in tramsheds and several double-decker bone-rattlers trundle up and down the tracks for visitors to ride. You get an old penny as an entry ticket, hand it to the uniformed conductor and they give you a proper ticket in exchange.

This was a lot of fun and in addition to riding the old trams there are some rather nice paths through the woods, a sculpture park and a 'village' with pub, post office and shops. 





I note that the museum has a very LGBT-friendly recruitment policy and a trans friend of mine is in training there to become a conductress. She's hoping eventually to become one of their tram drivers, which looks fun. Sadly, she wasn't working the weekend we went there. 

[Add 30/11: Said friend Roz has sent me this photo of her as a trainee conductress in uniform on a Blackpool tram that was running the weekend before I went. ]



My journey back to London the next day was appalling, with long train delays and alternative routes required and I lost a lot of time which prevented my doing some things I'd been planning to do which were rather important. Although I did get a full refund on my ticket from East Midlands Trains - and good on them for that - it doesn't compensate me for the overall losses. I have honestly to say that I think UK transport systems are broken. In the four trips I've made there in 2023 and 2024 barely any of my journeys around the country were trouble-free. Even the taxi to the airport the day after picked me up thirty minutes late and the security staff at London's Heathrow Airport were their usual officious, abusive, contemptuous, racist selves. It's certainly the nastiest airport of any I've ever been to, even more so than New York's JFK which employs the second most unpleasant staff in the world. I had hoped to maintain a presence in Britain but I honestly feel it is a lost cause and so I am winding down there. It's a great shame but political, societal and systemic failures there need to be addressed very seriously and swiftly.

That concludes my description of my trip to England in September. It was a joy to meet up with old friends and, for the most part, be out fully femme or be seeing trans friends in stealth mode. Thanks to everyone who met up with me and I'll try to catch the ones I missed next time.

Sue x

Saturday, 23 November 2024

Passing frontiers

I went to the frontier, intending to be awed by the dramatic scenery. I was, but I also suffered gender dysphoria. You might ask how.

Well, I took the train from Italy to the first town in France, which is Menton. It's a pretty place sometimes referred to as "the pearl of France". From the town centre, where I took this photo, it's a little over a mile to the Italian frontier. You see that crack in the mountain towards the right? That's the frontier.


The viaduct on the left a third of the way up the mountain carries France's A8 motorway that melds seamlessly into Italy's A10 motorway. It's all part of the E80 route from Lisbon, capital of Portugal, to Mount Ararat on the Turkish-Iranian border where it joins Asian Highway AH1 to Tokyo. So if you fancy taking your bored kids on an 18,000-mile long car journey next Sunday afternoon, you could consider this. I mention the road as it will be part of the story. And also because a route 18,000 miles (29,000 km) long is a pretty awesome thought.

On the very far right of my photo, in Italy, are the famous Balzi Rossi, the "Red Cliffs", with their beach of curious egg-shaped pebbles (which you are forbidden from removing), the famous Michelin-starred restaurant of the same name, and the especially famous caves that have been home to mankind for an estimated half a million years.

The French frontier post is right at sea level. I was splashed by the churning waves as I approached. But it's an open border under the European Union's Schengen agreement* and despite my feminine attire and shoulder bag, spattered with salt water and flecks of seaweed as they were, the police didn't even look at me. My face is my fortune here: I am white, you see, and obviously a local. 

(*The border is not as open as the law says, as we shall see.)

It is exciting here. Political geography fascinates me. Why do we plot borders where we do? Furthermore, I was brought up in the Cold War and I can't help thinking of borders as ultimate heart-stopping moments where your escape or mission will meet with success in safe haven ...or in recognition, failure and possibly death. I have my ID card in my pocket. Could it be a forgery? It might fool the uniformed cops but will it fool the snoops in their macintoshes and homburg hats? Agent Sue sashays towards freedom, attempting nonchalance ...

I digress. Here is the dramatic frontier landscape I have come to see. I am a few yards into Italy, standing on the San Ludovico bridge over a small torrent that meets the sea just behind me. The Italian border post is the red-orange building up on the right of the upper, San Luigi, bridge.
 


I cross back into France to take the upper road. 

I am now approaching that narrow San Luigi bridge. The white triangle marks the frontier for the benefit of ships at sea. The fruit lorry is in France, the tiny wine shop perched over the chasm is just within Italy. Their only customers are French - Italian booze is cheaper, you see. 


The space is too narrow for me adequately to photograph the terrifying defile by the bridge, that crack in the mountain you saw in the first photo. It is over 100 metres (330 feet) from the path above to the torrent below.

 

But the near sheer drop to the sea from where I'm standing is also hair-raising.


The old smuggler's route across the border is called Paradise Pass. There's a similar Bandits Pass at the top of the mountain I live on.


But Paradise Pass is also known locally as the Pass of Death (Passo della Morte). It's even beginning to appear as such on official maps now, like the one I am carrying.



Why would Paradise Pass, that sounds idyllic, end up being called the Pass of Death? 

Because so many people die trying to cross the border. I can cross at will as I am a European Citizen. If I wasn't, I'd have a Schengen visa. I actually crossed six times that day! But refugees, mainly from war-torn Africa and the Middle East, do not, so crossing into France is illegal. This is the end of the migrant conveyor that begins in Southern Italy on boats, at least for those who have survived the journey across the Mediterranean. They make their way up Italy, some obtaining permission to stay, others not. They want to get to France as much of Africa is former French colonies, they speak French and usually have relatives and friends already in France. A new, better life awaits. 

Despite the Schengen agreement, the border is not, in fact, open. Not to them at least, and to a degree, not even to me, as the French police are crawling all over the frontier. Every train across the border must stop at Menton Garavan to be searched. They usually barely glance at me. But anyone who is not white gets asked for their papers. There is always a handful of people hauled off, charged, and then minibussed back to Italy. I pass the Italian border post and a young soldier and I exchange good days as I go to a bar for some tea. On my way back I witness a handover. The same soldier accepts paperwork from a plainclothes French police officer, whose tall muscly colleague is bringing along three migrants all handcuffed to him. The young Indian on his right is trembling as he brushes past me. They are not mistreated, but the adrenalin and worry tell.

They are the lucky ones. Others, not able to cross by train, try more dangerous methods. They pay a passeur, a person to smuggle them across, on foot, by lorry or van. The price is high to reflect the illegality of the move. Not everyone can afford it. Some try to ride under trains. They usually get sniffed out by the Italian police and troops crawling all over the last station in Italy. Some migrants discover there's a nice hiding space under the pantograph on top of a train. Electric trains are a rarity in Sub-Saharan Africa so they don't know that when the train starts, the current will kill them. Others try to cross by the motorway viaducts and tunnels. There are no pavements, the drop into the ravine is immensely deep, the traffic fast moving. Many have died one way or the other. You could swim, but the currents and eddies here where the mountains tumble into the sea are treacherous. Olympians only, therefore. One man recently made it, only to be apprehended by the police as he crawled exhausted up the beach. You could try crossing higher up the mountains which rise steeply for the next 300 miles to the three-mile-high massif of Mont Blanc. The clothes you wore in the tropics are no use here in the snowfields of the high Alps; many freeze to death.

The rest try crossing the border on foot here at Paradise Pass, the Pass of Death. By night, of course. Once at the high point of the smuggler's path your instinct is to make towards the lights of Menton. But that instinct is fatal; no-one has ever survived the 300 foot sheer drop. Counterintuitively, you must follow the path away from apparent salvation, you must scrabble through undergrowth, clamber up the rocks, cut through the barbed wire fence at the top and scramble down the other side of the mountain. On the Italian side, kind people have put luminous markers, placed planks and hung ropes at strategic points. You mustn't assist an undocumented migrant directly as that will land you in trouble with the law. They are undocumented by now as they shed their clothes and papers in the ravine, and their old names and identities with them, and put on smarter clothes to enter a better life, leaving the old one behind, the life that didn't work.

As a trans woman, that last bit of the story hits me in the gut. As did sight of the rock monument by the French border post to those who didn't make it, titled "The Third Paradise". 

 


It is neglected and weed-ridden, the plaques with names now half hidden and some broken. Names that are known, that is. Others are never known, those of people who have simply ceased to exist, unknown to anyone.

 


At this point I cry. The next day will be Transgender Day of Remembrance, another testament to those who didn't make it to a better life. Maybe it is unsuitable to associate the story of dead migrants with trans people dying for having transitioned but I cannot help the parallels striking me. But many of these migrants leave home because they are LGBT+ and fear for their lives. I myself am wearing women's clothing, but I am not presenting as female here. There is a difference, and it's a barrier that I don't feel secure enough to cross yet.

A piece of graffiti in France says quite simply: la frontière tue. Not so simple to translate. It means both the border (i.e. this border) kills and borders (in general) kill. Barriers of all kinds do kill. And to think that plenty of people rejoice at that.

I go home awed by the scenery as intended, and sobered by the suffering. 

Take care.

Sue x