Les Parisiennes des Mamanset: On the Advent of Newness

[botemp]

Lovers of Parisian style and fashion with a conscious mindset and lots of chatter in between.

Previous thread

(I've removed the usual links to recommended shops and other places guides from the OP because I suspect they're getting very out of date at this point)

Pleats on pants have me running scared now that I’ve acquired a few pairs I don’t know how I feel about. They seem to have extra volume in the front which is odd and hmmm.

i mean trousers not underpants, obviously.

Are they pants in Aus? I always assume Au English is closer to the UK than US. Language wise anyhow.

I think it kind of depends on how the volume sits, if it looks like I'm snuggling something there it's probably no good but even a light rounding which you see in mom jeans a lot, personally not a fan, somehow shortens me as if I have bad posture (not that I have great posture naturally but it kind of feels like harmonicad in somehow).

WRT the recognising 'good' wool etc. I think it's a bit like today where you can spot the difference between a high street outfit Vs high end (of similar style).

I asked a friend about good wool. She has worked in the textiles industry since she left university, starting in Bradford with high quality wool fabrics and then moving into Scottish cashmere and other luxury yarns. She said she can often tell good cashmere at sight but doesn't think she can with wool.

That's interesting about sci-fi. I really did think it was about weird worlds, and focused on the worlds, not the people. I shall give it a go.

I must admit, I've always assumed that people in the know can tell by looking so that's interesting if it's not the case with wool.

I do think though that something must have changed with wool production in the 80s because up until then I'd always found the feel of it pretty much unbearable and then around 1987, I found one in John Lewis that felt ok, and it was such a revelation I saved up (£40) to buy it.

flo I can’t read the whole article, it’s the economist if you have a sub, I assume it’s something to do with this that wool’s feel changed.

That sounds an interesting article. Which edition of the Economist is it in please? I've got access to from my local library it via PressReader, and other people may, too.

I knit, and the information that is now available about yarns' softness or not is so much better compared with the past. Yarn producers seem more likely to produce yarns that are softer, too, and there's more emphasis on the sheep breeds. For example Blacker yarns:

www.blackeryarns.co.uk/blacker-swan-4-ply/

give a 'softness' rating to their yarns.

That said, I knitted a jumper with one of Blacker's more "robust" yarns, and it is not soft, but it doesn't itch me either and I love the fabric it produced - it has such character and toughness.

mme it’s the feb 28th 2019 edition

I also came to point to that Economist article (that I cannot fully read).

But bits I picked up from reading recently (not sure where but when I went to Argentina and felt some lovely wool). One aspect is breed and how and where the sheep has been reared. Same breed produces coarser or finer wool depending on terrain and climate, so buyers (the industrial buyers) are paying more attention to that.
The other aspect which I did not know is in the process, which Flo alluded to. Lanolin (greasy substance that covers it) is the other thing that makes wool itchy and can produce allergies and intolerances and this is washed out in the process, so modern processes are probably better at getting rid of this substance in the wool, some acids are used.
I read in different sources , but here is one
https://www.livescience.com/health/why-is-wool-itchy

Thanks for the clip time, I can't read it in full as I don't have a sub but it seems to bear out those memories. I did smile at the thought of wool manufacturers feverishly researching why it was unpopular when all they had to do was ask a child!

I wonder what they did to change it? I still wouldn't wear wool next to my skin but it was the itching of the old school stuff that was torture. Shetland wool was particularly bad - I still avoid it to this day.

Ah sorry, cross post with Red who might have answered my question about what they did to change it - thanks I'll take a look.

Lanolin (greasy substance that covers it) is the other thing that makes wool itchy and can produce allergies and intolerances and this is washed out in the process, so modern processes are probably better at getting rid of this substance in the wool, some acids are used.

i really like the wet sheep smell of lanolin. Palava have what they call their heritage range from wool from sheep, sheered, spun and woven in Yorkshire. They have it.

Castle I also love that smell 😀

I was prompted by our discussions to wear my Blacker yarn jumper today, and that is definitely good wool. It knitted up so smoothly and evenly and sewed up so well that it doesn't look home-made. I am naturally an even knitter, and experienced, but the fabric of this is the best I have ever produced.

I wore it to see the exhibition at the Museum of London, Docklands, about the London garment industry and the contribution made by Jewish people to it. It was really interesting, as an exhibition and then at the end, there was a very good visitors book with contributions welcomed from anyone with a connection to the industry. That was worth reading in itself.

Blacker Yarns are wonderful, and the mill is just around the corner from me (by about 10 miles).

We're just back from a short stay in Suffolk at MVRDV's Balancing Barn. Bo will recognise the firm's name I guess. Very split opinions on the building. I liked it, with reservations (there is no universe in which I want a bath instead of a shower), but DH really did not like it. Too much marine ply and uncomfortable stupid shaped over-designed furniture was his judgement. But the layout was very comfortable for eight and the local area was a delight.

'That's interesting about sci-fi. I really did think it was about weird worlds, and focused on the worlds, not the people. I shall give it a go.'

@MmePoppySeedDefage, no, absolutely not about weird worlds, the best science fiction is an attempt to understand humanity in the wider context of the Universe/existence, the dislocation from our current experience and/or the insertion of 'alien' situations allows for greater contemplation.

No-one thought the opium dreams of the Romantics were genre-fiction, but they absolutely were in the same way that brilliant science fiction writers release themselves from current ways of being, to allow themselves to think more freely about who, or what, we actually are.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea

And Keats who was influenced by the opium-addled romantics;

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What are both of those very well know poems if not science fiction/fantasy, epochs, imaginings free of convention.

But ultimately relating to the human experience.

I'd certainly recommend Ted Chaing, Story of Your Life and Others as an entry point if you enjoy literary fiction.

If you're interested in getting a bit of hard science in there, Tau Zero by Poul Anderson is an excellent novella that asks some pretty big questions whilst keeping the (enthralling) story very human.

I could go on!

Regarding P D James's 'Good wool', I always presumed it was the British UMC meaning of 'good', so excellent quality, nothing flashy.

Luminous Italian cashmere would not come under the auspices of good wool. Scottish cashmere or a Pendle tweed would be 'good wool'.

Likewise a working labrador or spaniel would be 'good dogs', an impeccably pedigreed Chihuahua or Papillon would not be 'good dogs'.

I may be wrong though!

'Good' wool as code for the 'right' people probably makes more literary sense.

Poppy I think you mentioned that exhibition previously as a friend of yours went? I had just returned from London and I was miffed I hadn't known of it then but now I'm even more miffed now as it sounds really good. <Goes to check train ticket prices>

Papyr, yes I'm very familiar with MVDRV, I've been inside their offices many a time. I think they're better than most comparable starchitect offices in considering their end user but balancing barn is a project where I don't think that philosophy reached very far, I suspect because it was always intended as a show piece holiday let.

It's too much of a dick swinging project for me (anything with a cantilever as its main feature automatically qualifies) but my nitpicking is with the vernacular, the layout is very reminiscent of shotgun houses in the southern US and the outer cladding is very reminiscent of those American Airstream shiny caravans, that always struck me as odd in the English countryside, it's not unusual for them to recycle concepts of projects that didn't work out elsewhere. I am curious because when it was finished it felt like the proportions were off, the cantilever was a smidge too long (and therefore lacked the ambiguity of stability which is the whole point of this visual trick) and without any landscaping bar some grass it looked a bit like it fell off the back of a truck and came to a halt at some point, is that less obvious now? The proportions could have been down to the lenses used for architectural photography and I'm hoping the landscaping has made it feel less like a random thing dropped in today. Ooh and has the swing survived?

Galiana very good point, and one I had not considered. I must re-read a PD James and see if I a) find the passages and b) read it differently with those glasses on!

The swing has survived! And I was very taken with the door out to it, which opens uphill on hydraulic jacks. The detailing is exceptionally done inside and out, and it is as well maintained and equipped as you'd hope for a fairly high-end holiday cottage, albeit the intention of the whole holiday agency is to encourage the public to experience 'real' modern architecture first hand.

The Airstream exterior almost vanishes at night, so it's negative space as you drive away from the unlit building except for glimpses of brake lights. And in some lights the reflective panels/tiles (which are not flat) disguise the outline of the cabin just reflecting the woodland site -- trees presumably grown somewhat since the original photography. There's no big landscaping plan, but Suffolk is flat and rural so the Piet Oudolf prairie planting makes sense. The dogwoods lend some winter colour but it's impossible to tell what else is there to follow. I liked it though not qualified to judge the proportions of cantilevers or ambiguous stablility. It was quite disconcerting walking over the huge plate glass floor/window, especially in daylight.

Would I want to own it? No. And DH really didn't like it at all.

Good to know the swing is still swinging. I think it probably does have one too many architectural tricks in it to feel like a real home.

Back to good wool, apparently there's something of an Ashes for the wool world and they allow fondling of the wool by the public

Link here it wasn't behind a paywall for me so hope it's like that for everyone.

Gosh thanks for that, Bo. 10.2 microns must be glorious.

Auto- cucumber has played a blinder on your post !

I would love to jump on that bale of fine wool!!