Coats: Chasms of Bliss

Notes on personhood

Mon Papa recently returned from a trip where he and Ma Maman spent time exploring all inches of the land of his paternal grandma, Sardegna. She passed away when he was very young so he remembers her very faintly now. He speaks fondly of Gianna, how she would call him ‘La Bellezza de la Nonna’ and pinch both his cheeks. Her maiden name was Carboni, and the elemental side of his family names together was something he’s always been proud of. The Sea of Marmara and Coal. He’d gone on this trip to visit the village she grew up in, the one that would carry infant Gianna and Lady Gianna as she shed her name to become a Marmara. When Papa got to the village believed to be her birthplace, he realised this to be untrue: said village was created in 1930 by Mussolini. Gianna Carboni was born in 1895. There’s also a family legend: her dad had his own company and made cork tops. He lost his entire income, apparently, due to extreme generosity. The truth is, it was probably gambling. “I really wish I’d known her better.” he’s been saying. We’re hunting for her now, we want the story of Gianna. Knowing he had the wrong story makes him miss her even more. Knowing Gianna lost her the narrative of her coal along the way makes me sad. 

I have always had many questions about who swims in my blood, but I never asked them. I yearned, as usual, to personally know the people within the dates and birthplaces through who they were. Somehow, I knew answers we had in regards to the family tree I drew from were partly incorrect. The parts of people that know one knows of, where do they go? How many portraits of people have been wrongly painted? What were the things you’d say the most, Gianna? Your favorite skirt, Gianna?

Very often I return to thinking and placing my own name: Marmara. A sea floating between two countries, Turkey and Greece. Aside from his immediate Alsatian and Italian blood pool, my dad found ancestors in Malta too, my sister in Milos. My name is everywhere in Turkey. There’s another Alexia Marmara in Alexandria and she used to always add me on Facebook. I’m French though. At least that’s what my passport says. It also says I was born in England. Not a crumb of my family is English. I don’t look French, I don’t think. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I can’t eat bread. I feel French the most when I’m not in France. My accent is a little off when I speak my native tongue, le Français, even though that’s the language I grew up speaking. What language do I think in? I write better in English. I could never understand my paternal grandfather’s accent but I loved that his hair grew upwards. My mother was homeschooled in Spain. She has an uncle called Norbert somewhere. Dad jokes about where her family is from, apparently it’s funny but I don’t get it. I’ve never met her grand-parents but I’ve spent all my Christmases in their home. Their attic is haunted. She has very, very, very tall cousins. I have a unibrow. I joke it’s like the Sea of Marmara, floating between two countries: my middle brow, floating between my eyebrows. I bet you didn’t know I was never taught to dive. I seldom keep a diary, or records of my experience. I write about and unblur the stories of others, but haven't written mine. So, in time one might ask, who was I, really, other than my passport? Or my disgustingly confusing medical records? Surely not my career in strangeness?

Personhood is crafted in a myriad different ways. Fashion highlights preference through world building or the showcasing of certain penchants towards silks or cotton, not polyester but brocade. I started collecting clothes when I felt too unwell to join the party. My party became the disguise. I collected and amassed, enthralled by the distraction. Skirts and dresses gave suffering a different shape. Tights wrapped and emboldened legs otherwise in pain. Bodices morphed weight-loss into a prized attribute. Lace ribboned my hair and fictionalised the loss of it. Waiting for eBay deliveries changed my notion of time. Colors woke me up, textures comforted. Shoes added music to my limited steps. A coat though, that was my obsession. Coats made me feel cinematic. A coat coated me. Coats caressed me throughout the months I disliked most. So if you’re reading this because you want to be my biographer here’s where you should begin, with the parts of the life of I through things I’ve coated myself in. Cloaks as clues. Chasms of bliss, arms wide open always. Don’t ask those who know me to write about me because apparently, if history teaches us anything, it’s that they’ll have no idea. 

We’ll start here because I believe this rune vixen gave me the parka bug. I was with Belinda when I bought this in Retro Woman in Notting Hill. I was immediately smitten because it reminded me of a boutis provençal and I liked the silent nod towards the craft of my good people. Symoblics a bit like Alchemy too. I was wearing it a little differently once and someone imitated the sound of a light-sabre which felt exhilarating and new to someone who, at the time, referred to herself as being ‘strictly rococo.’ It’s always a good time draped in you.

The inner layer, a Wallace Collection style sheath, what an electrifying find. Like a cannibalistic dance in Marie Curie on Highbury Corner. Another very early member accompanying me on my descent to coat inferno. It was she I wore when I first got compared to Pavarotti. The top layer, that’s my latest addition to the collection. Certainly not my last. I like the two of them together, I think they would look very good with raspberry coulis.

This I was wearing in Venice, February 2020, when I may have unknowingly brought Covid to Italy. I got laughed at in the Opera. Later that year I danced to Kate Bush at an outdoor social distancing party where all my nearest and dearest sang Nothing Compares To You as I walked towards them. In person and on Zoom.

Ah yes, my Rouge. My boss at the time couldn’t pay me so he spent all his Retro Woman vouchers on this babe to cover costs. This accompanied a strong and faithful red phase in which I tried to stick to this hue, sartorially speaking, for unwavering strength you see. My friend compared me to a Vulva. I believe I’m still in their phonebook named as such. I hope this nickname takes off.

This one I designed because I’ll never be able to afford coats by the greats. Extremely comfortable and relaxing particularly as it is made with upholstery fabric. I thought I was being sexually harassed in Nice Airport so I shouted at the men in question and they calmly responded I wasn’t at all their type but my coat was. A fundamental step in my development, one for the ages.

There’s an exhilarating urban myth surrounding the fact I would always find the single most remarkable clothes by chance, for very cheap. For years it was believed I had a shopping angel. This here is the finest example. I wore this in the bathtub in the newly-wed suite at my best friend’s wedding after I smudged the wedding contract. I think this might have been the day my shopping angel left me. I think this coat deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

I sought answers from an esteemed medium once because I was unsure about being paid in coats. She said I was destined to work with horses and a few months later I was appointed curator of The Horse Hospital. In celebration I did a little dance downstairs and took this silken coat off only to realise the pattern matched that of the Victorian stable floors. The coat had confirmed. I like that it makes me look a little like a road.

We’ll end these prayers on a Champagne note. I was wearing this blanket coat at a Dior Fashion Party I semi crashed. Valériane and I kept asking waiters to dance for us as they gave us tiny canapés. When it came to closing time, we were kindly, gently begged to leave but we wouldn’t. A mantra to live by.