There were all these conservative colours that you don’t see any more, this navy blue, navy blue is the hardest colour to match so it dates really obviously because the idea people have in their head of a dark neutral blue changes over the years, people in the fashion industry, the way they perceive a dark blue is affected by the other colours they are working with at the time. So there was this navy blue that had survived like a finch in the Galapagos, and a prehistoric brown, and some greys that also date really quickly. They were not utilitarian colours, just colours of cloth that was meant to end up in respectable clothes and you would not imagine the body inside and you would not imagine that people would sign a form to put people on a train to go off and be butchered.
Adalberto was saying: Ma che brutto! Che brutto!
He was saying: If we were not coming now it would be too late!
And he was saying: You are the one with this special training, you must pick what you would work with, what they taught you to work with.
She said: I can’t.
He said: If I say something maybe it corrupts what you were taught.
She said: I can’t.
He said: OK, OK. Look, we take everything back with us, I don’t have time for this, when we get back you decide what you want to use.
He went to the saleswoman and he pointed to the back: Ich will alles verkaufen.
You could tell she was not used to customers who did not know German. You could tell Adalberto was not used to people who would not roll over and play dead if you would give them a lot of money.
She said: Kaufen, Adalberto. You are saying you want to sell everything.
In the fullness of time, said Adalberto. I will. But OK. Ich will alles kaufen, Madame.
But she couldn’t stand it, all this money sloshing around when she kept agonising about £600 for the studio, and where she would put the paintings if she could not pay the rent.
So she said: No. It’s stupid. There’s nowhere in the studio to put it all.
She said: Look, Adalberto, go away. Go for a walk. Go to a café. I can’t think with you standing there saying che brutto.
This was one of the luckiest things she ever did.
OK, said Adalberto. You’re the boss. I come back in an hour.
In Germany it is not like Britain, where you go into a shop and you ask for advice and they haven’t a clue. If you go to a building supply store the people working there will know all about the different grades of wood. If you go to a shop that sells beds the people working there will know all about the construction of the beds, and which beds are good for the back, and the beds are all really well built because people know what they’re doing. And if you go to a haberdashers the staff will know all about the different types of cloth, and the proper thread to use, and the proper zip to use with a particular weight of cloth, and if you try to buy the wrong thing they will be really strict. So it is holding back the economy because to get a certain sort of job you have to have had this training, but if you go into a shop they are knowledgeable. So Adalberto was the one who was so keen on this project but he was doing it in this impulsive Italian way which would never come out right, because to do it right, look, here was the shopkeeper who had been working in the trade since her teens, and Adalberto wanted to rely on the memory of someone who did an apprenticeship back in 1962.
So you have to love this about the Italians, that they are completely impulsive and unpredictable and inconsistent, and in the War they were not at all keen to exterminate the Jews, after the Germans occupied France Jews would go to Italy to escape the Vichy regime, and that is what you have to love about them. And if you look at Goethe, if you look at Germans who love the South, you see that is what they do love about it, that love of the moment.
But if you are going to do something properly you have to plan ahead or you will end up cutting the moment wrong. Then events will be all wrinkled and puckered.
She had brought the suit with her because if you are buying notions you can’t rely on memory. So now she brought it out of the bag and she explained that her friend wanted more like it, and maybe it would be quite hard because it was made in 1962. And then she told this little lie, because if she told the truth it would sound completely bonkers. She said she thought maybe he was making a movie and he wanted the costumes to be authentic. This would be something that a German would understand, that you would want the details to be correct.
The saleswoman looked at the suit. She said: Did you make this?
She said: Yes: a long time ago.
She had not been back to Germany since she left. After the years of hitchhiking she had gone to Britain, because if she would go to Germany she would kill herself. It was as if she had discontinued German, and then had to dig up a tube of it at the back of a cupboard.
The woman was looking at the suit, inspecting the workmanship and nodding and making little noises of appreciation. She said she thought she had something that would work.
She brought out this bolt of cloth that nobody would ever have picked up for something to wear. If you would make a suit in it the suit would last for a million years. It was this muddy olive green.
The woman said: Does he want different colours?
If you set out to make something ugly it is like setting out to make something beautiful, you will just end up with kitsch.
So she had to pretend she was just making some suits the way they used to make suits.
They had two kinds of grey, a navy blue, a dull mustardy tan, a black, two kinds of brown, and then the linings. There was a chest with 25 drawers, and on 5 of the drawers was a button. That was the selection of buttons. There were those metal zips that nobody uses any more.
You could see the shop had been there since before the War, so its fittings were unchanged. The chest of drawers for the buttons had remained unchanged, but production of buttons would have been suspended during the War, luxury buttons, and under the Communists this would not have been a high priority, the resumption of button production. After the Wall fell dressmaking would maybe not look sexy so the shop would not be rushing to expand. So there was something touching about the 5 buttons, it made you want to buy them, but to do the suit properly you would cover buttons in the same cloth, to show your skill.
And this was another thing that was quite old-fashioned, the shop had the linen that used to be used for the interface. It used to be you would use linen for the interface, and you would sew it in under the collar using these big stitches, basting, now they have an artificial material, and you can even iron it on, but in the east maybe they would be more conservative so this was this shop in 1992.
Adalberto came back. He looked at what was on the counter and he said OK, but we take the whole cloth because maybe they stop making it.
If the collar of a suit is to fall properly the inside, the underside has to be smaller than the outside. So you have to mould the cloth to shape it properly. There is a special stand of wood, with a wooden crossbar covered in padding, and you hang the jacket on it, and then you can work on it with an iron. It is not all sewing, there is a lot you can do with heat. But you need proper equipment. So they did not find this in Leipzig but they went to Berlin and bought one and it was a nightmare to get on the plane, but if you are flying first class they are more friendly and helpful, even the Germans. You would have thought Adalberto was their long-lost uncle, everyone was so anxious to help with the stand and the bolts of cloth.
So Adalberto was going to New York and he said he would like to do a show in 2 months.