the proper station

kaette kita yopparai, oshima nagisa (1968)

In Oshima Nagisa's Three Resurrected Drunkards, a character "becomes Korean" by wearing a Korean military officer's uniform. A sentiment echoed in Oliver Twist:

What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once- a parish child- the orphan of a workhouse- the humble, half-starved drudge- to be cuffed and buffeted through the world- despised by all, and pitied by none.

-- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

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paisley & madness

Pola Negri, endangering herself.

Alas, I feel how much even of incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and fantastic draperies, [...] in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted gold!

[...] as the visiter moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the draperies — giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.

--Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia

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Stoic

Just another day at the office for Mr. Lion.

Mr. Lion would teach you a thing or two about effortless style.

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