So hasn’t it been hot lately? I mean, SOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOT. Sweat in the night hot. Wake up in a pool of sweat hot. I have been strongly reminded of living in the tropics during this bizarre weather and have dressed accordingly.
Recently, my mother gave me all her kaftans, dating from the time when we lived in Malaysia during the mid to late 1970s. I hung them up together the other day, and with time on my hands I looked at them carefully. I ran my hand over the thin, cotton material and reflected that the kaftan was as good an invention as the toga. The Romans clearly knew what they were doing when they wrapped thin, airy sheets across their bodies. If you have ever been in Rome during the summer in 40 degrees Celsius, you will realise that it really is the only option.
The kaftan is not so different. Imagine a sheet, doubled with a hole for the head where it is folded. A little stitching holds it down on either side so that no one is being shocked when the wind blows. It allows all the humidity and perspiration to be absorbed in the material while keeping the body temperature as low as possible due to the delicacy of the cotton.
There are five of them, one in a cerulean blue, with a white and red inner design. The next is jet black with a crimson detail. There is one in bottle green with yellow detail, one in dark and light taupe and one in burgundy and scarlet. To me, they look and feel like Kuala Lumpur. They remind me of nights as a child when my parents played bridge with their friends, the mosquito coils lit, their insect killing smoke mixing with the cigarette smoke on the veranda. I used to occupy myself by wandering about on the grass with the boxer dogs as my pals and looking at things inquisitively, thinking about them, a little like I am doing now.
The kaftans also remind me of evening soirees that my parents held . The heat would often still be in the mid thirties with a humidity that is very similar to what we have had over the last few days. My mother would often wear her kaftans, some large pearls on her ears from our time in Japan smelling of Guy Laroche’s Fidgi perfume and looking stunning. My father, having worn hand made safari suits for work and looking like a film star, would be in a batik short sleeved shirt and light cotton trousers.
Handed down from my father, the Captain handsomely sported a red and black batik shirt only the other day to a delightful supper at a good friend’s house. We shall call the good friend The Leopard, because he is in every way a large, beautiful cat who is probably one of the best dinner party hosts in London. The Leopard opened the door to greet us sporting an emerald green safari suit that a tailor had made in India when he was on location for a film. Despite it being made when he was in his twenties, he could still fit in his fifties. We laughed for about fifteen minutes while drinking cocktails and then he changed, as Mel Brooks would say, into something more comfortable.
Another memory-prompting item was a dress made from an eye-catching cotton in a blue and violet flower print. The material was given to me alongside an entire set of spools of thread in differing colours. The person who handed these down to me will be known as The Wren. She lived on the top floor, three stairwells above me in Pimlico, at least twenty years ago.
On our first meeting, she proudly announced to me that she was “living in sin” with The Colonel, who had been married but had not been happy within it and had made the decision to run away with her. She had been a WREN in the second world war and had also been a journalist as well as a seamstress. As a young drama student in my early twenties, I adored them and often took a cup of tea or coffee with them. In private, she told me that the Colonel had difficulty resolving the fact that his son had left his heterosexual marriage in order to “live in sin” with another man. She had added that as a WREN, she had found that the army was “full of homosexuals whom she loved” and she was trying very hard to move the Colonel’s mindset. She was repaid for her beautiful spirit, because when the Colonel eventually died, The Wren was approached by the Colonel’s son and his male partner. They insisted on her coming to live nearby to them in a lovely apartment they had found, so that they could look after her. So when I take that heavenly blue wrap dress out of the wardrobe, I think about her and their consequent actions and feel happy.
One more clothing tale: the friend of my parents,The Walrus. He was of Anglo-Irish descent and stood at about six foot four in height. Huge white moustache across his upper lip, white hair Brylcreemed back. A huge Roman nose. He had in his youth dressed up for many occasions, fox hunting and other elitist pursuits. As he had entered late middle age, he was always smart if he needed to dress, but as he had been a member of the aforementioned nudist club, he preferred generally not to wear much.
My parents were members of the Oriental Club, where both the Captain and I, and my brother and my sister-in-law held wedding receptions. Like most of these clubs, there was a strict tie and jacket, long trousers rule. The Walrus turned up, the trousers coming to an end just above his ankles, an open necked shirt and loosely worn cravat round his neck. Instead of an expected response from the staff, which would entail not permitting his entry until appropriate clothing had been found, my father was summoned to him in order to properly celebrate and welcome the arrival of this great man. He arrived to find them bowing repeatedly at the Walrus. The lesson? When you have charisma and presence oozing out of every pore, it doesn’t matter what sartorial choices you make.
However, if my obsession with clothes is ever misunderstood in terms of there being a tendency to shallowness, I urge any person with that incorrect assumption to read this blog. I am a material girl, yes, but I am deep and full of memories.
Kate Terence's Letters from London 