Victoria
PICONE
She has MASTERED the ART of moving GRACIOUSLY through space leaving behind a trace of OTHER WORLDLINESS that cannot fail to be noticed by those that are SENSITIVE TO IT.
Victoria is a woman of such delicate grace and beauty that people often stop her in the street or shops and ask her if she is a ballerina. She has mastered the art of moving graciously through space leaving behind a trace of other worldliness that cannot fail to be noticed by those that are sensitive to it. She has been a close friend and inspiration to me for many years.
When I first conceived this website (Ageless Living) it was because I had observed Victoria (amongst others) and felt that there had to be a record somewhere of such an ordinary yet extraordinary woman – as we all have a certain quality within us, just with our particular flavour or fragrance.
Victoria has an innate sense of boho style and artistry, she is a collector of beautiful things. She rejects anything she feels is too, ‘straight’ – it’s just not her style.
Neither for her the life of minimalism as she loves to seek out the unusual, the quirky detail, the edgy cut or subtle colour mix and then buy it… and keep it.
Her wardrobe and collection of shoes has always fascinated me and is one of the biggest I have seen. If you have a special occasion to attend, or a themed wedding and need something to wear (as long as you are of similar size) you can always go to Victoria – she will plunder her wardrobe and cupboards and bring out just the right dress, top, skirt, shawl, belt or piece of jewellery. If you ask her where she got it – she will dismiss the question with a gracious wave of the hand and mutter something vague, as she simply can’t recall or has had it too long to remember.
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She loves old things with their superior workmanship and flair which is generally missing in our modern-day clothes landscape, particularly here in Australia where bland can often be the rule of the day. She is eclectic in her taste for clothes and does not limit herself to the stylist’s common maxim of neutral, colour-coded basics with an accent of colour here and there. As she once said to me, ‘I don’t play by the rules’.
To go shopping with Victoria is an experience in itself… She is an old trader by nature having shopped and traded clothes, bric-à-brac, artisanal food and beauty products in years gone by, so when going shopping with her you can feel her radar switch on – all senses alert for whatever treasure that is out of the ordinary that might come her way. It’s almost like she can sniff things out, her eyes roving through shop windows, racks of clothes and then moving in on something that has caught her attention, a colourful shoe, a blouse with an embroidered cuff, a pant suit in orange. She constantly finds things that I would have passed over – it’s like magic really, as though she is calling out these objects from where they are hidden and then all of a sudden, there they are presenting themselves to her. Her eye is extraordinary and she loves a bargain, the bargain rack is often the first port of call, but if anyone can find something beautiful in what looks like an otherwise drab array, it will be Victoria.
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As she says, ‘It is the beauty that ignites a resonance within’ and then she instinctively moves towards it.
And there’s another thing about going shopping with her, she will always spend about a third of what I find myself shelling out but still return home with her own stash of treasure. She must be the only person I’ve ever met who was offered a discount by a particularly astute bunch of Kashmiri traders in a shop in Vietnam – she didn’t even have to ask or bargain – they came to her.
Something I’ve learnt through shopping with and observing Victoria is that she never puts a limit or boundary on where she might find something spectacular. This has been a great learning for me as I tend to be a bit of a mid to high end snob, only wanting ‘good quality’ clothing but I’ve now learnt that the ‘right thing’ can turn up anywhere and not to have any pre-conceived ideas about what or where I might buy and what it might cost. Sometimes the cheapest things I’ve ended up wearing the most.
Talking with Victoria about her love of beautiful clothes, her artistry and flair and what this means to her I wanted to draw her out to express the detail of what happens for her in the process of choosing and wearing clothes as there is such a sense of beauty and harmony expressed through what she does.
I LOVE the creativity
and BEAUTY
of DRESSING
as an art form.
ON
EXPRESSION ...
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find a gem. There’s a part of me that actually loves that and
when I was in London I used to love going to Portobello Road (a big market in West London) and going through all the stalls and collections of secondhand clothing. That to me was like being in heaven.
Of course, you have to be in the mood, but just the fabrics and the things you would find – it’s like there’s some edge to it. You know it’s not what you see in mainstream.
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That comes over as a strong theme for you. In mainstream it’s becoming more and more the same. Twenty years ago there was so much more that was different with different designers doing different things, in Australia at least. Many of them have all been pushed out of business.
You go shopping now and you see the same or similar in all the shops basically. And that’s dampening down something in our expression.
– JB
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It’s like a directive to walk a certain way. Part of how I am impulsed to dress is not playing by the system, not letting something from the outside rule the natural inspiration to be in my own movements.
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Part of the not wanting to look the same or straight (as mentioned above) is that I don’t want to be put in a box and told ‘this is the fashion’, ‘this is the way we move’, ‘this is the way we dress’. And that’s what we get fed from every level. If you succumb to that or bow to that, before you know it you are part of that and you’ve lost any sense of your own true inner expression. There’s a difference between wanting to be different to stand out and be looked at and using an expression that allows you to walk in a way that is not defined by what the outer needs it to be.
Are clothes important to you? – JB
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Yes, I get attracted to an eclectic style you don’t see around everywhere. I like to mix things up, add some vintage and so on, I would say my taste is a bit left. I love the creativity and beauty of dressing as an art form. I am drawn to the refinement of the garments, a lace trim, the feel of the fabric, the texture and pattern.
You have an amazing way of putting things together and your own unique style… it’s like you are synthesising things probably from something to do with your past… echoes of another time and place perhaps? – JB
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Yes, it’s not a conscious thing, nothing I have a memory of but something will draw me to a piece that has a resonance from the past. It might have a kind of an ethnic or slightly Persian feel and even if it’s a piece that is just co-ordinated with something that’s really plain, it has a quality… I guess I really never wanted to look like everyone else. And I like quirky shoes as well. It’s just fun, fun to dress up and fun to create different shapes and styles, mix colours.
But often I find things when I’m not looking. I’ll go out and something will just catch my eye you know, and I’ll go ‘Oh wow!’ And the garment seems very impractical at that moment but then there comes a time when that item has its time and its place. Something will come up, an event, a wedding, a party and ‘I’ll go: that’s why I bought that, this will go with this.’ So it happens very naturally.
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So, it’s a natural kind of sense you have. – JB
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Yes, and I often enjoy going to markets and collective type places, because they are not all the same and you can actually find something in amongst a whole lot of rubbish, but you might
Using EXPRESSION to allow you to WALK
IN A WAY that is NOT DEFINED
by the outer
ON
SENSITIVITY...
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It's not there to make a statement about ‘me’ then. – JB
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No and that’s part of the magic because all that is going on within before you give it outward expression. There are many layers to us as women that can be communicated in our movements.
The alchemy of a woman walking not defined by the rules allows the space for other women to connect to that without saying anything. It’s just there.
Do you feel that that is something that’s developed over your life time – that you have refined it more and more as you’ve got older? Has your dressing style changed as you’ve got older? – JB
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I mean it’s definitely changed, it’s kind of the same but it’s adapted to where I am now, my stage of life. I don’t like to wear things that feel too young for me but it is not so much an age thing as a deeper honouring of the relationship I now have with my body. There is an exquisite sensitivity and refinement that calls me to that in my clothing choices and way of living.
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What you choose is what you’re feeling inside on a particular day… – JB
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Yes definitely. Clothing supports the quality of expression that is coming through you. So that might be in the choice of a certain colour or it could be in the refinement of the fabric. Whereas in the past I mightn’t have considered that at all, it’s just a natural progression that’s happened and become part of my expression which is reflective of the inner relationship and deeper connection that I have with myself and also the delicateness of my body and the fragility in the true sense of that word – and in that way dressing is like an art.
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It is an art because you know when you’ve got it right, what you put on reflects something within you. It takes a certain level of presence to pick up things that really do express some true aspect of you. – JB
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Yes, and clothing supports you to walk and be in the quality that you feel, it just confirms it.
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I think a part of what we wear being important is also that it concerns other people because in our clothes choices you are signalling something to others. Does that come into it when you’re getting dressed? – JB
It definitely comes into it because that’s how it plays out, but it’s not a conscious thing particularly to where I say, ‘I’ll wear this today because someone needs to see this’
I know how I dress has an effect by what gets said to me and sometimes I might get a surprise by how much people have picked up about who I am, my quality, and I haven’t consciously intended to put that out and yet that’s what they come back with. Sometimes I will get a surprise as someone will say, ‘That’s your way, you just are that gracefulness walking.’ And I go, ‘That’s how they see me’. And what adds to my expression is that ritual is also very strong in my life. For example every day at the birth of the day, I set the foundation and I always light incense at each end of the house and if I forget to do this it feels like something is slightly amiss and that will affect everything.
This ritual is a reminder, an honouring of the day which sets the rhythm and flow of that within it. When I haven’t done that, I think: where am I? I’ve gone into a movement instead of honouring the space before I move into what the day will be. And getting dressed, picking what to wear, is all part of the rhythm and flow of that particular day and what needs to be expressed at that moment.
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Photos: Alan Johnston and Iris Pohl