Around the World in 80 Dresses

I didn't discover the end of the world, yet. I only came to Tierra del Fuego , the Land of Fire, which is indeed a sort of Finis Terrae. The Argentinians call it Fin del Mundo . There, I had the privilege to talk with the American lady scientist Natalie Prosser Goodall, who discovered and assembled the most intriguing collection of Arctic sea mammals further to be read about in my travel book Woanders / Somewhere else (for details see www.edithwerner.com ). Some 40 years ago Natalie came to this wild country on a short stint as a student, met a local sheep farmer and stayed. In the town Ushuia the last forepost of civilisation, I met a lady artist who is a descendant of the first inhabitants, the. Yaghan . They were living on their boats and the fires they entertained on their swimming homes inspired the name Tierra del Fuego. For one year I shared with you, dear reader, the endless variety of womens' adornements I discovered  on my travels. Thank you for having...

My beloved doll, mother with child, hails from Salta in the Andean province of Argentina. The cult of the Pachamama, the mother of the earth, is still practiced in this remote part of the country. I hope my muneca will not mind that I put on a Japanese dress as there are quite some Japanese immigrants in Argentina. The reversible kimono dress, soft and cosy, is a find from Tokio’s huge department store Isetan . I happened to be there at Christmas time. The main shopping street in Shinjuku was sparkling with Christmas decoration and at Isetan’s coffee shop they served slices of true German Stollen, a special fruit cake making me feel at home. To my great joy the store was a branch of the Holländische Kakaostube , the traditional coffee shop in Hannover, Germany where I use to by my Christmas cookies, Z imtsterne, Dominosteine,  Marzipankartoffeln and  gingerbread, delicious!

The embroidered pouch, the petit point bag and the silk gloves are cherished fashion items from my mother and grandmother. Used sparingly with a modern outfit there is still place for these heirloons. My belts are a  mix as happy as it is incoherent. For the lilac belt made of crocodile leather I spent the greater part of my first salary on a new job when I was young and a spendthrift. It happens to match the pouch of the same colour from Argentina, I acquired much later in that eldorado for leather lovers. Shoes get a whole new meaning depending on where to wear them, for outdoors, for indoors, and for those late night outings. So, just one or two pairs of black ones won't do. However, I am neither Imelda Marcos nor Grace Mugabe. My shoes are still fitting into my wardrobe albeit I have to admit shoes can become addictive. Here they crowd my water lily basin’s rim to be in the lime light.

Eroll Arendz from Cape Town is a magician. He knows how to make women look good. The shapes of his dresses and coats are rather simple. His secret lies in the cut. Add lovely fabric and fluid forms. I have chosen the long brown dress and a beige coat enveloping me in the lightest wool you can imagine. On colder days I change the coat for the fun fur west by Wanama from Buenos Aires. Their motto is Live better dreams . Well, Live your dreams would have done it for me, but Argentinians like to exaggerate. Adding a pale aquamarin shawl to the dark brown makes the dress fit for an outing for dinner in town. The plain brown dress offers endless possibilities for accessorizing. Playing with accessories is so much fun. It does not matter if it is classic, fancy or crazy, if it is costing next to nothing or preciously hand crafted by a renown arrtisan. With Eroll Arendz' dress everything goes.

The boots are the stars. Ricky Sarkany is the master of the suede ankle boots and the long, long riding style boots. No wonder, thinking of Argentina is thinking of leather. Ricky may have the material at hand, but it is his genius that produces shoes and boots to die for. © Jorge Royan, Creative Commons The mauve suede ankle boots are too precious for walking the streets of Buenos Aires. I would have to jump across potholes and dog poo. I rather take one of the asthmatic black-and-yellow cabs. There are literally thousands of them roaming the streets in search of customers. In my neighbourhood are some small shoe shops which cater for another sort of customer, for the aficionados of tango. I am always wondering how the women can dance this passionate and complicate dance in those fragile high heeled shoes, but they can. They have rhythm flowing in their veins. Every now and then there are spontaneous dance parties on Avenida de Mayo in central Buenos Aires and everybody...

 Argentina and Chile are Poncho countries. The Indians and later the gauchos used to ride across the Patagonian pampa wrapped in their poncho which doubled as blanket at some make shift shelter during the night. The gaucho is nearly a figure of the past, but the poncho stayed. I can testify to the warming capacity of an ample woollen poncho. I did not cross the wind swept plains on horseback but even as a pedestrian ambling in the street of some forlorn  Patagonian town I experienced the fierce wind and was happy to have my poncho tightly wrapped around me. The dark red one is coarse but quite warm. The soft grey one is the city version from Mandra Diseño in Buenos Aires. The poncho has no button or zip. You best close it with a tupo , the silver pin known since times gone by. And it serves as a welcome excuse to endulge in ornate silver jewellery which comes in many enticing shapes.

I admit to have a penchant for the tailored suit. When I was still working it used to be a sort of uniform. You didn’t have to think much about what to put on. Just two suits and assorted blouses or jerseys and you were fit for a business trip. Now that I am retired the opportunities for suits present themselves not so often. Still I like to wear a suit every now and then on an autumn day in the city or for a lunch appointment. The best: this autumn season the suit is having a renaissance. Look at all the mannequins in suits at the Paris Fashion Week! So, suit is even rhyming to young and fashionable, mainly the version with pants, though. The chequered dark red and green suit was made in Italy by Bartolomei and the black and beige by Viviana Fougá in Buenos Aires. It is sheer joy to stroll along the streets of central Buenos Aires, Recoleta or Palermo and to do some leisurely window shopping. You will never finish browsing. Some boutiques and dress maker’s ateliers are tucked aw...

He hails from South America and he does not rely on his heavenly nature alone. He carries a spear to protect me. In many a church in Argentina, Brazil and Chile I saw paintings of angels in arms. I am not sure if these strange attributes reflect the violence which accompanied the spreading of the Roman Catholic belief amongst the Indians of South America or if it is a topic the local painters copied from European baroque images. I once listened to the lecture of an art historian who was adamant that the latter is the right interpretation. Let’s leave the matter to the experts. I feel somehow protected by my guardian angel although he is just a copy. I am posing with him in some fake fur from Chile, his country of origin. It is all about fake and fun.

Velvet used to be a rare and precious fabric. Not so much any more but it still creates a festive atmosphere. You think of a candle light dinner or a room illuminated by crystal chandeliers.  My favourite Cape Town designer  Eroll Arendz   may have had this in mind when he created the west of copper coloured silk incrusted with matching velvet and adorned with velvet wristbands. A less formal take on velvet is the vintage purple suit with loose pants and a shirt by Jeff Gattana, Paris. It fits perfectly to the knitted coat from Argentina’s Andean city Córdoba.  Raquel Rossetto has used the velvet sparingly, just for the buttons. The curvy applications on the coat remind me of Córdoba’s baroque cathedral. The second biggest town of Argentina has a much more Spanisch ambiente than cosmopolitan Buenos Aires. The colonial past is still lingering in the streets and the old buildings with the backdrop of the Sierras Chicas.     ...

We are at 4000 Meter height above sea level in the Argentinean Andes on our way to the ancient town Tastil on board of El tren a las nubes / The train in the clouds . At the start in Salta we were already at an altitude of 1187 Meter. The incredibly daring trajectory of this railway line in the highest mountain rage of South America and the thin air makes for an unforgettable travel.  In the small museum on site in Santa Rosa de Tastil I see her and fall in love: la bailarina de Tastil. The graciousness and elegance of her movement puts this petroglyphe of a dancer from the 14 th century at the side of the great classical ballerinas of or time.  The Atacamas, an enigmatic people of pre-Inka times created the lovely figurine and engraved the geometrical patterns of their cosmology in stone. I was lucky and found an artist who made impressions of these mysterious patterns and sold me the labyrinth shown next to me. It seemed appropriate to pose with this Andean imag...

Argentina evokes the faded charm of Buenos Aires impregnated with languid tango music and dancing, but there is more to it in this vast country nearly as large as a continent. The Andean provinces of the far North West are a world apart. In the crisp air of the mountain villages and small towns the indigenous Indian culture seems to have survived more easily than in the Eastern plains.   © http://www.turismo.catamarca.gob.ar I strolled for hours along the stands and shops in Catamarca’s Mercado artesanal.  The town lives up to its   sonorous name San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca. Here you won’t find mass products for the tourist market. Every single item is handmade, intricately embroidered, carved, etched or chiselled.  © http://www.turismo.catamarca.gob.ar A lovely silver ring with a rhodochrosite, the locally mined rose coloured gem stone and an embroidered shawl were vying for my attention. On that chilly day in late autu...

On the flea market in Buenos Aires I came across the lovely statuette of Don Quijote. The flea markets and antique shops of the Argentinean capital are a treasure trove. I dedicated a whole chapter of my little guide book on the city of tango to the Sunday pastime of hunting and gathering so much cherished by the Porteños. My Don Quijote is reading a book which makes him dear to me. I like to talk to him. As he insists on my addressing him in Spanish he became my Spanish teacher. He is a proud man. I best wear something Spanish during our encounters. I do hope the modern twist of my outfit from skunkfunk will not annoy him. If it does I shall have to change into a period dress like the beautiful ladies on Argentinean National day.