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Serendipity

Author: 
Mary Kuper

©
Image Credit: 
unknown author

©
Image Credit: 
unknown author

The artist reveals her motivation: "I wanted to illustrate the word 'serendipity' because it encloses a complete fairy tale."

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I smooth down my skirt, toss my hair. My buckles rattle with each step

Like little bayonets. They’re called knife pleats for a reason.

 

The blue wool of a Jaeger dress is better than twenty dinners with an idiot.

Bring me the head of Cristóbal Balenciaga! It’s a hoot

 

To sneak cigarettes in some Boston dive, pretend I’m a divorcée.

The curl in a bouffant will always betray you. What’s the point

 

Of living like a cartoon nun when you can pose for the camera

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I lay my fingers on the plate like a fan. I’ve been waiting all my life

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Martinis with the ‘girls’, pretend I’m thin as a polyester dress.

 

A string of pearls round my neck like an artificial promise:

The harsh taste of gin like an unrequited laugh.

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Quilt Poem: Teenage Kicks

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after Gwendolyn Brooks and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

 

we make ourselves dizzy on fumes & fruit cocktails        think of plants

how they are visible to each other            take pics of the best looks for the record

if there are flowers, flowers             the flounce on a hem

 

we try everything on           each body has its pose               a dress that almost resembles a vine

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between some image a blur

 

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our hair as big as a neon sign

 

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I would like to be the last person on Earth

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Vivienne Westwood, a cento

 

The garment should say: ‘I am this’

A story of itself

It’s just so creative to put a sentence together

Greet me by ‘how lovely you are’ rather than ‘I like your hat’

I haven’t thought properly about dying

But if I were to write anything on my tombstone

It would be ‘The only revolution is culture’

Every time I speak to someone, I assume they understand

How easy it would have been not to lead this life

I could have been a schoolteacher

What you are given for free should not be owned

Love affairs go a long way to helping life pass you by

Behave according to the clothes

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If I go into a room and see Pamela Anderson looking incredible

I’m going to be delighted

The sun makes my skin itch when I’m on a bicycle

A nude is never really naked

I know exactly what I would like my legacy to be

Form is always becoming something else

I design for a world that doesn’t exist, you know, one like this but better

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