By: Rashida Ashley
There are a few things about Paris that I've come to love. It's dewy summer mornings with its velvet kiss of light, pleasant walks on a pavement that carries Paris' heartbeat, and most importantly her vendors. To an unassuming native New Yorker, Paris is a city that truly has eager eyes, inviting interesting humans to some of the most intricate stands.
As I returned home to her streets, she called me to a stand of fashion that reminded me of another home. One I have every ambition to return to one day. The stand was filled with beautiful african print garments. Two piece sets, fans, and, my personal favorite, dresses.
I browsed the racks and laid eyes on three garments that rang the bell of my inner Couture Muse. One was brown, another orange, and the last was a vibrant red. Although different in color each dress had the same style and print. That of a spaghetti strapped sweetheart neckline and patterns of leaves, flowers and stemms that ran, twisted, and curled through the surface of the fabric. I touched the brown garment and felt the charm of the dress. The fleshy fibers of the piece that hugged my fingerprint made me realize the source of the product came from a hand of quality.
It was then that I felt that Parisian love I was missing since I started going to Paris for my MFA at NYU. My body jolted as I reached for the hanger of the orange dress, then the brown and finally the red. Just like any woman experiencing the pull and vulnerabilty of the love of a piece, I hesitated. Each dress was unique and beautiful and lovely although all the same.
I knew better. I wasn't seeing the pieces for what each one was and took another look. This time, I just tapped in. As my hands brushed each one, I felt how the dresses settled within my chest. I made my decision.
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Are some decisions finalized in red?
I wasn't so sure. My heart faltered as a tried to zip up the red dress. I wilted as I realized that although the dress made it past my hips, the zipper barely made it up my waist. Since a tragic breakup I gained, from filling voids with movie theaters and restaurants. A disheartening end to a day that was supposed to be filled with the magic of privileged wonder.
I was so annoyed I heavily debated going right back and returning it. I couldn't bring myself to do it. The pull I initially felt from the racks under the Sun's Paris still pierced as I eyed the garment in a spent heap on my bed. I got up and gathered the gown, unable to release its spell yet recoiling as I read the "L" on the tag.
Not even a large. I sucked my teeth and turned the dress around, lifting her in the air to get a better look. We're not going anywhere. You'll fit. I turned the dress around to once more look at the tag. The L was clear as day, yet so was the brand name Look'afrik.
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Chanson d'amour.
It's a beautiful french love song composed by Gabriel Faure. I believe it to be a proclaimation of love. The song explores the surface and inner being of the object of the singer's desires. The eyes, brow, mouth, and voice playing on the surface of the person of affection. With the eyes ever present throughout the piece, a portal for love, we know of the inner being of her loved one by him being a rebel and a wild one. Traits that she is inspired to reflect in her own life.
This song portrays love's first sighting of a sprout. With the singer's heart requiring more courage than she gives to herself. Courage to be a wild rebel. Both in the realm of the love she gives and and the love she receives. This song is a true art song and one, I felt, needed that art to not only be reflected within my voice but in the dress I chose to wear.
When I chose to wear my gown from Look'afrik, I felt I made the right decision. I found my dress in a place that felt wild to me. Not being Paris is wild but because my journey to getting there was.
The gown's pattern of flowers and leaves turning and flipping through every bended vine echoed the wild that the singer so admired in her muse. The dress seemed to embody that light towards the direction of the singer who wore it. The bold red aided towards that of the Rebel, brought together by the love of the sweetheart neckline.
Like the low rumble of a sprout penetrating through soil, my voice trembled as I began to sing Chanson d'amour on The Queen's Summer Vocal Institute's stage. All the same, as my voice settled into its wild, I was surprised that after months of practicing the piece my voice subtly began to settle into the french dialect.
All of that was the heart of a rebel.
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