Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bunting

I love glossy red doors. But a red door topped with bunting? Fantastic. I spotted this door at a firehouse near Thomas Circle in Washington D.C. today. The city is still decked out in red, white and blue for Obama's inauguration. Flags are essential for such celebrations, of course. But bunting is like a party dress trimmed in grosgrain, only unwrapped for the very best occasion. My friend Carla Hall shares my love of these billowy banners. (I've known her for 18 years and never knew this about her until this week, when we were traveling down Massachusetts Avenue in a cab.) She said: "The loops of fabric remind me of a more gentle time in our history."  Bunting is charming, to be sure. But there's more. It's an atavistic elegance.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think atavistic is just the right word. Somewhere in each of our shares of the collective female unconscious there's a great big swag of some lucious and wonderful babric. . .silk, brocade? Curtain or wall hanging? Take your pick.

Jg. for FatScribe said...

Tina -- re: bunting, i fondly recall movies and novels with genteel men and women bestriding blvds. in seersucker suits and holding parasols on their way home from church or on their way to sunday supper with friends and family lakeside. or, i can just look for tom wolfe the dandy of them all (now there's someone you should interview!).

Jg.