Mazurka In A Flat

There is not very much that inspires my creativity better than another similarly creative person; so today I'm going to tell you about Kasia.

Kasia wasn't her real name, but she was Polish, so it will do. I met her through my next-door neighbour, who quite possibly deserves an entire post in her own right, but for the moment suffice it to say that she was very intelligent but not especially stable. She was also a lesbian, which would have been neither here nor there except that I discovered rather belatedly that she had her eye on me. I really wasn't at all sure what to make of that, because I must admit I always thought all lesbians had a fully functioning gaydar and only ever fell for other lesbians, or at the very least bisexual women; but apparently not. Anyway, my lesbian neighbour - I'd better give her a name too, so we'll call her Stella - was in a band, and she persuaded me to come and listen to them. I had no idea at the time why she was so keen for me to come along; I don't like most pop music, which she knew very well. But I thought, well, I'm probably not going to enjoy the evening, but she's had a rough time lately so she could do with a bit of encouragement. And so I went to hear this band.

I was surprised. I'd been expecting a regular venue, with a stage, neat rows of seating, maybe a bar, that sort of thing. Instead, the band turned out to be playing in one of those old industrial buildings that are dotted about all over Sheffield; it had been converted, but barely. I don't recall all the details, but I seem to remember there was still a lot of visible brickwork and piping and other stuff that one would normally expect to be neatly plastered over. I think there was a bar, but if so it was in the same room, not separate; and there was no stage, just an area at one end of the building with a whole shedload of arcane sound equipment. And the band turned out to be exceedingly loud and noisy, and not at all to my taste, but then it would have been a miracle if they'd been otherwise; they did, however, have some good lyrics, so I politely complimented Stella and her friends on those, and also made some comment about the band having tremendous energy, which I was sure would be appreciated. It was.

It also turned out they weren't the only band playing; and one of the other bands had a lead singer who was so good that I realised at once she must have been classically trained. I wasn't enjoying the stuff she was singing, and I could have wished she'd ditched the microphone as she was clearly very well able to project her voice without it; but I know a good voice when I hear one. This was Kasia, and it turned out she was a good friend of Stella's, so of course Stella had to introduce us.

Kasia and I clicked instantly, despite an age gap of twenty years or so. She turned out to be a highly talented young woman. As well as being a very fine singer, she also spoke fluent English, wrote all her own songs, danced, played at least one instrument (I can't remember which one now), and, rather interestingly, did modelling, which turned out to take a lot more skill and effort than I had realised. I had always vaguely thought it just required one to wear whatever one was asked to wear and then pose as requested in front of a camera, but - certainly in Kasia's case - it was rather more involved than that. When I met her, she was wearing a pair of insanely high heels, and I commented admiringly on her skill at not only being able to walk in them but to do so elegantly. Oh, yes, she said, and explained that she'd had to learn to to that for the modelling. So she showed me some of her modelling photos, many of which showed her in some quite strange positions, and that turned out to be something else she'd had to learn to do. Hold a really bizarre pose, make it look completely natural, and keep smiling. Kasia was great at smiling.

I explained that I was a reasonable dressmaker, and said I would very much like to design her some stage outfits; partly this was simply because I took to her, but there was also an element of stepping outside my regular comfort zone. I know what I'm going to need to think about when I'm designing something for myself; designing for someone else is completely different. There are obviously different fitting issues just to start with (unlike me, Kasia was actually built pretty much like the fashion croquis shown here; she was naturally thin, rather than being a manic dieter, so it suited her), but, more than that, someone like Kasia is going to want a completely different set of outfits from someone like me. So I did about a dozen sketches, two of which you see here, and Kasia was initially highly enthusiastic. It looked like the makings of a perfect team.

Alas, the perfect team never got off the ground. I don't know, but I suspect that had something to do with Stella. A few days later, two things happened: one was that I found out that Stella fancied me, and the other was that Kasia suddenly and inexplicably cooled off. She stood me up for coffee several times. Stella did seem to be in denial about the fact that I wasn't a lesbian, and one or two things she said made me think that she not only thought I was, but she'd decided I now fancied Kasia; well, Kasia wasn't either, so if Stella had told her that, it would have completely explained her behaviour. It was sad. I'd lost a potentially fun friend and I now had a dozen or so orphaned outfits I'd never wear myself.

But all may not be lost. While I do regret Kasia flaking out on me, at least the outfits might possibly be retrieved, albeit not necessarily all in their original form. I have an ambition to join an amateur operatic society one day; not as a singer - I'm vocally competent to do so, but most productions would struggle with one of the chorus using a wheelchair - but as a costumier. I mean, just look at that Pirouette costume in the picture. Wouldn't it be perfect for the chorus of grisettes in Die lustige Witwe? Trippel-trapp und trippel-trapp!