FASHIONISTA FINDS BY BLANKA LTD

On my birthday when I was six my great great grandmother passed away. She left behind her an attic full of clothes, stored in dusty moth proof bags, that my mother brought back to our flat and hung in her bedroom wardrobe. To a child these dresses, mostly evening wear - heavy beaded satin and glistening gold brocades - seemed archaic if not otherworldly. Opening the doors to the wardrobe was like entering another time, I would stand there, softly stroking the old fabrics or brushing my chin against the cold and smooth satin. I felt like I was grasping for something I could not yet fully comprehend - something long lost - something that so inherently belonged to my great grandmother and yet at the same time had nothing at all to do with the old lady that we used to go visit. As a child, to me she was mostly just old. She moved so slowly through the stillness of her house, the doily covered mahogany furniture, the yellowed lace curtains and porcelain decorations. It was almost like a frozen landscape, like a dolls house. Nothing moved. We would go there for tea, and in typical Swedish tradition, she would always serve up seven types of biscuits, all of which she still baked herself, at the age of 96. In the small chamber adjacent to the kitchen, lay her husband, almost always screened from us children by a closed door. It was one of the many secrets that house held. We would hear him cough through the wall and occasionally catch a glimpse of the crumpled cotton bedding and his pale white arm and face as she entered and exited. Then one day the door was left wide open and the bed was made with fresh sheets.

Not only did the elaborate gold gowns and beaded satin dresses with boned corseted bodices seem to have come from a place of fairytales or royals, they also seemed so far removed from the world of my great grandmother. A world of stillness and simplicity. It was not until we found her wedding dress and along with it the photos from her wedding that some little piece of history dislodged itself and unravelled. It was a simple long sleeved dress in antique cream with a very very fine floral brocade and covered buttons up the back and it was tiny. It was so small in fact, that as a child it fit me almost perfectly, if not for the length. It was the first time history took shape before me and became something almost palpable, something physical: My great grandmother had once been young, I would once be old. That made to measure wedding dress carried the ghost of her body. She was there, in each seam and thread, as was her youth, her joy, her sorrows, her hope and future.

And this is why I love my job. For each garment carries this presence, this weight of all things lived through, even when its stories elude us, or it's previous owners are long lost. It's an absolute honour, in so many ways, to carry on this history, to see these garments live on with new owners.