tiny dancer

Did you do ballet as a little girl? I did, until I discovered ponies, and boys. I remember my last day - I think I snapped because Miss Inder, with her perfectly set russet hair and limber limbs made a little girl so nervous she wet her leotard in the middle of the mirrored studio. We weren't allowed to leave while it was mopped up, rather, we had to dance around a puddle as the poor girl cried in a corner. Perhaps this is why I haven't seen Black Swan. But I loved it, I think, ballet. I loved the way my mother would do my makeup before pantomime. I loved trying on the costumes for the end of year performance, ones my mother slaved over for weeks, cursing over the pattern. I was, in turns, a golden coin in an itchy lame bikini; a cat with a leotard and black tights and a white, furry tail and hat; a monkey the same year (same leotard, shoes and tights, just a different tail, stuffed with newspaper and held high with wire). My sister was a pumpkin, a water nymph. At the end of each week of performances we would be presented with a 'ballet basket', a wicker haul filled with ballet themed gifts, soap shaped like ballet shoes, sickly sweet. Hair back in a face-stretching bun. Plies, first-second-third position, pirouettes, bleeding toes. Pink elastic, a trip to London for my godmother's wedding where we visited Bloch and saw The Nutcracker. For her wedding I wore a white leotard, a full length white tulle skirt and white satin ballet slippers.

Anyhow, that's what seeing Lover's new collection reminded me of.