A few years back, I was going through the tv channels to find something to watch while I worked on a project, when I came across a program about the fashion designer Betsey Johnson. I’ve always been attracted to her quirky sense of style – I even have a few of her dresses. One, which I bought several years ago, looks similar to the bathing dresses that were worn during the Victorian era.
One day I was wearing the dress and I was in the subway station on my way to work. I had on red tights and my hair was curled. Suddenly, a young man began to sing “On The Good Ship Lollipop”. I guess I reminded him of Shirley Temple!
Anyway, back to the tv program about Betsey Johnson. It showed a room in Betsey’s New York City apartment which was packed with things that she had found at flea markets that inspired her dresses – details or fabric that she liked, porcelain figurines, and tea cups with designs and patterns that she found appealing.
Up until that point, I thought that my desire to collect objects that had designs or color combinations that appealed to me was some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder. I have since realized that it is just a normal behavior shared by many creative people.