'The trans-siberian express', she said emphatically.
And suddenly both of us were caught up in this magical, mystical, opulent world of the 1930s (who can envisage a long train ride in any other decade, i ask you?), swathed in furs and luxury, dressing for dinner and tea, jewels locked away in a safe below the desk.
I have always been fascinated by this era, even to the point where i only wore authentic 1930s petticoats and clothing at one stage, and even though i no longer dress like a countryfied woman recently escaped from a shooting party, an evelyn waugh refugee, if you will, I still feel a pull towards this time period. The jazzy beats that so often emanate from my room are characterised by that fuzziness of early 20th century records, i still carry around a little compact mirror with sea shell pattern on the lid, bought for a fiver in Brighton, I still revel in the comforting words of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, tales of being 'tight' (drunk) and enjoying the bright-eyed effervescence of youth.
I think the 1930s is the best decade for being young. Fresh from World War I all those children too young to understand how serious the Great War had been suddenly blossomed into bright young things with huge amounts of disposable income and the social notoriety that accompanied it. Sexual boundaries and taboos became blurred, women raised their hemlines as high as they deemed correct (calf length, most of the time), and dresses fell dramatically on the bias cut to the small of the back.
And if money was really no object (trips on this train cost upwards of 5000 australian dollars just for the train ride alone) I would travel gloriously decadently on this train, caviar and toast every afternoon, a bottle of champagne on ice wherever I went. I think there's also something so modern about it too, it was the first real 'sight-seeing' tour, with 1 or 2 days in each city, enough to soak up the atmosphere and witness some culture, and then onto the next one. I'd like to think that that's kind of what I'm like... Flighty, irrepressible, always travelling. Like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, who is never all in one place, even if physically she appears to be.
One of my most favourite editorials of all time, an editorial that i saw in the print when i was just shy of 14 and which has stayed with me, even though the magazine hasn't (sadly) all through adolescence, was the following editorial. It features model Rie Rasmussen traversing the harsh landscape of Russia to Beijing, accompanied by her 'shoot diary' telling of lost cameras, shaping a cape out of a bed sheet and shooting in forbidden areas without a license, risking capture by the authorities. Personally i would choose the Vladivostok to Venice route, and then spent lazy afternoons on a gondola trawling through the city, but that's just me.
Vogue UK December 2005
Model: Rie Rasmussen
Photographer: Norbert Schroeder
Stylist: Charlotte Stockdale
not full editorial... it's 26 pages long!!What is your travel fantasy?
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