Culture: 404 posts

Today’s article is written by Joan Ramirez, an ESL educator and author. Right now she is writing a historical suspense series that begins in occupied Paris in WWII and continues to present day. She is researching her new novel and the material in the article comes from the work she has been doing in the preparation. Perfume will have a role in the novel.

While she was the sister of Christian, the brilliant creator of the fashion House of Dior, Catherine Dior was a class act in a league of her own choosing. Born Ginette Dior on 2 August 1917, she later took Catherine as her name. At the age of fourteen, Catherine lost her mother, Madeleine Dior, to septicemia following an operation. She’d developed her love of fragrance from her mother. Her father, Maurice Dior, lost the family’s fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929. The young Catherine had to accompany her father from her grand childhood home in Normandy to a small farmhouse in Provence.

Christian and Catherine were in Provence by the time Paris fell to Nazi occupation and France signed the Armistice on June 22,1940 with Germany. On a fateful day in November of 1941, Catherine bought a radio in Cannes. It enabled her to listen to Radio Londres, a station operated from the BBC by members of the Resistance to their supporters in occupied France. Around that time Catherine met Hervé des Charbonneries, an early member of the Resistance and fell in love. By the end of the year, Catherine joined him in a Parisian Resistance network.

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My great-grandmother Asya believed that art healed and her collection of embroideries and lace was a testament to her need to create something beautiful. So when I learned of Amoami, a social impact organization using crafts to support refugee women from Ukraine, I became curious about its mission. Based in Spain, Amoami works with Ukrainian refugee women in Europe and the result are lovely crochets.

This adorable bear is crocheted using a Japanese technique called “amigurumi.” The designs are inspired by Ukrainian embroideries and the bears come in different sizes. As such, Amoami provides economic support for the Ukrainian women and creates a comfortable place where they can work, make friends and create their own community. For people who lost everything as they fled, the community is crucial. Finally, crocheting and arts are used as therapy, something that Asya would recognize and approve.

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A few days ago I was going through some old photos when I came across this image of my mother and me taken in our apartment in Kyiv. I must have been 5-6 years old and I still remember this photo session. My father’s friend Petya, a professional photographer, came over to take photos of our family and had us pose in different ways. For some reason, I didn’t like posing the way Petya suggested, so my mother gave me a book and the result was this photograph.

The moment I picked up the photo, I could imagine the heft of that book, its shiny green cover and the colorful drawings of plants. I recalled that it was a book of medicinal plants. It used to be one of my favorite books to leaf through, and  when I learned to read, to lose myself in its descriptions of plants, their aromas and healing properties. The more I thought about the book, the more my later fascination with flowers and fragrances made sense.

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I wish you a Happy Persian New Year. May the new year bring all of us peace, joy and many good beginnings. I recently moved to a new apartment and this is the first I’m setting up my haft seen here.

Haft seen, or Nowruz sofreh, is a presentation of 7 auspicious objects that start with the Persian letter “S.” The celebration of the vernal equinox, the start of a new year, is a custom that dates back 5,000 years. Its message of hope and renewal continues to resonate. If you’re interested to learn about Nowruz, I’ve written about haft seen and its symbolism. Nowruz is celebrated in Iran as well as in countries like Afghanistan and Albania, Uzbekistan and India–and wider still.

On another bright note, the response to my Ukrainian fundraiser has been wonderful and I thank everyone who contributed, donated prizes and shared the news. The contributions will allow Thought Group Chile to provided Ukrainian cities with safe spaces and shelter. The donators will receive regular updates to know how the process of reconstruction is moving along. Today is the last day to participate in the fundraiser, so please take a look to our wonderful prizes and donate. Any amount counts.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin