Vogue Paris: Imagine it. June 1816. A villa in Italy. A season soon to be dubbed “the year without a summer” already well underway – the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year playing havoc with the heavens. A ragtag set of writers and friends looking for ways to occupy themselves during endless storms. Intense nightly discussions of medicine, literature, poetry. One night, a challenge set by a member of the group, Lord Byron: the devising of ghost stories. A terrible nightmare suffered a few days later by the then 18-year-old Mary Shelley, there with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their child. The bones of a book constructed from this nightmare. A book later to become one of the best known Gothic novels in the English language: a proto-science fiction epic depicting the destructive consequences of a doctor who plays at God and builds his very own being…
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Frankenstein has become an adjective or a verb I actually use often, referring to things cobbled together in ways they shouldn't but ways that work. I was told this summer to make a “Frankenstein flat” from the wood we had left and knew exactly what was being asked to me no questions asked. It's interesting how this monstrous character has pervaded our language, our culture, and our art even after all this time. I've never stopped to think about what it could mean as I personally haven't used it as more than a word relating to putting odd parts to a whole. Frankenstein’s monster has so many layers, terrifying on the outside yet kind and curious and scared within. The book calls into question the power of man, the consequence of judgement, and even what it means to be alive. It is no wonder fashion designers have been finding so much to play with in their own creations.
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