A seriously outdated accessory

Art Deco-ed as it was from top to bottom, our apartment in Buenos Aires featured, along with some classy prints, framed magazine images of the time. This one depicts a fashionable young couple cementing their bond by sharing a cancer-inducing moment. That toothy grip on their cigarettes looks absurd now, but it reminded me that from time to time I saw both my parents hanging onto their fags in this way. 
No surprise, I suppose, that tobacco was sold as an intimacy enhancer. We can assume that, just seconds before, the gentlement struck a match then romantically held the lady's hand steady as she inhaled to get her cigarette going.
He was one kind of male smoker. Marlboro Man was another - a bloke with no use at all for female companionship or intimacy because he was never alone with his horse and a smoke.

BA is still rife with tobacco addicts. Now banned from offices, restaurants and milongas, they cluster around doorways, puff energetically as they dodge pedestrians and traffic, and monopolise the outdoor seating at cafes.  Here are two of them.

Man and cigar outside
a Plaza San Martin cafe

Young woman smoking outside
a Calle Cordoba cafe

Dial-up sex

Bums are big in Buenos Aires. This is how most sex workers sell their services.

Los banios at the Fall in Love Cafe, Plaza San Martin



Men's toilet sign



Women's toilet sign



Fabrications

Killing time in Santiago airport and listlessly cruising the shops, we paused to inspect a bag. "Leather?" we inquired, having searched in vain for a label saying so.
The brown-eyed young man searched himself, then, when he couldn't find what he was looking for, said, "Yes, is leather. "
I doubted it. Leather makes itself known. I smelled it, and shook my head. "I don't think so."
"Yes, is leather." Then, faced with our sceptical expressions, added, "Is fabricated leather".
At that point (blame the jetlag) I felt like snapping, "Did a cow die for this bag or didn't it? If it didn't, this isn't leather!"
To talk of "fabricated leather" is akin to believing that the scalpel can restore lost youth. That fabrication is as aesthetically pleasing as the real thing.
The other day we were chewing delicious steak on the mezzanine of a restaurant, facing the inevitable screen, when the camera zoomed deep into a perfect peachy decolletage. It was an commercial for cosmetic surgery.
There's an awful lot of it going on here - the fabrication of youth. And that's an estimate based only on the bad stuff that makes itself obvious on the street and at the milongas. Dismal attempts at stretching, filling, shrinking, smoothing and lifting that leave each woman with the same dreadful parody of a face.


"Beauty is a natural value that is admired, enjoyed... and like life, it comes to an end. As a result, we work to preserve it, retrieve it... and even if Beauty is present, we wish to enhance it; this is precisely the path of excellence in plastic surgery: it means the devotion to improve on what we can achieve" - from a BA costmetic surgeon's website.

A 1997 Salon.com piece, wittily entitled "Don't Starve for Me, Argentina", claimed the country had an even higher rate of anorexia and bulimia than the US. Starvation and plastic surgery were rampant, it said. Nearly 15 years on, that situation surely has't improved.

Talk about stylish

Horror stories abound - Buenos Aires vistors ushered into apartments looking nothing like the vacation rental they studied online: delapidation, dirt, noise, unforeseen "fees", cockroaches and mice. And that's just getting in. Getting out can mean your agent being "unable" to make it in time before you fly out to return your massive deposit, or fobbing you off with knock-off notes.
Since it's more than a month til we leave, I can't yet say we're free and clear, but the prospects look good.
ByT Argentina have been efficient, communicative and reliable. Darryl and Isi, the agents who let us in, were charming and helpful. And the apartment itself is a winner.
It's been art-deco-ed front to back, down to the framed prints, the tea trolley coffee table, the lamps and the handsome walnut furniture. The lift is a antique delight, and the door onto the street so elaborately wrought, it's practically a two-woman job to push it open.
But the place isn't just a show piece. There are comfortable chairs and a couch to slouch on. In short, we are muy confortable and stylish.

One hundred percent natural

At last, I have pearls. Faithful Reader might recall my past pining for these one hundred-per-cent-natural items of personal adornment. And I doubted I would ever have any to call my own. But, while in Buenos Aires, S and I nipped across the vast, muddy River Plate to Colonia, Uruguay, and I bought these from a nice man in a shop on the main street.

Certainly, they are not your pricey salt-water examples - they're river pearls, probably Vietnamese. But I love their irregular shapes, and their quiet gleam (they're not the nasty yellowish tone my poorly lit photo suggests). Thank you, all you oysters. 

S and I were both suffering from the monstrous BA cold we all went down with, and that quiet day in Colonia was a lovely respite from the noise and pollution of the city across the river.  

BA story

It was our second visit to Confiteria Ideal in a week. I know this isn't where true afficionados go to dance - too many tourists, too many teachers touting for trade - but all that faded grandeur is irresistably delicious. And this particular night we were here with a large crowd waiting to hear the renowned Orchestra Tipica Color Tango. (They were magical - give yourself a treat and listen to them here. And do try to ignore the couple who begin dancing front left; we couldn't, I'm afraid. They provided us with hours of morbid fascination, on this and other occasions, and appear in just about any Ideal YouTube clip you care to download.)

Anyway. Our table was towards the back of the dancefloor, and while we danced away the time until the band appeared, I noticed a slightly melancholy-looking man sitting alone at a table at the end of the room. I cabaceo-ed him, and we danced. He was a nice leader, steady, smooth and unflashy (unlike, for instance, the idiot who, on our first visit here, wound up our tanda by whipping me into a life-threatening back-bend. Or the chap a week later, at Porteno y Bailarin who propelled me onto the empty back dancefloor and, as part of his intimidate-a-foreigner repetoire, sat me on his knee, then, as we walked back to my table, shrugged and said, "Mas o menos". Porteno y Bailarin, by the way, has used shoes lined up on the low wall between its two floors: they are bound for tango dancers in Cuba. But I digress).

Claudio, the melancholy man, was Italian. I have no Italian, and he only rudimentary English, so when the tanda was over and believing him to be rather lonely, I invited him to our table with the express purpose of introducing him to C, who speaks a little Italian.

So there we were, Claudio and I with our backs to the dancefloor, M and S gazing up in a welcoming manner from the table, and C extending her hand, when I became aware of something bearing down on us with all the unstoppable weight and intent of a steam train.

It halted inches from Claudio. "This is my husband!" it announced in stentorian tones.

"Nice to meet you," I said, giving it the benefit of the doubt in spite of this unorthodox greeting.

It ignored the hand. "This is my husband!" it repeated. "When I dance with other people, I tell them I am married ..." And she turned accusingly to Claudio. He had picked up the alarm signals quicker than me, and by now he was hanging his head with his face was turned away from our table, a position from which it never returned throughout the exchange.

"I brought him here to introduce him to my friend who speaks Italian," I explained, indicating the hapless C. Hers and the other jaws at the table had now dropped as far as they could go.

Claudio's wife was - there's no nice way to put this - bad bottle blonde, with a lumpy miserable over-madeup face. I've tried since not to discount the theory that Claudio might, at various points in their marital history, have given her very good reason for this stern level of  oversight, Yet even if that's true, this was probably not the most productive way of handling it. Surely such public humiliation would drive a man into the arms of another with all speed.

"You can introduce him to who you like," Mrs Claudio continued, steely-eyed, "but I am just clarifying - he is my husband!"

Her grasp of English was impressive, and finally I got the message. With a two-handed gesture of surrender and possibly even a shrug, I said, "I just came here to dance," and retreated to my seat.

Claudio was now frog-marched back to his solitary table where he was given a bracing disciplinary lecture and once more abandoned. Mrs Claudio went back to her own table, which wasn't so far away that she couldn't monitor his activities, and spent the next half an hour snacking angrily. For the rest of the night, Claudio stared mournfully at the dancers or played with his cellphone. I never saw him dance again. 

High shine

It was a household rule when I was growing up in England that school shoes were cleaned every Sunday evening. In fact this chore was one of my first encounters with New Zealand, via the shoe-polish lid. (The other was Kia-Ora orange squash.)

The result of this childhood training is that while I love the look of well-nourished leather and feel distressed when I see it starving to death, I hate polishing my shoes. 
Sometimes, if the sun is shining and I'm in the right mood, I'll line up all my non-suede footwear on the outside table, don latex gloves and set to work. But I'd really much rather perch on a high chair at a street corner, as I did in Buenos Aires, and have someone else do them for me.
Don't misunderstand me - I'm well aware this kind of low-overhead entrepreneurism is indicative of under-employment, makes at best only a marginal living, and isn't any kind of a career. But I do think there's a niche for a smart young person to set up a stall on, say, Lambton Quay. There'd be no shortage of customers and I reckon it would make more money than playing the guitar badly before an upturned hat.

Street-corner shoeshine stall, Buenos Aires

The owner of this stall was stationed outside a bank where the ATMs were out of commission, and he had taken it upon himself to explain this to every frustrated user. Meanwhile, he polished my old boots to a startling shine.  The pictures of Jesus and, I assumed, his mother and children were splattered with blacking, but every day  he must prop them up there amidst the tins, clothes and brushes. Perhaps to remind him why he works so diligently for so little reward.

Evita's clothes

Bust of Eva Peron, The Eva Peron
Museum, Palermo, Buenos Aires

















I knew almost nothing about Eva Peron - or her husband - before I went to BA. At the mention of her name, all that sprang to mind was that damn song, which would hang around my head for days.
I can't claim to know a whole lot more now, but what I do understand is how strongly Argentines feel about her, whether they believe she's a whore or a saint, a fascist or a democrat, a dedicated woman of the people or a relentless self-server. Princess Diana similarly divided public opinion, but not as passionately or persistently as Evita.
Born poor and illegitimate in 1919, she was First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death from cancer in 1952, aged 33. Both women, whatever motivations might be ascribed to them, made a point of acknowledging those whose life was a struggle. The Eva Peron Museum is housed in a mansion on a grand leafy street in one of BA's best suburbs. Evita bought it in 1948 and, ignoring neighbourly howls of outrage, turned it into a shelter for single mothers and their children. 

Also like Diana, Evita loved clothes, and, remarkably, the museum has a good number of them, many displayed alongside photographs of Evita wearing them. These dresses, suits, coats and shoes are so classically stylish, you could wear them today. 

Also like Diana, Evita died young and beautiful. Queues still form at her tomb in Recoleta Cemetary, although there's nothing here but dying flowers, a brass plaque and a padlocked gate. What you see is only what you bring with you. Her clothes at least still have about them the feel of a breathing woman.



The great Buenos Aires shoe hunt (discontinued)

Sorry, Faithful Reader, but the last stage of the shoe hunt I'm writing up for profit rather than fun, so it will have to wait until I've heard back from various journals. If they want the piece, you see, they buy first publication rights.
But other BA delights await an airing. First up - Eva Peron's frocks. Here's a taster.

The great Buenos Aires shoe hunt

Every tanguera who visits BA has shoes on her mind. Accordingly, the three of us set out to find our fantasy shoes at what reliable sources assured us would be a fantasy price. The Faithful Reader might recall that I was pinning my hopes on Darcos. The reality was profoundly disappointing.
We found their "megastore", where craftsmen were working away at the back, and we fell on the shoes. These were arranged on racks according to size, but ours - 39, 40 and 41- were nowhere to be seen. Neither, apparently, were we.
The one or two assistants completely ignored us, until we finally bulldozed our way into their consciousness with a request for our sizes. No eye contact, and a dismissive wave towards the gloomy interior was all we got. There we found a couple of meagre racks of footwear for giantesses suffering from the delusion that they deserved decent tango shoes.
A day or so later we visited one of Darcos's normal retail outlets, in the hope of more choice and better service. Again we were dismissed with a wave, and when one of us dared to pick out a shoe from the 36 rack and ask if it came in a 41, the gesture was repeated. It might as well have been two fingers.
On the way out, I snapped this surreptitous picture of the couch, where, if you're lucky enough to get to the point of actually trying any of their shoes on, you will be invited to sit. It probably tells you all you need to know about Darcos's customer relations.

To be continued.

Post-BA posts

Plaza Dorrego, last Sunday evening; a test of nerve:
the band had just begun playing; S was first on the floor and I was second (photograph by Cheryl Brown)

Before I left home three weeks ago, I fondly imagined I would be posting from Buenos Aires at the rate I do from here, on all manner of appearance- and tango-related topics, liberally spiced with on-the-spot pictures.
Huh. I was far, far too busy doing it all to record any of it. All I managed was this list of blogs-to-come:

• The Eva Peron Museum - in particular, her dresses and shoes
• Tango-proof mascara - does it exist?
• BA's beautifully dressed older men and alarmingly dressed older women
• The great shoe hunt - down with Darcos and up with Comme Il Faut
• Milonga banio ladies
• Excess baggage - or, how much better I'll do in the packing department next time. Because, oh yes, there will be a next time.

Splurge

... at the Recycle Boutique. Ostensible reason: looming tango pilgrimage to Buenos Aires. Real reason: because (as Ed Hillary said of Everest) it's there.
To be strictly accurate, it was two consecutive splurges.*
Yesterday, browsing the racks with R after lunch at Martha's Pantry, I waited ages with an armful of garments for one of the much-in-demand curtained cubicles. The armful included several fanciful, tango-only outfits, none of which were right. I ended up with a black, mildly sparkly, wrap-around David Lawrence cardigan ($25), and an entirely sensible but nonetheless stylish Sonny knitted coat-cum-cardigan-cum-jacket - black merino, trimmed in red leather ($69).
Am interested to see that Sonny Elegant Knitwear was established in the 50s. Croatians Zarko and Sonja Milich arrived in Auckland in 1953 with their seven-year-old son and two knitting machines.** In 1991, the son, Tony, launched Sabatini, a more styley brand, of which I've bought a few items over the years.
Something else I tried on yesterday - a Zambesi silk dress. An 8, so the fit was snug, especially over the hips. It had a straight-across, 50s-style neckline, narrow, elbow-length sleeves, and a deep V neck at the back. Smashing, but did I need it? Womanfully, I set it aside.
Only to think about it later. A lot. And this morning. I mean, a silk Zambesi dress for $45?
So back I went today, tried it again, noted how straightforward it would be to ease the side-seams, and bought it. I also picked up a cute little black-and-white Paul Frank houndstooth jacket for $38.
Total outlay over the two days: $177. Value for money? I think so.

* This blog defines splurge as any one shopping expedition during which two or more garments are purchased, especally from one shop. The essence of a splurge is impulse and, therefore, wickedness. 
** According to my new fashion bible, The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Design Since 1940, Lucy Hammonds, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Claire Regnault (Godwit, 2010). Buy it - you won't regret doing so.