Anthony Stephinson, the buyer at Two See boutique on Monmouth Street in London's Covent Garden, got in touch to let us know that he won Lot 14, Manuela Pavesi's maid's uniform in our Bring & Buy auction we did with Oxfam and i-D Magazine last September. As he explains in the message below, Two See are Manuela devotees (consider the lengths they went to to get it, even with a tear in the back!) and have used the uniform as the basis for a sort of Maneula Pavesi shrine which can be viewed in the front window of their shop:
I was talking to a friend of mine today (Francesca Burns from i-D) and she said you were interested in our window! We have an homage to Manuela Pavesi. The window was installed by Jonathan Anderson who designs accessories exclusively for the store. He used to work for Manuela at Prada as a visual merchandiser before starting his own label. He has a borderline obsession with her and everything she does, and was more than ecstatic when she donated the maid's uniform dress to the bring and buy event at showstudio...
The most hilarious bit about the whole story is that on the final day of the bidding on ebay, his boyfriend and francesca had a furious bidding war unaware that they were bidding against each other! His boyfriend (who works in the store) won the dress and consequently gave it to Jonathan (who was distressed at having not won the dress) for his 21st birthday...
SO.
We have the dress on the female mannequin in the window, with a huge portrait of manuela next to it. The mannequin is draped in accessories by Jonathan, and the photo from ID is framed along with the letter from Manuela herself.
It has raised many an eyebrow, not least because the dress is not for sale, and we have had countless attempts to explain the story to passers-by.. I hope you love it as much as we do.
02:12 24 Feb 2013
Then let's move on to the heart of the defence. If you can give me names of world class deeredfns I would welcome it. I think in defence you must always have a good partnership between two players. If played alongside another they could look average or even poor, but when you sometimes put two players together they form a natural partnership and both look great. I think Vidic and Ferdinand are the most obvious example. Vidic was mostly unknown but he seemed to match with Ferdinand and they both formed a great defensive partnership in the last seasons.