In the summer heat of the Greek islands, an American slips into a prize-winning silk dress -- and the heady world of Greek fashion designers.
It was a lazy August afternoon on Mykonos. and the meltemi, a hot wind from Africa, was blowing when I discovered the studio of fashion designer Yannis Galatis.
Typical of Greece, purple flower boxes with pink geraniums lined the staircase leading to his studio. Brightly-hued dresses, whipped to a frenzy by the wind, danced in the open doorway. I walked into a room filled with dazzling silk creations. The shopkeeper, unshaven and in jeans, barely nodded. As I rifled through the racks, he watched me hold an emerald green and Siamese pink mosaic print up to me.
“You can’t tell anything until you try it on,” he said. I looked around for a dressing room but there was none. I stood, clutching the dress to me.
“Take off the top! Take off the top!” he snapped at me impatiently. I gave one last furtive look for a screen. “When in Greece, do as the Greeks do,” I think resignedly, taking take off my shirt and letting him slip the gown over my head.
“Bee-yoo-ti-ful!” he exclaims. “This is my prize-winning design for this year. I hand-screened the silk myself … the mosaic is taken from the 3,000-year-old floor tiles in the villa at Delos.”
“Are you Galatis?”
“Of course,” he says. “Try this one. But take off the slacks. How can you tell anything with those slacks hanging below the dress?” Meekly I remove my slacks.
“Bravo!” he applauds. “Now the dress looks as it should.” As I start to disrobe, a young man enters the room and begins to pick up my discards. I look questioningly at Galatis.
“No, no,” he reassures me. “He is my assistant.” For the next hour I am like a kid playing dress-up, trying on one gown after another while Galatis and his assistant stand back and admire. After a few minutes I lose all self-consciousness and dress and undress in front of the two men without a second thought.
Midway in my fashion spree, a third man joins Galatis and his assistant, and he, too, chimes in his approval or disapproval as I happily continue removing my clothes and reaching for another Galatis creation. Off-handedly I turn to the newcomer and say, “Are you a designer, too?”
“Oh, no,” he answers. “I’m the Olympic Airlines agent from next door!” And I am the afternoon’s entertainment on a slow day in Mykonos!
