The schizophrenia of time. The fold of a pleat. An envelope full of black and white photos, developed in a day. Twenty-two floors above, the grey bustle of the city is silenced in the frame of a picture window. The view, a strange mix of the melancholic horror of late capitalism, coupled with the unfathomably majestic beauty of a city that houses twelve million people, in a pastel collage of seemingly infinite downtowns. It’s what Immanuel Kant referred to as the “sublime”: a bizarre combination of simultaneous pleasure and horror observed from the safety of a contemplative distance. That afternoon, the pleats fell neatly into place, as the department store escalator obediently swallowed its stairs.

The Koukou skirt is made of a fine, light-weight, burgundy wool blend. Pleats encircle the skirt, which has a zipper and metal hook-and-bar side closure. The skirt is lined in a subtle hunter-green custom print on Italian silk, with a slight stretch to it, to allow both movement and ease. Small black beads dot the bottom of each the pleat.