I will take you to hell

2011

[Series of 23 collages]

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Whilst reading Broken Mirror by Mercè Rodoreda I learnt that in Spanish or Catalan, one of the pockets of a suit jacket is called ‘hell’. It’s the pocket sewn into the inside lining on the left-hand side, at chest level, next to the heart.
I have found no explanation for this name. Even after asking a well-known tailor in the city, the last made-to-measure tailor who until recently was busy throughout the region. He knew that it was originally called this, but not why. He explained how to make a pattern, he leant me his pattern book and also told me about the other pocket near ‘hell’s pocket’ which I was unaware of: the ‘lighter’, in the same left-hand side lining, but lower down. It is used for holding a box of matches or a lighter; the tailor only puts one in if the customer smokes and requests it.
‘Hell’… a pocket hidden between the materials, the most concealed and darkest, the shadow of pockets. The heart’s closet, where the memory of the lover who led you to hell is deposited. In the ‘lighter’ the fire of a passion that is difficult to forget is lit.