It's fixed

About 15 years ago on the way to the American Library I Geneva I saw the black leather coat that had been 1500 CHF was marked down to 750 CHF. Yes, I know it looks brown in the photo, but trust me, it is black.

I bought it, joking that as a writer in a francophone country, I need the obligatory black leather coat required of all intellectuals. It has seen me through spring and fall since then.

Yesterday I notice a tear near one of the buttons. This is a coat on want to keep and wear forever.

We are lucky in this village. There is man who used to sew for the top haute couture houses in Paris. 

 

He claims to have designed for Elton John. Even now he gets commissions from old customers that he ships north. He now has a commission to save this 16th century piece of embroidery sent to him from a church in Orleans.

This spring, he saved my grandmother’s quilt by inserting tiny squares where the fabric had worn away beyond tedious work.

With my coat, he opened the seam next to the buttons, put in a reinforcement then made little triangles to sew under all the buttons against future rips. I bet the coat is good for another 15 years, although I am less sure I am.