The other day, Poliphilos was planning the “Player Characters” album again in his apartment overlooking the city.

“Messenger!”, he called.

Nothing.

“Messenger?!”, he repeated.

In a whoosh he was there. Disheveled with twigs and pine cones hanging in his…”

“Is that moss???”, Poliphilos asked.

“Don’t ask”, the Messenger said, tidying up.

“I guess I better now”, Poliphilos said, rolling his eyes.

“In any CASE, let’s see now”, he said. “What we have so far is “World Renewed”, which tells about the opportunist who summons a Devil, and “He Who Walks Behind The Rows” that tells about the man-eating demons”.

“I can see where this is going, P!”, the Messenger retorted.

“Not so fast!”, Poliphilos exclaimed. “We then found the nymphs for “Landscape Fantasy”

“Are you sure they’re not demons, too?”, asked the Messenger.

“I’m sure. I had them examined by the Producer”

“And?”, asked the Messenger.

“No demons”, Poliphilos replied.

“One of them did want to take me to ‘a party’ in the forest, but you know how those go”.

“I… certainly do”, stated the Messenger, blushing.

“Ok so then we released “Ordinary Day”, the story of the fall of a virtuous woman”, Poliphilos continued.

“She wasn’t that virtuous”, said the Messenger.

“But she wanted to be! But then life happened”. Poliphilos made it sound casual.

“Right. Like for that Milady of Dumas. And, I take a husband also happened?”, asked the Messenger.

“You take it correctly”, Poliphilos answered.

“So now what?”

“Now”, Poliphilos continued, “We need pressure. The legendary kind.”

“You mean, like, soldiers?”, asked the Messenger.

“Let’s skip the military. People are tired of war”, Poliphilos said.

“Well, they are now!”, said the Messenger. “How about a politician?”

“People are even more tired of those”, replied Poliphilos.

“I miss the dictators”, sighed the Messenger and looked longingly out of the window.

“Yes, well, at least you knew who had the power”, Poliphilos said.

“So, where might we have a lot of pressure nowadays? A lot of demand with a lot of performance pressure and the need to constantly come up with something creatively new in changing markets. And let’s add an ecological catastrophe as well as unreasonable margins.”

“That”, the Messenger said, “sounds like….”

“Fashion. Yes. Let’s go to Paris!”, Poliphilos said.

And then, there he was.

The sun was rising over the quartiers of Paris, casting a pink glow over the skyscrapers in the west as Poliphilos stepped out of his 19th century apartment. He paused to look west at La Défense.

“Modernist monumentalism, indeed. I hope they’re happy now”, he thought to himself while stepping into the car.

As the car strolled through the city, the sounds of car horns, chatter, and music filled his ears. Poliphilos had always found inspiration in the city’s energy.

But not all things were perfect in this city of lights.

Haute couture may be where art and craftsmanship are used to create a fantasy. But fantasy comes at a price and after mingling in a few parties, Poliphilos learned there was one, who was paying hers: the designer Aurélie LaSalle.

Aurélie was a visionary, known for her breathtaking designs that transported their wearers to another era. But indeed, when Poliphilos arrived at her atelier, he was struck by the sense of desperation that hung in the air.

Aurélie was pacing back and forth, her eyes sunken from lack of sleep. “You are Poliphilos, yes?”, she asked

“Indeed I am”, Poliphilos answered. “I’m hearing you might need help with a certain… situation?”

Indeed she could. They exchanged a few more pleasantries, but Poliphilos could already  tell something was going on.

“Monsieur Poliphilos, I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Aurélie said, her voice cracking. “The industry, c’est suffocating moi! They want more, more, more, plus, plus, plus – more collections, more designs, more profits. But at what cost? The planet is dying, and we’re just contributing to the problem. C’est une grande catastrophe!”

As they talked, Poliphilos realized that Aurélie’s problem wasn’t just about the pressure to produce. The creative spark had gone out and it sounded like she could also use help in the statement-making department.

She was churning out designs, though, but they were more focused on trends and commercial appeal than genuine artistic expression. The fire that had once driven her to create something truly original had been reduced to a flicker, suffocated by the demands of the industry.

“I should be making art! But I’m making mere products. And, even those are just copies of each other!”, sighed Aurélie. “I feel like I’m sailing on an endless sea without ever seeing dry land”.

The pressure was palpable. “This looks good!”, thought Poliphilos to himself. He knew the time was right.

“Let’s go for a ride”, said Poliphilos.

Aurélie was more than happy to take a break. Creative people know the best ideas come when you’re idle.

They stepped out of the atelier and into Poliphilos’s car. He gave instructions to his driver and off they went on a journey through the city.

They watched the familiar buildings go by. People walking on the streets, going about their business. The usual Parisian views.

But gradually the views started to change.

“Croissant pour moi!”, shouted a female punk rocker in front of a pink boulangerie as Jem and The Holograms drove by with bikes.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe..?”, Aurélie began, but Poliphilos stopped her.

“You know the book ‘American Gods’?, he asked.

“By monsieur Gaiman?”, said Aurélie. “Bien sûr. The story of how the old European gods moved to America with the migrants and met the local new ones”.

“But do you know what? They didn’t find the new gods particularly… interesting. Too much plastic, additives and guns. So they came back. And one of them is here!”, revealed Poliphilos while stepping out from the car in front of what looked like a gated park.

As the gates swung open, a sense of…

“Renaissance!”, exclaimed Aurélie. “This is like, like…. Oh, I remember this from a childhood dream!”

And what “this” was was a scene straight from what could have been Aurélie’s dream.

Green grass.

Flower benches everywhere.

Birds singing.

The sun shining.

Bunnies hopping on the lawns.

Pastel coloured eggs here and there.

Daffodils.

Alice in Wonderland.

Barbie Girls.

Lily Allen.

“Lily Allen???”, wondered Aurélie.

“She comes here to recharge”, Poliphilos said.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Over here, Annie Lennox was basking in the sun.

Over there Mylene Farmer was playing with a puppet.

“Oh, she needs to get over that!”, exclaimed Aurélie.

“She’s still trying. That’s why she comes here”, Poliphilos explained.

As we passed Elton John and Amanda Lear playing cricket with what looked like Helena Bonham-Carter, we saw Her.

She.

Was.

Magnificent.

She was the hope embodied.

The new dawn.

All the world’s promises, top twenty hits and the laughter of little babies combined into one. And then some.

“And what a fantastic dress she’s wearing!”, exclaimed Aurélie.

“Welcome to my garden”, welcomed Ostara, the goddess of Easter, in a light yellow silk gown that seemed to float in the air.

While two peacocks emerged and settled on both sides of her, she said: “Aurélie, I understand you are going through some creative rut, for a lack of a better word?”

Aurélie was simply gagging and couldn’t believe what was going on in this popstar parade that was Ostara’s Parisian home.

A pair of kitsune stopped by. “Maji de! I think this one could use some help, Ostara!”

Ostara looked at Aurélie looking at her, her eyes wide and jaw open.

Ostara shook Aurélie out of her awe and she came gradually to her senses.

“I… I… I indeed am struggling somewhat”, she began.

“I feel like I need to repeatedly embark on projects in my work that feel like captaining a ship on dangerous seas that is the fashion business, but I never really make it to the shore as the next journey is already calling.

“This is it!”, thought Poliphilos to himself.

“Haute couture in Paris”, continued Aurélie, “then a resort collection in Dallas, then a capsule collection in Tokyo, then a tartan-inspired ready-to-wear show in Edinburgh, then…. Oh, it’s too much!”

And she launched into a lengthy explanation of what she was going through, walking Ostara through the contradictions of the fashion world.

“I’m supposed to design clothes that need to be sold and are supposed to make people feel beautiful and confident, but the truth is, the industry is built on exploitation and waste. The margins are bloated, the workers are underpaid, and the environment is suffering. I do not want to be a part of this!”

Aurélie looked at Ostara, her eyes flashing with anger and sadness. “I know it’s wrong. But what can I do? I’m just one person, and the machine is too big to stop.”

“There, I got it”, mused Poliphilos to himself.

Ostara smiled, her eyes glinting with a hint of mischief. “Oh, Aurélie. You’re not just one person – you’re a visionary, a creator, a force of nature, but, and this she put a lot of emphasis on, “You can also make a statement. And you need to! And through those statements you can make a difference! And I’m here to help you unleash that power.”

Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you” began to play.

Ostara scooped Aurélie in her embrace and together they disappeared to her renaissance mansion through two rows of ballet dancing hippos and crocodiles.

“The Fantasy continues!”, said Mickey Mouse to Minnie while strolling by.

The next day the word came that they were making progress as laughter could be heard from the second floor salon. Flashlights were blinking.

“Am I hearing the sound of several sewing machines?”, asked Charlie XCX while Poliphilos sipped champagne on the patio and watched the Cheshire Cat in the nearby tree come and go. Vivaldi’s “The Spring” (the club version) played somewhere. Marie Antoinette with her entourage was having a picnic in the nearby lawn with Spice Girls and a few Arabian princesses.

“I think we are!”, replied Poliphilos.

As the day turned to evening everybody who was somebody began to gather in the main hall for a fashion show.

You could cut the excitement with a bread knife. Not all were let in, though. There was a demonstration outside the gates led by Humpty and Dumpty.

An orchestrated drone-enabled light show started. They displayed the words “Sustainable”, “Responsible”, and “Truly Original” in the air.

Models started walking.

It was a blast.

The clothes were breathtaking, the models strutted down the catwalk with confidence and poise, and the audience was wowed by the sheer creativity and originality of the designs. But more than that, the collection was a statement – a declaration of independence from the tired, stagnated rules of the fashion industry.

Historical royal gowns re-imagined with recycled african plastic shopping bags. Hand-woven and dyed silks shaped for K-pop stars to look like Final Fantasy X characters. Chainmails created from recycled Mexican silverware worn by gamelan disco dancers.

Poliphilos couldn’t quite name all the new genres that Aurélie had invented, but he was sure the fashionistas were already busy coming up with names.

And while he watched the show, the song finally appeared in his own mind.

“Yes! There are parallels between Aurélie’s struggles and the legend of…. the Flying Dutchman!”

The Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas forever, was a symbol of the relentless pursuit of progress, no matter the cost. And Aurélie, trapped in the cycle of production, felt like she was losing herself in the process. The myth of the Flying Dutchman related well with the fashion industry’s obsession with novelty and consumption.

“Messenger!”, Poliphilos whispered.

In a whoosh the Messenger appeared.

“Write this down: Beneath the moon’s soft and silvery glow: Towers Of Steel standing still…”

They continued into the night under the LED shows until the song was ready.

And that’s how Poliphilos found the idea for “Ancient Manager”.