Christopher Isherwood wrote Goodbye to Berlin, which Cabaret is based on, and A Single Man, adapted by Tom Ford as his first film. As a young man, he enjoyed the freedom of Weimar, witnessed the rise of Hitler, and ran from the Nazis with his German boyfriend who was arrested by the Gestapo. Afterwards, he settled in Hollywood to write for the movies. He also became a Hindu, practiced non-attachment, and translated the Bhagavad Gita with his Indian guru.  

At 48, he began a relationship with the love of his life, Don Bachardy, an 18-year-old Los Angeles native and, later, a celebrated portrait artist. They made a home together openly in the conformist 1950s and became arguably the most famous gay couple of the 20th century, the subject of Hockney’s double portrait, set in their living room and auctioned at Christie’s for 44 million dollars in November 2025. 

Nowadays we can hardly imagine the gay world that lay hidden last century—the difficulty, the danger, the pain, the excitement, the fun, the complexity of a community functioning in secret because homosexual acts were punishable by life imprisonment and even by death. Isherwood’s books aimed to change the society into which he was born by changing popular taste. He was an activist through his art, which was acutely observant, dark, irresistibly readable, and often very funny.

When he was eight, his mother had read him a story by an Anglican Bishop, Samuel Wilberforce, “Agathos, or the Whole Armor of God,” intended to teach children about spiritual readiness. Agathos wears a full suit of armor even while sleeping, ready to fight the dragon. The other soldiers grow bored waiting and cast off their armor. Of course, they are eaten, but Agathos, still ready, vanquishes the dragon when it comes. 

All his life, Isherwood aspired to readiness—spiritually, personally, and for his writing.  He learned to make himself at home in any geographical location and any social milieu. Choice of costume had to be right. At boarding school, he felt depressed by his uniform because it obliterated his personal identity; in adult life he associated military uniform with social conformity, against which he rebelled.  His clothing was part of his imaginative agency, his readiness to meet whatever comes rather than be taken by surprise.

I first noticed Marfa Stance on social media during the pandemic. The Signature Quilt. I remember how vividly it struck me, a completely new look, technical and austere, in attractively unfamiliar colors that spoke to both city and natural world. The model was rangy and tall, with strong planes to her face, no visible make-up, hair scraped back hard. She looked edgy and hip, and also powerful and able-bodied.  During the pandemic, when so many of us were confined to our sofas, a quilt was exactly what was needed. Soft, comfortable and safe. An embrace. This quilt, though, was well able to get up off the sofa as we ventured back to a busier life.  

In Isherwood’s first novel (All the Conspirators), the protagonist wants to be an artist; his mother wants him to stick to his career in insurance—a safe bet.  Their conflict is so extreme that he runs out of her house into a putrid London fog and wanders the streets. In a pawn shop, he buys an old overcoat which comforts him through a lonely night in a cheap hotel.  The coat smells of horse medicine. Isherwood’s real-life father was a cavalry officer, brilliant with horses, killed in World War I. The comforting overcoat in Isherwood’s novel recalls the safe embrace of the father he adored.  The father who was also a painter of professional standard and who would have understood the artistic inclination of Isherwood’s protagonist.  

On his first trip back from Hollywood to England after World War II, Isherwood borrowed the suit and overcoat of an American boyfriend whom he had to leave behind. Staying with his mother during that coldest winter of the last century, when gas and coal were scarce and strictly rationed, he wore his boyfriend’s overcoat both indoors and out. A comforting embrace. 

I was so obsessed with my Signature Quilt, that I gave one to my ninety-year-old mother. Then I gave one to an elder sister. Another to my younger sister. We still wear them. The original embrace. This is the coat which serves in all weather and never fights visually or chafes physically with what you have underneath: exercise gear, a structured suit, a floaty dress. 

One day, I was walking in Notting Hill in my sage green Signature Quilt, and I spotted a young blonde woman in a flowing, loosely belted, metallic bronze and gold coat. It was the Parachute Parka—on Georgia Dant! It looked even better in real life than it had on the website. Incredibly, when I stopped her, she knew it was me. No sale goes unnoticed by Georgia. You are buying and wearing what she has been thinking about night and day for months (now years). She seemed to relish the surprise added to the garment by a new individual wearing it. She wanted to know all about my mother and my sisters and what we got up to in our Signature Quilts together and separately. 

The Marfa Stance tribe is growing. There are many different styles and many different customers. It is a distinct look but invites individuality. Marfa Stance answers the wish to belong a shared identity and yet to remain yourself. The identity is thoughtful, high-quality, efficient, green, and it is also fun, good-looking, and encourages exuberance and freedom. 

Many is the story about how long it takes to choose a purchase from Marfa Stance. Which outerwear garment, which collar, which hood and of course what size and what color. It’s a detailed and personal process, and it imposes the discipline to think carefully about what you really want from your clothing. What do you intend to do in it? What makes you comfortable? What will the weather be like wherever you are going? Once you engage at this level, you are not easily going to move off and buy fast, cheap fashion. It doesn’t feel responsible, and it doesn’t feel as interesting or as friendly. Perhaps Georgia designed all this into that very first Signature Quilt.

As for the Parachute Parka: I learned that Georgia had spent years in the corporate fashion world. Her experience there shows in the quality of the pieces, the wit and glamor of the marketing, and the care she has taken to choose and train her amazing staff who are able to counsel you as intimately and patiently as a psychotherapist once you decide on the Marfa Stance approach. Freud might have said that Georgia came up with the idea for the Parachute Parka because she was leaping at high altitude from the corporate fashion world, and floating free-form down, down, down into an unknown landscape. Well, she has made the best of her wide view and drifting ride. I hope we will see more of her way of dressing and sharing and supporting our human community. Don’t get me started on the Survival Vest—lately that’s the garment I wear the most. 

Katherine Bucknell
Newest book, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out (2024; US Paperback 2025 / UK paperback 2026)

www.KatherineBucknell.com