Riitta Päiväläinen

Several years ago, an old black dress made of velvet caught my attention in a second-hand shop. I
examined the garment carefully. There was no label. The style of the dress was from the twenties. The seams revealed the dress was handmade. The owner of the shop told me that she had bought it in Paris. I tried the dress on and it fitted me perfectly. I became intrigued by the history of the dress. Who was the woman who had had the dress made? What was her life story?

Our daily life is full of history. I am fascinated by the history that you cannot find in library books, official files or archives. This "unwritten history" surrounds me all the time. I can feel its presence in various ways: as a rip in a coat; as a place worn thin in an armchair; as a light footprint on an inner sole of a shoe.