Last year was my “Lando” year, life lived from a book with a “humorous take on how to get what you want (and how to look good doing it) with the help of Lando Calrissian (Be More Lando)”. It meant gamble with things, take risks (I submitted myself to, then won a prestigious literary award), play, flash hard and look good while doing it. So I took more of an interest in what was in my closet. I don’t like shopping but I do enjoy arranging what’s given to me and make it my own. A pair of leather boots caught my attention to examine a little more closely the brand Zeus + Δione: the leather was fine and smooth and the craftmanship was much to admire, but it is how it captured an aesthetic where I did a double take. These boots were traditional Cretan boots taken to tasteful modernity, and they managed to inhabit the same regionality but at different times, simultaneously. It wouldn’t be until a piece of printed literature–a magazine I picked up in the Athens Airport at the Zeus + Δione store, adding to the already 18 pounds of books and magazines I was already hauling back from my recent trip to Greece) for me to understand, and fully appreciate, the ethos of what is Zeus + Δione.

Writing a post like this is tricky. I am a New Yorker who doesn’t sweat anything. I am not a paid sponsor and I do believe there are limits to consumer-user free give a review advertising. And I’m not one who shares all the things that help paint the canvas: what you see of me is not something that can bottled, as a best friend of mine remarks. This is something not understood by the strangers, women, who have clawed at my clothes and body when I don’t offer answers as to what I am wearing, who’ve ripped items from my hands in stores, those whom I don’t consent to be a fembot template for, those who possess the evil eye. It’s important to recognize these boundaries, or you’ll be left in wounded, scratched up pieces. But my writing is currently occupied in themes of visuals, male gaze, pin up and heart, so I’m spending more time on these things and more time in selecting clothing that speaks to me, not simply my partner’s gaze. And the intention in writing this here is this: sharing a joy and insight that I feel is worth noting because it speaks to something larger and lacking in many industries. And that’s what these words are all about: a post really an ode to Z+Δ’s ten year anniversary magazine shedding light on their brand.

The magazine spells out their origin story, their partners, has personalized stories of the individuals that contribute to their label and narratives behind signature pieces: all the things some of us look for when we back creator-owned projects on crowdfunding platforms or pay for things that have higher price points: we treasure the STORIES that comprise a THING.

I write this post to point out how this magazine transformed a simple admiration I had of a brand’s clothing with a Greek aesthetic to a respect of a company that looks beyond an isolated product exchanged via capitalism to an ethos that culminates into a wearable art piece threaded into a country’s culture and history and crafted into existence with pipelines tied to the country’s regional economies (they use the term: a visual narrative). Some of the aesthetics are easy to pinpoint, like their Caryatid and columnar dresses. Most outside of Greece associate these with a sense of Greekness: the ancient. But read on and you’ll understand that their signature pleats are a take on the fustanella. Eyewear being modeled after modern Greek poets Constantine P. Cavafy (recently celebrated by the Onassis Foundation) and Yiorgos Seferis. Now, when I look at their sunglasses do I understand: these were the frames of the glasses documented as worn by these poets, and my heart is now fluttering with excitement: you are celebrating literature too! The story of Konstantinos Mouhtaridis deciding to keep his focus and silk line factory in Greece, moved himself by this Z+Δ story (told to him in person, still that irreplaceable tunnel to deliver the spark that speaks sincerity and passion), where now a local factory can meet and nourish the weavers, the preservationists of dying craft. It was women who founded this company.

I gave thought to the inspiration of the 2024 collection: a retro celebration of industries and craftmanship of Greece, those who worked with their hands. These are looks from the dock workers of Piraeus, the sponge divers, the fishermen. It is easy to remark how this is bourgeois fetishization of the working class via fashion: wearing the tools of labor but while possessing soft manicured hands that won’t know callouses and scars of real work. But when you read the magazine, and you understand how this brand is tied to preserving history and culture and live industries… this clothing becomes the visual narrative of a people’s living history.

My closet has always been sprinkled with folkloric weaves due in part to a now closed bookstore I’ve written about before in NYC, Morningside Bookstore in Manhattan. The basement floor housed a collection of used Greek books that would steer my writing, along with Greek textiles that my scouting husband was keen to pick up for me (and if not there, then on ebay). So it’s fun to see these patterns in the collections of Z+Δ .

I am one that looks for any opportunity to simulate life in Greece when outside of Greece. Sure, clown me for drinking the Kool-Aid of a company making me think a cigar is more than a cigar–but we can say this of anything in life in the Matrix: we invent stories to what we see and assign emotional value judgements. Since I currently have choice, I want to chose with meaning. And since we have left Eden and are damned to clothing, Zeus + Δione is my preferred fig leaf on many occasions afforded to me.