MOLLY ALEXANDER

 

MOLLY ALEXANDER is wearing the Salvo no.003. She is an antique dealer living in London.

Where do you imagine you would find your doppelgänger?
Dorset, c.1770.

Can you share some daily habits or rituals?
Nightly baths, the water stained arsenic green with Wilberg’s pine essence.

What takes you to cloud 9?
Swimming and sucking salty pebbles on Eype Beach in Dorset.

What would you embroider onto a pillow?
‘The Answer is Yes’ (quote from Oisin Byrne’s song).

Do you have a soundtrack to your life?
The voice of Jo Stafford.

What is good design?
A working pepper mill.

What should we be reading?
Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice.

What does your house smell like?
Toasted coffee beans (on a piece of tin foil on the hob), to rid the house of lingering tobacco.

What does your house sound like?
On a Saturday morning, the quiet chatter from the sleepy old barber shop beneath my flat, a faint purring of hairdryers and gossip.

What do you treasure most in your neighbourhood or city?
In London - Saturday morning at the lentil soup van on Golborne road, sitting up at the hatch on tall stools with my tall friend.

What is dear to your heart?
My late great aunt Min Hogg’s weighty photo albums, each page is meticulously collaged and then captioned; it is a capsule of a fin-de-god-knows-what-siècle, a moment in time that now feels private.

What do you collect?
Ears.

What is a rule that should never be broken?
Never describe something as simply, “interesting”. Christopher Gibbs once told me off for coming up with this bland observation whilst we were looking at the seaweed-like tendrils carved onto piece of stone - it was a very influential moment.

What is a rule that should always be broken?
“No entry”

What thoughts occupy you currently?
How many logs do I have left?

What was the first piece of cultural work that really mattered to you?
Act I of La bohème.

What do you still wish to learn?
‘Petite Fleur’ by Sidney Bechet, on the clarinet.

What is still a mystery?
Fog.

What is your favourite representation of simplicity?
Jasper Conran’s white panelled hall.

What is your favourite representation of complexity?
Bill Evans improvisations.

Where is happiness found?
Small and unexpected tender moments.

What do you see outside your window?
At the moment, primroses, and a still watered swimming pond.

What do you find humorous?
My daily phone calls with friends in Ireland.

What is your favourite slogan?
Kill them with kindness.

What are you working on at the moment?
Educating myself about 19th century Persian carpets, and finding the perfectly ‘shot’ period mercury glass plate to restore a George II mirror.