The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Wonderful costumes. Layered fabrics in plum, russet, pine green. Nightgowns embroidered with tiny birds. Fingerless gloves. Tasselled shawls, woven with flowers and leaves or shot through with gold thread. Strings of pearls, red lips and fabulous smoky eyes. Masks and chain link and animal disguises. Turquoise ribbon wound round wrists and a chain of tinkling bells around an ankle. Flashbacks to another era, with elegant tailoring and softly waved hair.

A magical, several storied caravan painted with stars and symbols, led by black horses and furnished with drapes and hangings, ancient books and a bottomless dressing up box.

The backdrop of modern-day London, drunken twenty-somethings on a night-out, the Metropolitan police, the ever-changing river Thames, Southwark Cathedral, Tower Bridge.

The sense of magic and possibility, that stayed with me on the journey home, the feeling that co-existing with the dirt and grime of the city, alongside the rubbish bins, derelict buildings, chewing gum stained pavements, an alternative, more fantastical, reality exists.

(all images from here)