Marcel Proust’ In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), one of the world’s most famous literary works, spans over several decades, through winding passageways and surprising twists and turns in time.

The taste of Madeleine cookies and scent of hawthorn bushes awaken the narrator’s memory, making him reminisce over times past.

Through a deeply personal perspective, Proust created a narrative based in the passing of time, filling it with detailed descriptions of sexual escapades, romantic infatuations and social ambitions, taking place primarily in Paris and Normandy.

Long forgotten incidents and people now dead are brought to life, woven into the fabric of Proust’s imagination.

Proust was fascinated by time, questioning its linearity and attempting to mould it into the shape of his own desire.

 One of the most famous of all characters in Proust’s masterpiece is madame de Guermantes, who owns an entire wardrobe signed Mariano Fortuny.

Fortuny was one of the most prominent fashion designers of his time, based in Venice but with a branch in Paris.

The fashion house is utilized in the novel as a way to explain de Guermantes’ absolute fascination with fashion, and great interest in following trends.

The main character Marcel’s love interest Albertine eventually became so enchanted with the fashion house that it deeply affected the relationship between the two.

Marcel wanted Albertine, but Albertine desired Fortuny.

 Fashion is defined by its relationship with time. Garments are a materialization of the zeitgeist, which is why the German philosopher Walter Benjamin likened fashion with a tiger, leaping from branch to branch in the jungle, sometimes looking backwards (thus creating a retro-trend), more often looking forward in anticipation of the future.

However, fashion is also deeply linked to matters of space. Garments enclose human bodies in soft textiles, but also floors, walls and ceilings are designed with regards to human scale and bodily functions.

This is true for all buildings, from small farms to enormous palaces.

 Proust would refer to his literary work both as a kind of “patched dress” and as a “gothic cathedral”.

In a famous and often quoted passage, he wrote that he, “should construct my book, I don’t dare say, ambitiously, as if it were a cathedral, but simply as if it were a dress I was making.”

A cathedral is meant to be forever while a dressing is ephemeral, similar to a personal memory, which Proust’s particular style of writing reminds the reader of.

Initially, the first novel in the series (which includes seven novels in total) was refused by the publishing houses, and Proust had to pay for its publication out of his own pocket.

Soon, the series gained in popularity, and American author Edmund White has called it “the most respected novel of the twentieth century”.