World Poetry Day: Revisiting Oscar Wilde's poem for Greece

Oscar’s Wilde "Impression de Voyage" is 133 years old. Thirteen decades later and the ode-to-Greece poem sets such a vital backdrop for Zeus+Dione, embodying codes and notions prevalent in the brand’s DNA.

The poem describes a journey across Greece, a return to its idyllic nature, perspicaciously blending its four basic components; Helios (sun), Thalassa (sea), Gaia (earth) and Uranus (sky). From the East to the West, the combination of blue lands and creeks, olive groves, cliffs and snowy peaks give this voyage a very special energy. And Zeus+Dione keeps and shares that same energy!

The sapphire blue colour of the sea is juxtaposed with the heated opal/red sky. The spectrum of blue shades is a key element used in variations in Z+D creations. Blue is the colour of heaven. The colour of equilibrium and impartiality. It is the colour that refers to peace, tranquility, cold, calm, stability, harmony, unity, cleanliness, order.

On the other hand, red is the colour of fire. It symbolizes extreme activity. Excitement, energy, passion, love, desire, speed, strength, power, heat, aggression, danger, fire, and all things intense and passionate. The colours depicting peace and tranquility have juxtaposed with colours of drama and passion. According to the 'Empedoclean' theory of plurality, “psyche is the mixture of opposites”. Bringing stark contrasts in absolute harmonization is another attribute of Z+D’s designs.

The balance between opposites exists in nature side by side and is translated through a dominant symbol of Z+D, the Greek letter Delta ‘Δ’, alluding to spirituality, harmony and creativity. The versatility of its shape manifests as a reoccurring isosceles triangle and can be seen as a print, details, or motifs throughout the brand’s collections.

On a final note, the “soil of Greece” illustrates an imaginative voyage into the country’s mythological past, a constant reference point for the brand. Ruins, fragments, the beauty of the broken and dismantled becomes a concept, an intriguing approach to redefine the traditional.

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast,
The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern,
The only sounds: -when 'gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!