What Women Publish: How Miss Pettigrew Came to Live Another Day

Persephone Books is a female-run publishing house and London bookstore that publishes out of print 20th century female authors. It’s a quintessential example of the kind of business built of passion, intellect and saleability that inspired Girl on the street and What Women Make.

On my way from Brompton to Bloomsbury to interview Nicola Beauman, Persephone’s founder, I had to quickly change gears from innovation and novelty-seeking to the section of my brain that strikes even closer to my heart,  creative writing and its hopeful end product, publishing.

When I walked into the store, I further detached from the streamlined design arena and took in the intimate, cluttered and well-lighted store stacked sky high with books in gray and floral print covers.  There I was ushered toward the back to a room that was even more cluttered and more charming, filled with the smell of new paper from boxes of books.

I tripped down a step, a graceful entrance, and took a seat opposite Ms. Bauman and settled into a worn leather chair adjusting my bags and jacket around me.  When I looked up, she was smiling and unaffectedly curious, not a word or sneer of disapproval about my clumsiness.  An hour later, after her urging me to move to London, listing all of its charms and scholarly offerings, my blossoming crush on the city and it elegant restraint had cemented itself. Not to mention that the part of me that perennially wishes for the mentor / teacher / editor I never had had been piqued.  Here are outtakes from my conversation with the smart and funny-as-hell woman who started and runs Persephone Books. Without her, Miss Pettigrew would literally not have lived to see another day.

How did you get started?

I didn’t know that much about publishing but one can learn these things really.

Why mid-20th century women?

Nowadays, women who could be writing are doing a million and one other things but in the mid-20th century, women stayed home and took to writing.  Also, there isn’t the same sense of tragedy now because we don’t have the same moral conflicts do we? Today everything goes. These books have plot. They’re page turners. Now a novel like this would have to be set against a historical background.  This is a chance to see what really went on during that time.

When did you start Persephone Books?

1998.

How did you start your career?

I had children young. At 26, I secured a contract to write a book on female authors. A Very Great Profession: The Woman’s Novel 1914-39.  I was writing and reviewing books for the Observer in my twenties.

And your children?

They are about your age I’d say.  I have three sons and two daughters, all in the arts. My oldest son is a children’s book writer. Another son just wrote a cultural history of the pineapple.

Wishes, regrets?

I wish I was more techie.  I’m a little late getting to the party.  (She has an amazing blogging concept and a great website. For her blog, she sends out an image every day that is historically relevant to her titles. I’d say she’s got quite a handle on the medium..)

Can you touch type? (I answer in the affirmative.) Oh good! It’s very important to be able to touch type!

Wisdom?

I tell my son, find a stable of people who can help you. An electrician, a handyman, a type setter, people who you like who won’t be offended if you call up for a last minute request, people that you don’t have to explain yourself to.  I’ve had the same delivery man the whole time, the same accountant, the same bank but I do have a new printer. (She considers this.)

What are your plans for the future?

Well, we’ll just continue as we are! We put out 6 books a year. We have 3 new books coming out next month. 80% of our business is mail order. Ms. Pettigrew is our best seller. You know there are 30M women in this country. We have 20k on our mailing list. You know only 3% of London buys books?

I love these prints. I told a pattern designer I was meeting with you and she told me she had tried to reach you about using her designs in your books.

We are quite ruthless about requests. I just get so many requests and I can’t answer them all. Most of the books are gray though.  They have to have a uniform look you see because they are coming by mail and then they know what they are getting when they open the package.  The books we sell to stores have a print pattern because it catches the reader’s eye. They expect that. For those, we use prints from fabrics produced the year the book was written.

Who are some women you find inspiring, from any field?

Lucienne Day, fabric designer. She’s 95 years old. Marjorie Scardino who runs Pearsons which owns the Financial Times. She’s gone very far in a man’s world.  Sarah Waters who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She’s a very very nice person. She just gets on with it. I admire her. Jane Brocket. She’s in the domestic arts and lives in Windsor. She bakes a lot. She writes about tapestry. She’s interesting without being annoying.

-Chauncey Zalkin

*See some Lucienne Day Converse sneakers here.

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Taiwan: Red Dot Design Award Winner Breathes New (Plant) Life Into Chair Design

“Re: Industrial Design graduate Yu-Ying Wu, Tatung University, Taiwan

“Taipei-based industrial designer Yu-Ying Wu’s Breathing Chair resembles a block of aerated tofu. Closer inspection reveals that the triangular voids vary in size, and their placement has been carefully calculated; the large triangles at the top-front-center “give” the most, creating a chair-like shape when compressed by a human body.

Wu’s chair, inspired by plant cells, took home a Red Dot Design Award in the home furniture design concept category earlier this year.”

via Core77 via cctv

 

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One night in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat: Open Studio Night in Barcelona

Walking to open studio night in Hospitalet de Llobregat…

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It was called Una Nita La Gloria.  I came up the metro into twilight in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Barcelona and then down winding crisscrossing streets and up an overpass.

South of Montjuic and west butting up against a railway yard lies the building, Gloria, home to the artist space known as La Nave and its downstairs studio neighbor a much more caliente vibe in comparison to the cool blues and shadows of La Nave.   La Nave was founded by expat artists Paola Masi and Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson.  I was invited by one of their recent additions, the ceramicist and a former head of knitwear at Benetton, Caroline Swift (who I later interviewed for MyDeco US. Check it out.)

Since Una Nita La Gloria, Caroline’s been over for a Ceviche and spiced chicken dinner party where we talked about life in Barcelona, London, her former life in fashion and whether I should make the studios my own office space in which to conduct What Women Make business. Here are my photos of a visually arresting night of thrown shadows and delicate art in southern Barcelona. (She later became my best friend in Barcelona and I even kept an office int he studio for 6 months of my stay here.)

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Paola Masi

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performance piece

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Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson ‘Soforbis

 

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Caroline Swift

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Paola’s desk looking out on sun setting over Barcelona train tracks and industria

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Caroline Swifts bone china spoons

Caroline Swift’s bone china spoons

Caroline Swift - porcelain leaves

Caroline Swift – porcelain leaves

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London Design Festival 2009: Women Stand Behind Their Work

Review of 100% Design London and Designersblock

Recent design school grad Freya Godwin-Brown clutches one of her resin and fabric sculptures after we chatted for thirty minutes about everything from her upcoming move to Australia to the skies of Shanghai which inspired this body of work.IMG_2360_2

Eleanor Young, textile designer, shows an exciting juxtaposition with her dainty vintage furniture pieces that she’s upholstered with her bold asymmetric geometric patterns, creating something entirely feminine out of shapes ordinarily associated with masculinity or 80s pop ‘topshop’ style youth wear. What she’s created here feels fresh and sophisticated at the same time. She also tries out digital printing for the first time as seen on the pillow on top of the small bench which worked really well with the embroidery. The way she matched  her dress to her collection was also a nice touch.

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Camilla Meijer is not a recent grad.  I didn’t even get a chance to stop and talk to her  – but I love her patterns (see Abigail Borg, a rising star as well).

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Eadadin Dempsey sits in her final project after she talked excitedly about her first show.  Simple construction, nothing extraneous, inspired by thatched roofs in her native Ireland. She’s a graduate from Dublin Institute of Technology.

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Aimee Louise Hartshorn who came from Dublin with Eadadin sits on her twelve-legged rocking stool.

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Yura Kim from South Korea made these resin light fixtures by hand but don’t ask her how she did it because she won’t tell you. She said, “sorry, I took a long time to figure out how to do it.” Fair enough and she’s done a beautiful job.   They are even more impressive in person. The one behind her in pink looks like a fragile shell or a birds nest.

These three women make up Rooms Design, an interior and product design company from Georgia (the country, not the state). Quite an interesting trio. The woman in the middle is the business side and the two women on the ends are the designers. They also worked in collaboration with a fashion designer who dressed chairs in military uniforms. This collection was a inspired by the recent Russian invasion and communist occupation of Georgia during the cold war.  The fear is that ‘things will become drab again if freedom is threatened;.  The lamp in metal represents the Soviet Union and the wooden lamp is modeled after an American 50s desk lamp, a bold expression of designs potential to communicate political sentiments, something you might not expect from a commodity.

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Holly Palmer creates whimsical furniture that doesn’t overpower. I want that  table and the teacup  behind her.  More Alice in Wonderland charming than boutique hotel showy, these struck me as great for small spaces.

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London Design Festival 2009: The What Women Make Report


Chair Arch conceived of by Wallpaper’s Henrietta Thompson

The week transcended all expectations.  With a day’s distance from my time at the fair, I see the trends as follows: Reality skewing shapes, new world order inventions for sustainability rocketing us into better mousetraps, intellectual pursuit, bold against black, color and selfassuredness. Here I recount my path of discovery:

9/19

The day of my arrival in London was spent gearing up for a week of design immersion. I went to Sainsbury’s to get cereal and yogurt so I wouldn’t be slowed down by morning hunger and was wowed by the convenience of automatic check out. A system that dispenses bills no less. Much easier than Ikea’s system. Do we (America) have that anywhere? Easy, clear, convenient and fast. My good branding and service loving side was in heaven. (I’ve been living in Paris and Barcelona for the past three years.)

Then I went to W.H. Smith and browsed the London city guides looking for something that wasn’t going to consider Big Ben the vital destination and ended up with just an A-Z mini map because everything from Time Out to Not For Tourists felt too commercial or too broad.

9/20

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Ceramics in the City

It was only when I got to the beautiful, green and tranquil Geffrye museum for Ceramics and the City that I found Max Fraser’s London Design Guide which as it turns out had just been published and would be all over the place within days. It has clear maps by neighborhood and covers everything from big commercial design stores and hotels to the small and independent but it doesn’t consider fashion to be design other than a few biggies like Paul Smith and Dover Street Market and therefore misses the design worthy independents like No-one on Kingsland Road which I found to be a bit of a shame.

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Geffrye Museum

At Ceramics in the City, a one day sale of local work, the big winner for me was Hitomi McKenize. Her pieces are a refined snapshot of the spinning ceramic wheel in motion. (F) The museum itself is like a hidden oasis in East London. Along the back there is a hall with small wooden benches and a wall of windows facing fluttering green leaves and dappled sunlight. A great place to sit and read or write.

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I looked through all the Brick Lane and market stall stores stopping on my way back to talk with the owner of semi permanent pop up shop, Marsh-mellow, a store dedicated to festival goers in the UK. No longer just the one-off viral marketing stunts they started out as, pop up stores are now the norm for testing the marketplace before leaping. The vibe in London was palpably one of moving forward in creative, thoughtful and innovative ways though. I didn’t get a sense of doom and gloom or the impression creative types were holding onto a safety raft.

Next was dinner with a Japanese exporter who showed meticulously crafted leather goods at Maison & Objet in Paris for the first time and was only in London on his way out of town. We discussed a shared passion for the dying ancient traditional crafts of Japan at Sake No Hana in Mayfair which only made me long for the real thing. When I asked him why the Japanese always eat Japanese food when they’re abroad he said he can do with a few days of European food or Chinese but then he just finds anything but Japanese too greasy.

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In the morning I went to pick up my press card and looked through the V&A Telling Tales exhibition of expressionistic escapist furniture and design.

I am trying my hand at agent as well as brand strategist to female led projects so I checked out a handful of recommended stores supporting independent designers. One of these was Beyond the Valley off Carnaby street where I met the affable but fashion week rushed buyer and had a chat.

Then I made my way to the famed “b store” on Saville Road which left me markedly underwhelmed. It’s one of those concept stores that are dark, cold, housing a paltry collection of overpriced garments exalted way beyond their level of originality or interest – with the requisite shelf of independent handmade magazines, “Me” magazine, the newspaper format magazines focusing on one very specific banal obsession, in this case ‘light’, and a self-involved sales staff that never looked up to say hello. There are one or three of these in every fashionable city.

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me at Skandium

This was a surprise because everywhere I’d been in until now, the friendliness and charm had been total which I think is way more modern than aloof unfounded snobbery of past years (or of Paris in general) so with b store, I really could not see what all of the fuss was about.

Here’s a regret. On the other end of the humanist spectrum, I missed the ‘Reclaim’ exhibit at Eco Age. It was just too out of the way of everything else. I had really wanted to meet Orsola de Castro who with partner John Teal made art out of unclaimed luggage. I hope to catch up with them via email. I thought of them when my eyes landed on a quilt made from dolls and baby toys at 100% Design. They made a similar quilt out of the contents of the luggage.

9/22

Tuesday the pace increased exponentially. I missed Responsible Design – and not because I was irresponsible! – but because the website said the talk was at 9:30 and it was actually at 8:30 but I recovered from the glitch while perusing the Brompton Design district. The Knit Wit exhibit at Skandium was lovely though I wouldn’t say terribly unique. The store itself is a joy, especially Klaus Haapaniemi’s Iittila cups. Afterwards, I sat down with the striking Priscilla Carluccio, owner of Few and Far and of brother Terence Conran and Habitat fame (F) and then went around the corner to Mint, a gallery shop that sits on the border of design and art, cherishing concept and metaphor over strict functionality. The staff were knowledgeable, unpretentious and welcoming and the content, strangely beautiful. The highlight was the “At One” couch made from ash, latex, crushed velvet, and foam by Charlotte Kingsnorth who was influenced by rising obesity and the paintings of Jenny Saville. The work is a comment on  the relationship between a human being and their furniture “which has been devoured by its obese occupier.” This bulbous melting structure was actually pretty comfortable.

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lunch at Portobello Dock

tomdixonwallNext I went to interview Dieneke Ferguson, founder of Hidden Art. For the duration of the London Design Festival, Hidden Art took up residence at Tom Dixon’s temporary exhibition and showroom space at Portobello Dock which also housed nascent designer projects. Dieneke who is Dutch, has been a kind of fairy godmother for independent designers and artisans in the UK for the past twenty years, eleven of which under Hidden Art (F). It was day one in the space for her and we took some time trying to figure out the process for ordering lunch. She had the rabbit. I’d eaten a sandwich in transit and had my third cup of coffee of the day which didn’t hinder my sleep one iota by the time I went to bed.

I ended the working day with an interview with Danish designer Nina Tolstrup whose Pallet Project created a second life for “pallets” (wooden crates) as chairs. She commissioned artists Gavin Turk and Cornelia Parker to paint a chair each. The chairs were auctioned off for a charitable organization where women in poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires come together to make pallet chairs for their community. The woman who set up the foundation approached Nina with her idea after seeing her chairs online. (F).

9/23

Wednesday: the actual fair now a day away, I had a packed schedule. I attended the book launch of “Discovering Women in Polish Design: Interviews and Conversations” which to date was the most eye opening and relevant to What Women Make’s global / local female focus (F).

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glass house at Wapping Project

At night I ended up missing Lee Broom’s opening that I’d RSVPd to as well as the London Design Medal which I do regret, but I made a new friend who creates textiles and innovates design processes, one of which will be used to ornament hospital ceiling tiles. shoedesignertalkI was introduced to her by the Blueprint Magazine product editor, Luca Amadei, who led and wrote the Polish Design book project. I’d met him the night bfore at Nina’s party and we hit it off right away. Ana Aranjo, who moved to London from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, teaches at Oxford when she’s not running her company, Atelier Domino. She invited me to a talk at the Wapping Project. We had dinner in the converted factory and she filled me in on London creative entrepreneur life as I considered a move there.

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around the corner from Persephone Books near Russell Square

The highlight of my week was between breakfast and dinner. It was my interview with Nicola Beauman of Persephone Books. It had nothing to do with design. After all, What Women Make is not just about design but about creative women and female leaders leading creative businesses. Ten years ago after stints at the Financial Times and the Observer, and a book of her own under her belt about women writers, Nicola founded her publishing house and bookshop in Bloomsbury. Persephone Books publishes out-of-print female authors from the 19th century that she personally loves. I won’t say any more. You’ll have to wait for the interview to post. (F)

9/24

The fair arrived. I started with Designers BlockDesignersBlock where I stopped four or five women designers whose work caught my eye, from recent grads to new entries, to the hugely successful founder of Ella Doran. The rest of the day was spent walking a maze of delight around 100% Design, definitely concentrating on the back center and right quadrant for new and experimental design and concepts dealing with sustainability. (F)

9/25

Reluctant to admit this is my last day, I was slower than the rest to make it out the door. When I did, I headed right to Brick Lane’s Truman Building for Tent thinking its at least a half-day event but I ended up seeing only one or two items of note and finish the single floor in forty minutes including a chat with a woman who upholsters beautiful antique trunks with her hand printed textiles.

All in all, my evenings this week were spent mostly with friends and not at parties, save one. That might bore you, but on my last evening dead tired and unable to make it back to East London for the festivities, I spent it gathered at a bottle of wine with a new New York acquaintance lamenting our city’s dwindling steam, both of us for the first time considering moves to the dynamic, engaging, poised, diverse, and somehow seemingly more intellectual and daring, London.

And that’s my trip. Please follow me on twitter and my RSS feed to be alerted to the interviews and features as they post. A selection of photos of women and their work will post next and a video of the week will be coming shortly after.

-Chauncey Zalkin


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From Japan, living in Berlin, Naoko Ogawa, creator of “gathering jewelry”

A different kind of jewelry designer, Naoko makes jewelry for your clothing. She decorates by changing the shape of shirts, shoes and shins – some of the more overlooked sculptural materials of our day to day selves.  What drew me to her was her work with soft metals where the wearer can change the shape of a garments with a simple squeeze. Naoko’s “gathering” pieces create new draping, a new visual focal point.

She is from Japan and lives and works in Berlin.

Here’s the interview which I’ve edited for the language but only slightly.

NaokoGatheringJewelsWhere were you born?

In a small town.  Odawara, in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo. I lived there until I was 18. Then I left to go to Tama Art University and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music both in Tokyo.

Where do you work now?

Berlin.

How did the place you grew up influence your design?

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the view from Naoko's studio

As a child, I was surrounded by woods and I spent a lot of time playing alone in nature. My favorite game was to play ‘treasure hunt.’ I’d gather small shiny things, a fragment of broken glass, a part of a broken buckle or vivid colored leaves and nuts, and show them to my family. It brought me great pleasure that my found treasures surprised them and made them happy. I wanted to expand on that experience and make something as beautiful as those found treasures.  When I was five years old, I created my first piece of jewelry with acorns and thread. I’ve been making jewelry ever since.

Another way my town was an influence was that it inspired me to be different.  My hometown was small and the people were conservative. They were not accepting of strangers or heterogeneity. Our family moved there from another town and it took time to acclimate. I liked the place, but didn’t like the group mentality. My reaction to this was to embrace being unique.

Talk about the materials you use.  How did you come to use moldable metals in your “Gathering Jewelry” the pieces in particular that drew me to your work?

I majored in traditional Japanese metal crafts (metal hammer and curving works) in art school. I studied the properties of various metals. When you expose metals to too much heat, they become soft enough to manipulate into shapes. You have to watch out for metal fatigue though. Too much heat can break your material but I use aluminum plate for the Gathering Jewelry. Aluminum is soft and light, has strong plasticity, and can tolerate being manipulated over and over again.

What is your design philosophy?

I look for an element of surprise and to create joy, the jewel of life. I consider jewelry to be indispensable for a happy life – it’s like spices are to food.

Do you participate in any other art form? If so, what? (writing, fine arts, dance, etc)

No.

Any other female designers that you’d like our readers to check out?

Yuka Oyama Susan Pietzsch (2).  They are Artists, and their art is also jewelry. They have own unique opinions about jewelry, and are trying to create the “next” context for jewelry, evolve the meaning of jewelry.

Any comments on being a female designer? Is it tough for a woman or do you find it to be quite neutral?

Thank you for your interests in my work. I don’t think that it’s tough being a female designer at all. Men have their own angle. Women have their own angle.

Naoko Naoko Ogawa

You can see the rest of her work here.

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What Five Japanese Women Make

Ever since I took on my first Japanese client and traveled to Kyoto with her, I’ve fallen in love with Japan like many before me.  I was reluctant to present Japanese makers so soon because when I start in on Japan, its an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.   Time freezes and all my other work is left undone.  But I took the risk because I happened to find a small gem of a design graduate,  Naoko Ogawa,  and so off I had to go. I limited myself to two days to find a few more Japanese women, all in the name of a regional focus. And here they are, three Japanese designers and then the interview with Naoko-san which I’ll create for Wednesday’s post so stay tuned!

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Emiko Oki

Emiko Oki

Based in London, born in Tokyo
Emiko-san uses each part of a place setting to form a trophy, her comment on what she calls a “fairly useless object” which is “masculine and sports related” rendering it “feminine, fragile, and functional.”

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Until August 23rd, you can see her work at the Museum of Art and Design in New York as part of an exhibit entitled Object Factory.

Then there’s Rie Isono and her firm Pear Design Studio. She worked for Sony before going off on her own. Here are two products of note, the elegant toothbrush holder and the skin-like fruit basket where the contents give it a unique shape every time you fill it:

Pear Design elegant toothbrush holder

Pear Design skin-like fruit basket

More traditionally Japanese are Hina Aaoyamas intricate paper art cut-outs that she hand cuts!  The zen patience of a saint. Makes me dizzy to watch it. So beautiful and delicate like couture clothing. She lives in France and has a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Miniatures in Lyon.

And I wanted to include the genius of Kazuyo Sejima the architect who makes up half of Sanaa with her protégé and partner Ryue Nishizawa. They are responsible for, in addition to this years summer pavilion in London, Tokyo’s Dior building  and “Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion, which stunned critics for being perhaps the world’s first genuinely transparent museum — both external and internal walls are made of glass.” –Japan Times

And last, they’re not women, but noteworthy indeed.  They fall under the category of “Men We Love” which obviously could be its own website.  Check out the whimsy and inventiveness of Kyouei Design - from their oozy liquid bookmark to their aluminum mesh chair and  gravity defying wine carafe.

Kazuyo Sejima

-Chauncey Zalkin

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Fast Fashion and The Future of Retail

Zara, H&M, Forever 21, TopShop. Rags ripped and dangling from swinging hangers. Stampedes of the fashion flock echoing at closing time as the underpaid are left to pick up the last ripped price tag. Last month at the opening for Topshop in New York, I hear it was like pigs at the trough and in Tokyo the Forever 21 flagship attracted a line of people the night before.

Is all this lust for novelty going to just go away? Especially for the youth trendbot demo? I have my doubts.  We like to think that highly conscionable change agents make up the masses but it just ain’t the case.

But let’s just forget about sides at the moment, because this isn’t your run of the mill pendulum swing, our systems of consumption are truly broken right? And they needs fixing. But before calling for a full scale return of craft and demise of fast fashion, we have to be honest with ourselves and how we actually live our now-thrifty lives.

I became fully aware of the tons of crap I consume when I moved from New York to Miami back to New York to Paris and then Barcelona between 2004 and 2009. Now that I’ve got it down to the bare minimum of accumulation — very well made things, nostalgic keepsakes, and practical disposable goods, I am starting to see what matters most -or how to live better but since I’m not in a wealthy way these days, I do go to H&M for necessities and treat it like checking items off a grocery list. “Buy saturated orange top to work well with skirt I already own”, “need new tee shirts”,  and then once a year, “jeans falling apart, trip to Barney’s co-op”.

My clothes are my new bottle of dishwashing liquid. My bag of lemons. My six pack of chicken breasts. I replace the stained, the pilled, the misshapen by repeated washes when I need to and that’s about it. Can you blame me for being Coscoesque in my approach? I think of clothes as disposable because it seems that the 300$ + goods is just as fallible as the Forever21 tee shirts I own.

At the same time, just as I don’t have the means or inclination right now to buy a Bang and Olufsen stereo or a lampshade by Moustache lets say, the biggest design buzz from Salone del Mobile last week, I still seek objects that bring tactile pleasure, incite memory, offer balance, and celebrate aesthetic excellence because our object world relies on design to communicate and please. It’s a very important part of the human experience and one which stands totally apart from ‘it’ bags and this season’s boots.

The trick is to ask, do I want to collect this? If you do, that’s when you spend the money. If you’re going for novelty or just a clean pair of underwear, we’re going to have to learn some way to ween ourselves off fast fashion fast because it’s too late; we are no  longer willing to pay a high price for basics.

Consider the following quotes from a Core77 article entitled Selling the Future: Design and the Financial Crisis

  • “Make less. Make it better. Focus on craft.”
  • “Examine the thing you’re designing right now: Does it fulfill a fundamental human need?”
  • “People no longer pay for durability. They will.”

Well said.

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