A fantasy we can all believe in…

I’m not usually a shoe-gal, but I saw these Opening Ceremony shoes in Liberty a few days ago and just about died. They are wonderful, for so many reasons, but I reckon these are the type of shoe I would wear with everything, taking any tragic outfit I attempt from being, well, tragic, to at least providing my days with that delusional sense of self-esteem one gets from frivolous shoes.

Lovely. From Little Paper Planes.

It’s that time of year again… for Girl Scout Cookies! My mother (affectionately known as a ‘lifer’ - a life-time member of the Girl Scouts) has sent over a few boxes of girl scout cookies every year, bringing back fond memories of countless cold spring days standing outside the local supermarket or going door to door taking orders.

Girl Scouts of America just released this new video, breaking down the gap between the harsh realities of the world - which they generate aid and support for - and the happy little girls going door to door in their brown, green and blue get-ups. And I think they’ve done a superb job at it. But what I think it also does is remind that the Girl Scouts are one of the strongest brands in America. Everyone has not only heard of them, but in many cases participated with them, as a member, a parent, or simply the customer come cookie season. I don’t want to say that Girl Scouts are a ‘brand’ (‘cause I’m kinda over the whole brand question) but I do think the GS do all the things any standard brand or institution should learn from. They play an amazing role in the community. They’re about education and development as much as they are about having fun. They are a “they” and full of ambassadors - when I picture the Girl Scouts I picture a bunch of girls out planting trees and learning how to sail, I don’t see some one person or a logo. The brand is, as it should be, invisible.

I’d like to see the Girl Scouts of America do more online… perhaps their ‘rebrand’ in the Spring will do that. Perhaps as a platform for doing what the GS are best at: doing stuff offline, outside, away from a computer. So here’s my list of some things I think the GS could and/or should do online. And being a good Scout myself, they can have here from me, for nothing.

1. A platform to connect elderly people with their local scouts, a way to let the elderly post requests for meet-ups and activities. This would make it easier for scout leaders to connect their girls, but also a way to identify the right girl for the right person, to share dreams, goals, advice, company.

2. A local maps database. Get everyone outside more. But allow local scouts to become ‘online guides’ posting their favorite walks, trails, wildlife sightings and botany information, along with the best places and tips for starting controlled fires, first aid, and historical stories from the area.

3. Ex-pat social networking. It would be great if GS of America recognized that one of the great things about GS is that many members go on to live in many places around the world, and despite having very fond memories of scouting, have no way to connect with others like themselves.

4. How-to database. Like instructables, but for all the little things we learned as scouts (and most of us have either forgotten or just have foggy memories). The great thing is it could actually be managed by current scouts, but anyone could use it.

5. A way for girls in different parts of the country to connect and share experiences - whether for exchanges or just penpals. This could be a way for girls to share music, stories, photos… I was shocked to find out the largest GS facebook group has less than 10,000 members! Outrageous! It could have several hundred thousand if they got their act together.

6. Travelogues

7. Careers advice online - for mentoring and placements - connecting ex-scouts with current scouts (well, once a scout always a scout, really…)

8. Community service notice/needs boards - where anyone can make requests - and local girls can do their ‘good deeds’

9. An international cookie shop! (please?)

10. A ‘small things count too’ way for girls to show off the little things (and the big things) they’ve accomplished, like a trophy chest, but more modest. Just a way of demonstrating impact… perhaps a way to say “I got this badge” and “this is how I did it” so others can learn, read and share stories of both challenges and accomplishments.

Some nice things I found on the Marimekko site… I often forget they do fashion fabrics. Though I’d prefer to wear their furnishing fabrics as fashion fabrics, but still, I think these are lovely.

Style icon du jour: Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 weeks … oversized coats, floppy wavy hair, oversized man-glasses

I’ve been collaborating a lot recently with the uber-chic and fantastic Sonia Bronstein Shah (one of the most stylish, inspiring and kind people I think I’ve ever met) at Tank for the last 7 months, writing the jewellery posts for Because, and it’s opened my eyes to a lot of jewellery - and a lot about jewellery I never would have known. Chiefly I am often bothered by the price of jewellery - although I know from jewellery designer friends of mine that it’s a labour of love and I’ve seen how hard it is, especially for those just starting out. I’ve also recently become aware of Swarovski Crystallized, their crystal craft shop (there’s one just next across from Liberty on Great Marlborough Street), allowing people to pick out stones to make their own pieces… If I had the patience for craft I would be all over it, but I have the attention span of a gnat. That, and most crystals annoy me, it’s not quite diamonds, not quite glitter. So in leu of crystals, I go for ribbons, birds and … err… yes, flowers.

So, I made this last weekend, pretty quickly, but I’m in love with it. Any excuse to wear a bird or pink grosgrain ribbon is a good one.

Style icon shot du jour: Mads circa Sean Penn

This is the best cookbook ever. Cakes, salads, pancakes, tarts, how to do perfect eggs or homemade granola. It’s all here in its beautifully designed glory.

Design duo BCXSY (Boaz Cohen x Sayaka Yamamoto) are going to be showcasing some of their new work on the Nature of Copies at the Copy Nature Exhibition in Eindhoven from 12 Feb - 11 April 2010.

Copy Nature/ The Nature of Copies is a project initiated by industrial designer Max Lipsey, who brought together 12 designers to experiment with metal casting. Other pieces from the exhibition can be viewed here.

I’m excited to see the exhibition, chiefly because I’ve become very interested in the influence of traditional industrial manufacturing processes recently and curious to see how the designers play this out. In some ways, I think it’s a shift away from Design Art influences and about things being a little more normal - still special - but normal and manufacturable, (thus affordable) again.

From BCXSY’s website: Copy Copy Nature by Sayaka plastic fruits and vegetables have been cut into pieces and then fused together  into new compositions, creating ‘new species’. Cast in bronze and then carefully polished, the new objects turn into small precious containers.

This work  comments on the possible loss or mutation of the original through cycles of copies, imitation and reproduction.

Wrapped Candlestick by Boaz  is the first result of experiments with the casting of wrapping materials in bronze. Wrapping materials are usually soft, light and supposed to protect fragile objects.  By transforming those materials  into metal, the wrapping material becomes the object itself.

Hello? Banana conditioner anyone? Dewberry perfume? Japanese Washing Grains (they got me through much of my adolescence without spots)? Body Shop have FINALLY done what they should have done years ago: they’re bringing back their originals; the products that made us love them, the products that made the Body Shop famous.

Anita Roddick was an incredible woman, who I was lucky enough to meet a few years ago. I had come down with a terrible, embarrassing heat rash the summer I was working for Featherstone Associates (now Featherstone Young), doing some writing and public strategy work… it was one of those days I couldn’t breathe it was so hot… and London is a terrible place to be when you can’t escape the heat. In the door strode Anita, hair as big as ever, but she was so much smaller than I imagined (this tends to be the case with famous people). Featherstone’s were in the middle of designing her bathroom - and to my horror - she zeroed in on me from the other side of the room and told me to go take a cool bath in camomile tea. Yes, that’s right. I was mortified. Of course the day I meet Mrs. Body and Beauty I’m a hideous leper. I went straight home that evening, emptied out about 10 bags of camomile tea into my luke-warm bath and soaked in it for about 30 minutes. And ta-da! Skin back to it’s normal dull self. And a hero was reborn!

The Body Shop - finally getting their act together - have launched a prize draw along with their new campaign for a year’s supply of products. I’ve entered for Banana Conditioner… it reminds me of summer camp, first kisses, first dances… it reminds me of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and wearing Stussy.

I’ve been a dedicated Aveda user for nearly 10 years. Though it feels like just yesterday I was first introduced to their green, iconic bottle of Hydrating Lotion and buying whole-heartedly into the brand doctrines of Ayervedic living… but that was then. The principles of what they did were good. They gave back to charity. They supported Fair Trade and organic practices. They pioneered environmentally sustainable packaging. All these things made me love Aveda. Not to mention the fact the products were really damn good. There is virtually no other lotion that I like besides their Soothing body lotion; their Smoothing body scrub did wonders for otherwise-plagued, dull skin… their hair products are renowned for being of incredible quality - even by some top stylists. 10 years (and a short hiatus when I flirted with Kiehl’s) later, I am more than disappointed with the demise of such a great brand. Bought out by Estee Lauder a few years ago, the brand has undergone several annoying changes. The first thing that really bugs me is they’ve created a shorter life-span for their product ranges. No sooner do they bring out a range, it gets canned, never to be seen again. I’m addicted to their Sensitive Skin range, but just a couple weeks ago I discovered it has now been discontinued. The same goes for their makeup line. I loved their tinted moisturizer, but nope, discontinued. The first signs of this brand decapitation came a few years back when they killed their hair conditioning Cherry Almond Bark treatment line. One product I could overlook and deal with… but now I am left feeling like someone has come into my bathroom and just absconded with all my products! In the last 10 years, Aveda stopped being a brand and started being MY brand. These products are mine - how DARE they take them away?! And this is probably my point… there was a stage in the last 10 years when I stopped buying brands and started treating them like they were more than that… friends? Lovers?

Despite my pleading (I sent a few relatively angry emails) and bargaining (begging shop girls to hold products aside for me if they got any more in) and stockpiling (I bought 5 tinted moisturizers when I discovered they were killing the line)… it is now time to move on. (I’m no-longer a jilted ex.)

Aesop is a beautiful brand. I’ve always been marginally jealous of their packaging - the kind of packaging that makes Aveda look positively common - they have excellent social and eco creds, they’re independent (with little chance of a buy-out anytime soon), and, like Aveda, the products are actually fantastic. Not to mention, I’m a sucker for any brand that manages to completely reinvent the meaning of awesome retail at every turn.

So on my way home from an afternoon of writing by the fire at Shoreditch House I popped into the new, Aesop microshop on Redchurch Street to have a snoop and a sample. After a shower and night with new moisturizers, I’m hooked and going back tomorrow for more. Goodbye Aveda. I wish I could say I’ll miss you now, but really - I’ve missed you for a very long time. Bisous!

ACNE FURNITURE!

My absolutely favorite brand of the moment, Acne, launched a furniture collection yesterday! Acne designer Jonny Johansson took inspiration from the NYA Berlin Sofa by the Swedish NK Group - the Creative Collective - and designer Carl Malmsten.

I had some time over the holidays to catch up on some TV, getting a chance to finally watch HBO’s now-award-winning series Big Love in an epic, back-to-back marathon. While the show is fascinating for several reasons, the most interesting narrative happens between the three, polygamous wives. The emotional blackmail and politics not of marriage but of attention come into light particularly in the episode when the youngest of the wives, Margene, receives a visit from her mother. Her mother, coming out of a drunken stupor, says, in the kind of clarity only provided by a strong hang-over, “you have all the power, don’t you forget that… they think they have the power because they’re first and second, but you have youth, and that’s the real power.” This three-way tug-of-war between the wives is never fully resolved, although it becomes clear these words were indeed those of wisdom.

Those who know me know I’m an avid reader of The Scientific Fundamentalist, a controversial blog written for Psychology Today by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa. His work explores the way human social behaviors are driven by evolutionary development… and he doesn’t mince his words. Having no time for political correctness, Kanazawa explains everything from why men prefer blondes to the shape of male genitalia. He tackles, on more than one occasion, the practice ofpolygamy. In a nutshell (and likely a muddled one at that), humans are, by their very nature, polygamous. They just do polygamy one spouse at a time. I cannot come close to explaining all the detailed reasons for this, but essentially, rich, powerful men have always taken many wives over the course of their lives. The women stay in their fertile prime as they themselves age, allowing for the raising of multiple offspring - something only truly afforded by, indeed, the most wealthy, powerful of men. BUT, women too take multiple mates (as evidenced by the shape of male genitalia, among other things).  These behaviors have evolved that way to increase and improve human reproduction, though they’re completely taboo - not to mention illegal - in most modern cultures.

The Bachelor is America’s other favorite show about polygamy. This too follows a narrative of the politics of attention rather than love. Love, after all, seems irrelevant when one’s future is at stake. The women all go onto the show for the same reasons. What is publicly announced is they all want to fall in love (and really, who am I to doubt them), but at the end of the day, the Bachelor himself (also in it to find love) is usually a very successful man. He’s usually very good looking, financially well-off if not actually wealthy, and well, successful enough to have been selected by America to be their deserving representative in a national quest for mythic, reproductive success.

Each woman on The Bachelor is competing for the bachelor’s attention, taking turns to go on dates, have one-on-one time… eventually being whittled down to just two women, from whom the star of the show must pick his bride to be. At this point, it sounds just like Big Love, except in the HBO version he doesn’t have to make up his mind in the final episode.

And like Big Love, The Bachelor’s most interesting narrative isn’t about boy meets girl, it’s about the life in the The Bachelor house, revolving around the politics of women who have all willingly agreed to share one man, knowing that success with him is extremely reproductively lucrative. This is because polygamy is actually far better for women than it is for men (counter-intuitively). In another nutshell, this is because in a polygamous society, only a few men get all the women, leaving most men reproductively unsuccessful - and a woman’s chances of ending up with a successful man in a polygamous society are far greater than her chances in a monogamous culture where even many deadbeat men end up with wives and children.

Not one single aired conversation on The Bachelor goes much deeper than superficial expressions of frustration (not getting enough attention - or - “why is she getting so much more attention than me” - or - she’s not really who she says she is) and this is true of the conversations both between women and between the women and the bachelor himself. Then alternatively, there are blind expressions of love, belonging and desire - with a kind of assuredness that doesn’t come naturally on a first date unless one is looking for a verbal or physical confirmation of attention - a reciprocation.

Back to the politics of Big Love: the politics of reciprocity (and attention) run deep in the Hendricks household: who gets what, who owes what, feelings of deserving or resentment towards those less deserving. It’s just a normal family, on an epic scale. What both shows play out, however, is not how to resolve the politics of reciprocity nor attention. They both play out a fundamental taboo narrative of polygamy in a way that’s digestible, understandable - dare I say it, desirable? Men watch the shows because the fantasy is to be the Bachelor - the successful man (which in a truly polygamous culture - he would unlikely be). Women watch the shows for exactly the same reasons, the fantasy of being the successful woman… the trouble is, the most successful of women (it seems, from a evolutionary perspective) must share their reproductive success with many other women. Hence for both shows, the man remains a fantasy, an unlikely, but very attractive on-screen version of a man’s self-image. The women (and their polygamous, shared-attention situations), however, are relatable. Just ask one of the many Trump wives or any woman who has been divorced. At least they married successful men who could have more than one wife.

[In no way do I agree with polygamy, I’m just sayin’…]