Aren't you proud?

'We are a generation of over indulgence.
Everything in excess - We have no limits!'

No way out?!

'With so much fashion product coming as us from everywhere,
you would have to go a long way to completely remove yourself from
it's sphere of influence.'

- Jane Andas

Size Zero - thoughts?

'We (the fashion industry) are not solely responsible for Size Zero,
but we do have a definite influence.'

- and this is an influence that we must take responsibility for!

So why do we all keep doing it?

Iconic 80's New York Fashion Reporter, Bill Cunningham is credited to have said:

'Creativity is the highway to Bankruptcy.'

Well we all know he wasn't wrong... what with fabrics, printing costs, hiring or purchasing equipment and paying people to give you hand it can end up a very costly experience. So what I pose to you is - Why do we all keep going? What is it that drives our hands into our own pockets, putting ourselves into more and more debt? And for what?

What an industry!

'Even if I did look at magazines, I never realised what a machine existed behind the industry until I was working in it.'

- Panos Yiapanis: Stylist

Hipster versus The Muffin Top

No, I'm not talking about this...

I'm talking about this:

'I don't like hipster trousers, I don't think they suit me,

but thats all you can get these days, so that's what I have to wear!'

And the result?


Something that has come to be know as the muffin top. Why is it that we girls just can't see this when we look in the mirror, we see size ten on the label and smile - even though we know we're really closer to a twelve, and the irony is, we'd actually look better in a larger size that fits us better. Buying a smaller size doesn't actually change your figure's dimensions!

Beauty regime...

' Beauty never comes easy, but it usually looks that way. '

[An old M.A.C. product I know, but you have to admit, it illustrates the point!]

Trends come and go...

'Of course I see trends... they come and go. Quality and meaning are the things that stick around so, in the end, trends don't really interest me.'

- Max Wigram, Gallerist, Clever Man.

[Max Wigram was brought to my attention via an extremely nice newspapery type thing that UNIQLO have produced recently, rather pleased with it actually.]

Chuck's ponderings on life...

Without just one nest

A bird can call the world home

Life is your career

 - Fight Club : Chuck Palahnuik - 

The world of commercialisation, in which we live...

'Something which was a bomb, a big bomb, had blasted my clever Njurunda coffee tables in the shape of a lime green yin and an orange yang that fit together to make a circle. Well they were splinters, now. 

My Haparanda sofa group with the orange slip covers, design by Erika Pekkari, it was trash, now.

And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.

We all have the same Johanneshov armchair in the Strinne green stripe pattern. Mine fell fifteen stories, burning into a fountain.

We all have the same Rislampa/Har paper lamps made from wire and environmentally friendly unbleached paper. Mine are confetti.

All that sitting in the bathroom.

The Alle cutlery service. Stainless steel. Dishwasher safe.

The Vild hall clock made of galvanized steel, oh, I had to have that.

The Klipsk shelving unit, oh, yeah.

Hemlig hat boxes, yeah.

The street outside my high-rise was sparkling and scattered with all this.

The Mommala quilt-cover set. Design by Thomas Harila and available in the following:
Orchid.
Fuschia.
Cobalt.
Ebony.
Jet.
Eggshell or heather.

It took my whole life to buy this stuff.

The easy-care textured lacquer of my Kalix occasional tables.

My Steg nesting tables.

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple of years your satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handed. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug.

Then your trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you.'

- Fight Club : Chuck Palahnuik -