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I recently got so friggin’ angry. Wicked enraged. And no, not because of what you may be thinking—it had nothing to do with the election. I cooled down thanks to an Epsom salt soak and a good strong quartz-crystal-clear look at the situation, and I realized that I was not completely innocent.
Hubris will always be my albatross. I don't burn bridges, folks, I nuke 'em with a Walter White streak of blind pride so immense that people are confounded about how it comes in such a small, adorable package.
So after a sweeping eagle-eye view of everything that had gone down, I realized I had to let it go and be cool, gentle, considerate—mellow.
What does it mean to respect each other and really get where the other person is coming from? To truly understand that in the heady swirl of "truth" there is also gross hyperbole? The blame game is so very easy, seeing yourself for who you truly are and how you really affect people is the twist.
So in these extreme and very interesting times, I say let's be cool. Let's transmute anger with some funky fresh fashion fun, because life is just too darn grim when we are made of concrete pride.
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On the style front there is so much wacky-cool it can indeed blast a soothing breeze of acumen throughout our rustled-up minds. Sometimes naughty-albeit-goofy stuff is the best medicine, and I say look no further than good old Australian fashion brand
DI$COUNT UNIVER$E
! Yeah, they’re trendy, but so what? They’re also a fun-rumble of attitude, color, blood and pizazz. The FASHION SUCKS sweatshirt alone is pure satirical yum.
The brand combines the sequins and eyeball themes seen eons ago from Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck with a dash of '90s Moschino, a touch of Keith Haring and a fattening creamy dollop of Jeremy Scott on top.
Their unoriginal—yet graphically brilliant—evil eye even hearkens back to NYC streetwear brand Mishka and California-via-Shreveport art rock band The Residents.
The eyeball ... Is it blind or all-seeing? You decide.
Too wild for ya? Well check this out: On Saturday, Dec. 3 at 2 pm, form & concept (435 S Guadalupe St., 982-8111) presents a talk with San Francisco-based jewelry designer Jenn Carroll Wilson about the ethics of metalsmithing. Did you know a single gold ring creates over 20 tons of mine waste?
GRR! Makes you mad, but this incredibly conscious and talented jewelry designer-cum-artist should diffuse your fuse. "My work is not political, so anger does not show itself in my made pieces, but it does in the creation of making them," Wilson told me via email. "I find anger, despair, depression ... all of the dark arts ... find the light in creativity."
Wilson's creations are modern, elegant and simple; a world away from Di$count Universe, but both designers deal with their own issues with the ethics of creation: DU slams the fashion world for its insane waste and vapid ugliness by creating shocking and quite wonderfully ugly work, whereas Wilson offers her powerful view through quiet design.
There is no doubt that both of these very different talents have subverted and redirected anger into creation.
Elsewhere, Spirit Clothing (109 W San Francisco St., 982-2677) owners Merrie Martin and Brenda Sales are quite possibly the best buyers of unique and wonderful items. Bags, shoes, scarves, hats, jewelry, barrettes and even dreamy local 100 percent organic skincare by LR Modern Alchemy … this stuff is ah-maze-ang!
My twinkling steely magpie eye spied milky-clear rubbery bags glimmering with soft spots of color. Here we have an Italian designer who is all about waste—who knew?! "Industry creates an enormous amount of waste [and] this waste is our basic element," Luisa Cevese Riedizioni says in her mission statement. "Different kinds of textile waste, plastic and production facilities led me to an array of different results. My objective is to find the simplest solution that involves, in the widest possible sense, the minimum of waste."
Waste didn't anger Riedizioni, it inspired her. She even created an innovative and original rubber-esque material called 11, taking actual remnant shards of rainbow-dipped silk and pressing them into the dewy Vaseline-clear walls of the bags. So brillz, so bright! And, in keeping with my "winter is coming let's stay shiny" theme, these bags may be a bit pricey ($200-$600) but absolutely not a waste.
So can we aspire to the above concept of being cool? If I can, you can, and face it, it will always get harder the more we fight to stay RIGHT. There is no right. There is only benevolent grace, and if we have that, baby, we'll always be in style.
Santa Fe Reporter