tokengifts

The Little Guys...

A fellow retailer told me about the story of Wildhagen and the Gap and coincidentally, it was mentioned in passing this weekend in the Style section of the Globe & Mail. It can be compared to the proverbial story of David and Goliath. 

Wildhagen, a local milliner, seems to have had one of their hat designs knocked off by the retail giant and posted this information as a message to the Gap right on their website.  Kudos to Sheri and David of Wildhagen!

Now I know this kind of thing happens all the time, believe me I know.  It is an industry norm.  I don't think the job description of "designer" is really a legitimate title anymore.  If you are in the business of being in "product development", it is a euphemism for knock-off central.  It is what is dictated by corporate culture.

For a company like the Gap, this one hat is a blip in their extensive product assortment for all of one short season. For a small family-run company like Wildhagen, this hat was probably a long process of many patterns, fit sessions, and careful fabric selections.  But I guess no one at the Gap is losing sleep over it...just thought you might like to know...

And oh, by the way, copying is not nice, and it is not a form of flattery, I think the term is called...stealing.

Gloom & Doom

For those of you following the news lately, it's all been gloom and doom lately.  I've been on the edge of my seat, watching the CDN$ plummet, predictions of a downturn in the retail sales for the holidays.  And I can't stop reading.  But for some lighter fare...

My fashion sense is molded by the pages of Lucky, for shopping ideas and Nylon, to keep me somewhat current, and I've always liked their art direction, fun and frivolous, like how fashion should be, but still witty and relevant.  I stopped reading publications like Vogue after I read one particular article.  It was about planning your next season's wardrobe during tough financial times, whether one should splurge on that $20,000 coat, or put that $20,000 towards on your entire wardrobe for the season.  Well, that pretty much nipped that bad habit in the bud.  I'll pick up an odd copy if there is something that piques my interest.

Gone too are the hey days of Bazaar, under the helm of Liz Tilberis, who sadly passed away from cancer.  The magazine has never reached the success of those days, but those editorials were stunning and so inspiring.  You knew you could never afford those haute couture pieces, but the images, the style direction and photography were enough to satiate my appetite for visual stimulation.

As much as I love the internet and blogging, I love magazines, as you can see from my stash above.  And I've been trying to read more (sadly, I have not had the patience to sit and read a book like I used to).  It's been an easy thing to do, since TV has taken a downward spiral with all these reality shows and "educational entertainment"  (the latest moniker I've heard).  I guess quantity trumps quality these days.

Cookie magazine, always a favourite, did a "cheat sheet" on the year's news for all those busy moms who were neck-deep in diapers and too tired to care.  It ranged from entertainment gossip, to political news, to world affairs.  It was as brilliant as their current favourite 100 things ever.  

Upon my quick peruse of The Globe & Mail this weekend, I found a super short interview with Tyler Brule, editor of Monocle magazine, formerly founding editor of Wallpaper magazine, and now expat Canadian.  He made this comment when asked how Monocle finds so many interesting designers no one has ever heard of - "By doing good old-fashioned journalism - not spending our time on style.com."  Yes, what a thought, good old-fashioned journalism...

Well, if we can't be rescued from all this doom and gloom in the media lately, maybe these three super-heroes can save the day...

"Artfully" Played Out...

One of the many reasons why we need to go and vote and have our voices heard in this upcoming federal election.  I am by no means a "political" person, but this issue has me incensed.  Maybe Prime Minister Harper should have chosen his words more carefully, but making the broad statement that "ordinary" Canadians don't care about the arts is an insult to all of us "ordinary" folk.  But I digress...

On a recent visit to MOMA, I attended the Salvador Dali exhibit.  It was fascinating, to say the least. His world of surrealism was incorporated into the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock Spellbound.  His set design was so concise in conveying the dream sequences for the film, both fantastical and surreal.  Walt Disney (the man, not the corporation) was fascinated with Dali.  He commissioned Dali to work on an animated piece, which never came to fruition after Disney's death.  But the original piece was completed in 2007 by animators who wanted to see the work through to its completion.

And what was the point...oh, yes, art not being relevant to us ordinary folk.  We need art and it's funding and advocacy in this country.  "Art" is not only for the rich who attend "...a gala all subsidized by taxpayers...", as Mr. Harper put it. 

I am fortunate to live and work in a community where art is what we live and breathe.  But it's the art that is infiltrated into our everyday lives that will suffer too. Art is all around, from the ads on our billboards, to the displays in the shop windows to the crayon renderings made by our little ones.  

I never had the chance to visit the now defunct Children's Own Museum, which was housed in the also now defunct Planetarium, soon to be condo development.  But I wish someone would take the initiative to improve our children's attractions, because, in my opinion, all the attractions we attended this summer were a huge disappointment and unfortunately, expensive.  But if everything was measured by its economic impact, I'm sure Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, themselves, would tell you that funding the arts is good for the books.

Alice enjoying "Art" outside the CBC building.