While finishing up to assemble all the cabinets I got at Ikea, I started, once again, thinking about the big blue box we all read as "swedish design at a low cost". Me and my collegue had to go there to buy cabinets for the office. What a surreal experience! As I talked about it before, Ikea is indeed a trip into your mind, a psychological tour into your own home. As we entered the big blue box I started wondering "I saw that kid here in the children space the last time I came here", and that was at least 6 months ago...some leave their children there while they cruise around the store...maybe some leave them there while cruising around life! As we start walking, following the arrows, you suddently realize you are not technically in switzerland anymore!! Words, style and advertisments no longer belong to your everyday. It feels like you are in a science fiction novel mixed with a document on natural species... ohhh those names...so, you find yourself between a "Trollsta" and a "Skruvsta" so interesting! Can you imagine at a dinner in your own home you welcome your guest speaking "Ikea-ish": "Hey guys, welcome! Please go and put your stuff in Pax, then feel free to go on the Tylosänd...I have to go in the kitchen to finish cooking some Köttbullar"! So, while searching for a cabinet I found myself filling up the yellow plastic bag with so many useful things: two sets of "Drömmar", I mean...not one, two sets of pastries cutter in the shape of swedish animals!! So nice looking...! I got a "Pröjs" just for the name...a desk pad...I hate desk pads but how could I resist to something named "Pröjs"?? A "Strila"...a damn citrus zester...why? But it will look good in my red kitchen! And the best, a jewel in the kitchen...a must...the complete set of "Plastis" ice cube trays...so happy I can now make icecube in the shape of a fish, a flower, a star and a heart! I totally forgot I have a full center fridge..!!Then, after buying everything I don't really need, we got to the cabinets/bookshelf section...awesome! Selfservice! Heavy like a dinosaur! We pay, put the stuff in the car and drive back...knowing that there were many floors ahead of us! We mounted everything in 2 hours! At night, I was sad. Not only becuase Brooke Shield broke my heart with her speech at the Micheal Jackson memorial, but because, while crying (damn Brooke) I suddently realize that this red "Expedit" insert with door was the last piece of the "swedish experience"! I knew I should have bought a "Bygga" , a "Mula", a "MÅLA" or a "Pyssla" so I could have kept going playing the swedish life...at a low cost!

It has been a very bad week! Nice weather (until today), warm, sunny with the birds singing the everyday symphonie. Yet at work things went a little out of hand. Work and life. Inside and outside. You feel comfortable looking the everyday through your (dirty) windows yet inside the space you feel like you are wearing a pair of old jeans that became smaller...simply because you ate too much or maybe because it is the wrong soap that made them shrink (always blame something else!!!).

So, yesterday was like life wasn't really a nice dress. Old, small and uncomfortable. It simply didn't suit me. Well... if life ain't a suit I should go around naked!! Or, I had other options: 1. change my clothes. 2. Change perspective. 3. Subjectivize reality and make it my brand new dress for the day. 4. Instead of looking outside the window find something in your other window, your computer screen. There you could probably find a new, comfortable perfect dress for the day.

I new exactly what I had in mind! My dear friend ML (a contributor of this blog) has recently done a photo shoot for a fashion Brand named EairTh. When I asked her if I could use her images to put on my blog we discussed about some philosophical issue regarding life (via Skype!!).

I adore these images and I adore the line of clothes that they carry.

I've never thought how a fashion brand could give you so much in feelings. "They are really comfortable" ML tells me and the only thing I could say was "They make me feel comfortable only by looking at them". I hope you'll enjoy the images and the collection of EairTh. And...if life ain't a suit...don't go around naked...just pick something that makes you comfortable. Like me looking at these images...simply because here I can't find these clothes...yet!

Photos: ML (don't tell anyone but her real name is Melissa La'o!!!)

Fashion/Design/art/ almost a psychologist of everyday fashion: EairTh by Melissa Dizon

After deciding to keep the door shot I organized my day in a very structural way. Shop for my afternoon gardening, eat some good food before the fun work outside! Beside some tiny funky wood fences and a huge roasted chicken I got 3 old postcards. Really nice and simple. Very detailed and very powerful. Funny the one of a swiss chocolate brand...3 guys eating it on top of the alps!!! Not on a sofa in front of a tv...on top of the freakin alps!!!!

I had a night full of champagne! This was the only thing left on my table! A pretty interesting tiny object with the image of this old lady with a great history:

François Clicquot, married Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin in 1798. Upon his death (1805) his widow (veuve in French) became the driving force behind the prestige of this Champagne Brand.

In 1810 the brand was renamed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

In 1816 Madame Clicquot Ponsardin invented the riddling table to obtain clarified champagne of unrivalled quality.

During her life Madame Clicquot made strides in establishing her wine in royal courts throughout Europe.

It holds a royal warrant of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

It has been said that Madame Clicquot is one of history's very first businesswoman. Inventive, visionary and undoubtely strong, "La Grande Dame of Champagne".

In July 2008 the oldest unopened bottle of Veuve Clicquot was discovered inside a sideboard in Torosay Castle, Isle of Mull, Scotland. The 1893 bottle was in mint condition, having been kept in the dark. It is now on display and regarded as priceless.

The political election for the new US president I guess has never been so interesting as now! I said, after my forced departure from the political world that I would never talk about it ever again. But the presidential 08 are a different thing! Are we really assisting at a debate or an amazing tv-show? Has a politician to be more of an actor than a boring talker? Obama and Mc Cain. People or brands? It's funny, I went back to LA for a short vacation and all I brought back from my trip were Obama gadgets! My "Obama for your mama" T-shirt got really popular among people around me. Obama sounds as good as "Prada", as "Abercrombia and Fitch". Everybody have put so much effort in advertising the candidates as if they were a clothing brand. Or a store one. And it works! It seems up til now that the business plan around the run for presidency has involved more people then 4 years ago. In Europe we constantly hear and talk about the "Obamania"...in Berlin more people attended his public speech then if the Rolling Stones sang in the same place. This morning I was reading something relly interesting. 7 Eleven, same as 4 years ago, is selling coffee cups with the candidates name on it. Blue for Obama and red for Mc Cain. You make your choice and get your coffee. Not only you walk around your city sharing with the world your political choice...but you also, obviously, become the mean by which 7 Eleven get advertised around the streets. Up til now Obama's cups win! And 7 Eleven says that 4 years ago the "coffee poll" was the same as the outcome of the presidential winner! No more to say then go out, find a 7 Eleven and get your coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

A long time ago, while attending SCI-Arc, I came across a quote that suddently challenged all my world. "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are". A quote that for some probably would not mean a thing since, it's easier in life, to just see what's there without really putting imagination, interpretation, feelings to it. Images are constantly presented to us (and thank god!!!) but we are almost being sucked in , absorbed in a daily routine to just see deeper than what is there. Somebody once said that advertising is the best art form of the 20th century (or something like that!) which is not all wrong ( do not take me wrong! I adore going to museums and galleries too, but I believe our everyday is sometimes a parallel gallery). When I look at a visually beautiful ads I look at what's behind the image. Obviously there is marketing, strategic thinking that ultimately will drag people into buying whatever the ads is publicizing! It's a little like what I said in my previous post (yes I know! Keith Loutit rocked my world today!). He looked deeper at the world that sourrounds him/us and re-presented it back to us in a total different way. The way he saw it! I do not remember when I shot these pictures. I do not even know what they want to represent if not the part of something that I thought was interesting! I saw it the way I am!

I read a book lately about the science of shopping and it gave me some good insight...not only about shopping also about projecting some consumeristic theories to human behaviours. The book, "Why we buy" explains the way retailers organize and advertise their store with the only intent of inviting people to go in their store and ultimately buy. From the display of windows, to lighting organization, to internal layouts. A good windows is the base of a good invitation. It is funny how strategically in many stores men fashion is the first thing you encounter. Why? Because statistically women have no problem walking through a store to go to their department. But what interested me the most was the exteriority of marketing. We see what they sell. Or at least a portion of it. You want to go deeper in to find what you are looking for and maybe more. Some store become a work of art, some of them just tell you "come in, there is more", some of them though have such a bad front window that you just do not look or maybe you don't even see. But are people like shopping windows? Do they fix their appearances to invite you in? To let them know you? Some people I hanged around with do it, but in a way a really bad store would do! What you see outside is just a big lie. Once you penetrate deep in their soul/mind what you find is scaring shit!!! Fake expensive brands as if to show their status...a fake one obviously! They hang around rich people to be elevated in some sort of new social level that exist only in their fake existence. WHY??? So, I rather prefer a shitty window that at least doesn't lie to me than one that promises gold and in fact it only offers trash! And I love trash, I even did a photo series with it...but I was looking for it!
Great book the Paco Underhill one...I probably just subjectivized too much the content!!!

This is another interpretation of space use. A temporary yet contemporary use of empty spaces. This is a temporary Benetton store in Milan. What the brand did is simple. Open a store only for a period of time. Which is nothing new if you think about farmers market (a temporary use of the city), but here I guess is part of a marketing agenda.. Smart. Sell what you still have (maybe the last things of the summer collection) and wait for the new one. I wish I had this space for myself and just hang photos, writings, and stuff. Together with my virtual artist friends!

When I was living in LA I found myself wondering, from time to time, why can't we build in the so called "inbetween spaces". So much space in cities is just left there without knowing how to use it. Space, even if it is the tiniest one, has potentials. Either if you build in it or if you plant some green. Many ideas come to mind when talking about small inbetween space. How can you use it? This image is one solution: a building!! Two belgian architects (Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens) found an interesting solution for an inbetween space in Antwerp. 2.5 meters to fill. And that's what they did. With a building composed by 4 containers. Each one is lit by a specific light during the night differentiating every single space (or container). Idea, space, light. The idea is not new, using container to construct a building, since already others have done it. The bast example is, in my opinion, the Freitag Store in Zurich. But here, in Antwerp, the beauty of the project, is about using a space that is left there with no apparent future.