Monday, October 31, 2011

SAVAGE BEAUTY

Last week, while driving around town with my driving instructor, we saw a woman with a husky. My instructor told me she thought those dogs looked so scary with their icy blue eyes... while I actually totally love husky´s. I love their strength, their nordic spirit, their energy, their savage beauty and free nature. During my trips to Lapland, I saw some pretty amazing husky´s there. One Alfa female had only one eye -due to some eye infection she got as a puppy- but she was the nicest dog ever! If I´d have to be a dog, I´d want to be husky!

If you´d have to pick a dog, which one would you be?

THE NEW HAUTE COUTURE?

With Halloween behind us and space age ahead of us, the question came to my mind; what will space fashion look like? Will everything be reduced to 1 unisex Star Trek outfit? Nowadays, trends are changing at a very high pace, new collections pop up every 3 months and brands all compete to get their products sold. But what will happen with that in a world where we would be travelling through space? Textile technology and shape design would get a big boost, we´d all of a sudden need to take so much new and different ideas in consideration; combine fashion trends with space functionality, combine non earthly elements with textile technology, mix cultural identity with futuristic fashion,… And besides all the functional and visual points, one other major thing pops up; it will have to be very good quality, as that could be the investment that saves your life in space! Our current shopping behavior could suddenly take a whole new direction; quality instead of quantity. All together a pretty challenging idea which would bring a fresh rush of air through the fashion landscape and through our society!

A little bit of research on the NASA website turned out to be pretty interesting. They show a detailed description of current spacesuits. Even if the outfit for the regular space traveller probably wouldn´t need the same amount of pieces and technology, it would still need to require certain specific qualities. As it so turns out, the spacesuit arm only already consists of 14layers of material, ranging from heat/cold protection and bullet-proof textile, to fire and waterproof materials. Apparently the space walkers wear liquid cooling and ventilation underwear that keeps their body cool (yes), and you don´t even wanna get into how exactly that works!

But; back to what this is all about; what would I look like in space? Well; my space outfit would be all gold... yes, you could think C3P0 -from Star Wars- style! Gold is one of the best materials for space. It filters out the sun´s harmful rays, it helps against extreme temperatures, it´s super lightweight,… And yes; prices will probably go towards Tom Ford selling prices, but wouldn´t this be a good solution for changing our fashion consciousness and eco thinking towards more positive customer behavior?

Will this be the future of haute couture? And; if you had the choice, what would your space outfit look like?

Sunday, October 30, 2011

SNEAKERS & STUFF

Those who know me are probably very much aware about my slight addiction for designer sneakers. I have them in different colors and brands, ranging from V ave Shoe Repair, Rick Owens, Acne, to J.Lindeberg, Alexander Mcqueen for Puma, Nike and Converse Jack Purcell. Yet, even if they have different names, they can actually often be seen as "one big happy family". Seeing them all together it´s not all that hard to see what style exactly it is I like. At this stage in my life I just can´t picture myself wearing anything else (besides my original Navajo mocassins that is), especially now that designer sneakers became more of a hybrid between sportswear and dressed shoes. Thus explaining why most of my sneakers are in the end not at all that practical for actual running and doing sports, unless I´d like to totally mess them up.
My favorite pair is still the Mihara Yasuhiro for puma black patent leather sneakers. But, to add a new element to the collection, I decided to break the pattern slightly during my recent trip to Tokyo. So I now bought myself a pair of Adizero feather light (thus the name) Adidas sneakers in neon "pinkish cerise" with blue shoelaces ... kinda 80´s. For once these are actually real running sneakers and yes, the 80´s color setting is of course also to feel young and fresh... which I totally am of course, duh! (30? what? who? me??? Isn´t that the new 20 anyway?)

Well anyhow, all this just to say that sneaker business became a very interesting section of the market during the last 10 years! I still remember my very first pair of real designer sneakers... a pair of Bikkembergs black suède sneakers which had to be closed with 3 black elastics which went all around the foot. Back in the days it took me all my pocket money to purchase them, but they rocket big time!

WHO´S WEARING THE TUSK?

WWF is supporting a project to track narwhals; Arctic whales best known for the long tusk that sticks out from their faces. They estimate that there are about 50.000-80.000 narwhals in the world, with most of them living in the fjords and inlets of northern Nunavut, Canada.
As a young teenager, while living in Spain, I once found a magazine with pictures from narwhals and other arctic animals (like the white Beluga whales), and I can tell that those pictures decorated my inspiration wall for quiet a while! It´s so great to see all those amazing creatures, which we (or at least I) know so little about. So that´s amongst others why they now "launched the narwhals into cyberspace" by giving 9 lucky (?) ones their own little gps satellite tracking device. Might turn out very interesting, because it´ll hopefully allow us to find out a little more about their routines and lives. Dear old Wikipedia writes nevertheless that only the male narwhals have a tusk on their head... while the documentary from WWF showed a researcher giving us an explanation about the (female) narwhal on which he´s placing a tracking device... and she clearly had a tusk!? So we obviously still need to learn A LOT about narwhals! To begin with; who´s wearing the tusk!??

As I don´t have any own narwhal pictures yet, another ocean inspired picture will have to do for this time... but for sights and sounds of narwhals you totally gotta check out the narwhal news network, because yes, aparantly they already went cyberspace long time ago...

Saturday, October 29, 2011

A PLACE CALLED HOME

The other day, while waiting for the train at an empty train station somewhere far on the swedish countryside, I observed two other persons approaching. A lady in her sixties, with a little doggy who tried to run faster than his leach allowed him to (causing him to almost suffocate himself), and a bearded - nervously smoking - slightly overweighted man who must have been somewhere in his thirties. Given the silence around, it wasn´t all that hard to overhear what they were talking about; "...if you put the money on my account today then I should have it by monday. I have 500,-sek now, which should work for doing some shopping this evening, so I can buy some meatballs and pasta... the usual...". They embrace each other and suddenly I see the man is crying. "Then we´ll probably see with Christmas", he says. "Is it really going to be fine for now?", the lady asks gently. It suddenly strikes me it must be mother and son. And while looking at them, I try to picture myself those two persons some 20 years earlier; the mother with her little boy, caring for his well being, trying to give him the best she has, to make this world a beautiful place for him... a safe home. Even if they both looked much older now, for her he´ll probably always be that little boy, and for him she´ll always be his loving mother.

When the train approaches they give each other a last big hug. As we move away from the little countryside station, I see the lady watching from the platform, where she stayed until the train disappeared in the forest. I wonder what was going through her mind.

After a while I hear the man asking to the person seated opposite him where she´s heading for. "Stockholm?", he says to confirm. The girl nods her head. "Will you show me the way?", he asks her.

I don´t know the whole story behind encounters as such, yet they do bring up some thoughts. For a parent it must be difficult to see their child take new roads, to trust in the fact that life will be good for the child they love, yet somehow it´s also important to let go. It was touching to see how calm the lady was... even if inside she might have felt something else. But she told her son without words; "it´ll be just fine, I´m always with you". Family bounds are something special, and even if there are distance, time and life; this love -that was there from the very first start- will always be a place called "home".

Friday, October 28, 2011

THOSE RAINY DAYS...

Those rainy days; annoying, wet and unpleasant or inspiring, fun and an interesting element of nature? I actually take option number2... I have a lot of memories from rainy days all around the world; hiking trips in rainy Lapland, a soaking wet day in Warszawa, drizzle days in Kyoto,... yet somehow it often turned out to be very inspiring and creative moments, where the element of water and rain became the main element in some new creation. Rain is sounds, smells, life, reflections, transition, shapes, strength and fragility, all at once.
Not to even mention the actual raindrops themselves... before most reach the surface, they already made an entire trip through time and space. Wikipedia writes amongst others; "Virga is precipitation that begins falling to the earth but evaporates before reaching the surface; it is one of the ways air can become saturated. Precipitation forms via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Rain drops range in size from oblate, pancake-like shapes for larger drops, to small spheres for smaller drops."

When reading all that, doesn´t it at least make rain a tiny tiny little more fun and exciting??

Thursday, October 27, 2011

DRIVING LICENSE; APPROVED! :-)))

The big issue on my "to do" list had since ever been; getting that d*mn driving license. Somehow it never happened or worked out, but this year I felt like; now I have to go for it and fix this! So; I saved the holiday days, booked myself an intensive driving course on the Swedish countryside, spend a small fortune,... BUT 2 months later I can now finally say; "I GOT MY DRIVING LICENSE!!" Felt slightly surreal that I could finally tick it off from my "to do" list! So now I´m looking forward to my road trip next summer! Iceland, Lapland, Norway, Finn mark,... so much possibilities, so much new found freedom. It´ll still take some time before I´ll for real believe that I actually really DID this now... but either way I really do have to say that -so far- 2011 really is the year when lots of major things have happened!! Such moments make it feel great to be alive, and mostly; it´s great to feel that everything is possible once you decide to go for it and when you believe in your own strength!