everything old is...

new again, well perhaps not everything. There are things that get old and stay old right? This morning as I prepared my tea and sat before my favorite window I began to think about my love of old. Where did that come from? My mom isn't a a big lover of antiques, nor is my father. My grandfather on the other hand was. Not a lover of old things per se, but an admirer of things with a past. A story.

My childish love of older things emerged from a need to collect. To be surrounded by small precious items that meant something. It quickly evolved into something distinctly literary. Old books, manuscripts, magazine clippings. Anything from the fifties and sixties. I think too many episodes of Gidget and Bewitched prompted that. My mother would spend hours in the local second hand shops hunting for books...Harlequin Romances and anything having to do with espionage. Her tastes were varied. Mine were not. I didn't know how to classify them, but I would often march to my room after the expeditions and review my take. An old necklace with large square wooden beads. A cranberry purse with a lovely clasp. Large sunglasses and old old magazines.

Thankfully, my mom never really questioned my purchases. She knew I was an odd child. My grandfather laughed when he saw the magazine. "Don't you ever want anything NEW?" He asked. It didn't seem so old to me. I was blissfully unaware of things like that, functioning on a purely visceral level. My love of old and new was born in those dusty old shops. It was then, while being allowed freedom and choices, that I developed a youthful aesthetic based on feeling.

the old man in the magazine was Charles Eames. The necklace was costume, but I adored anything with a woodgrain. Still do.

A while ago I came across this in DWR's Design Notes...


a Playboy photo from 1961 featuring some of my favorite old men. Some of whom I've studied and adored for longer than I can remember.

I have always agreed with these words by Jens Risom:

"I prefer design that is neutral
and not the center stage,
furniture that is for
people, to be used."

I too, in my own small ventures, believe that design should be supremely functional and serve to elevate the overall message.

off to finish my tea, clean the messy studio, and make some stuff that you will hopefully find supremely functional and supercute:)