Is it me or is it happening?

Of course, I was just following a hunch when saying that yellow would be the new pink, yet I do seem to see more and more yellow in detail as well as in bigger pieces of fashion and design – even as a colour for scooters and cars. Yellow seems to resonate with today’s current mentality, searching for a break from pessimism, radiating confidence and glowing health and wealth.

Biodiversity beauty!

To be continued…

Lidewij Edelkoort

Sometimes we find a similar keyword around us at the same time, different approaches but with the same meaning.Then we start to think about it as it can be the seed of a new trend.

Recently I found two different events and two special stories in magazines about the same topic: tools and standards

First, a pop-up shop called “Tools” opened in Daikanyama. A small gallery totally transformed for the occasion with tools from England, France, USA and Japan. It's quite ordinary things, more traditional than new but, surprisingly the gallery was full of people with sparkling eyes, as blown away as if they see something totally new and amazing !

Another exhibition was held, in the Conran shop in Shinjuku, called "The standards 100” presenting a selection of 100 common and timeless pieces, from furniture to soap and kitchen tools.

Then I open the fashion magazine Ginza and read the article “ searching for our standards”, about basics shirts, pants, shoes and so on. This magazine is know to be influential and vanguard, specialized in introducing new trends,designers and looks.And, finally, in the Casa Brutus, the main topic was “ good tools which we want to use for long”.

So I start wondering why we are tempted with tools and standards. I came to this reflexions: maybe it's because we're living in an immaterial world for a while, communicating and living more on internet than in real life, in fast fashion, fast marketing for years, so we want to have a real relationship with things, keep them and feel their unchanged charms.

Maybe because we start to feel suspicious about “designed” things, surrounded by fast and nonsense design (“designers apartment”, “designers hotel”, “designers food”) which we cannot find any “design philosophy” behind. So we started to wonder what is the real meaning of design.

Then we slowly look for the basics and classic things which have survived over centuries, and we still use in our daily life. We turn the page of tailoring skill to know what the suits are made of.

This must be some reasons to explain the return of “tools and standards”.

Kaori Leyasu

Frazer Parfum is a small perfume house based in Cape Town. Frazer Parfum's philosophy and perfumes are one of a kind, addressing major and hearted upcoming wishes of the consumer for meaningful concepts, rural products, handcrafted items, ethic considerations, everyday luxury and beauty.

Tammy Frazer as head of the house personally creates all perfumes by hand. As a perfumer Tammy works only with natural and organic raw materials sourced on quality by herself directly from the farmers around the world. Her ready to wear collection is called Chapters and is inspired by Tammy's expeditions travelling to the source of the raw materials, meeting the farmers and discerning their methods of farming, harvesting and distillation.

In 1953 Tammy's grandfather, chemist and inventor Graham Wulff, created the world's leading beauty fluid Oil of Olay. Fast forward to Tammy's father while she was growing up, he worked at Swiss perfume powerhouse Givaudan while both her aunt and uncle, as chemists, pioneered the start of Homeopathy in South Africa.

Frazer Parfum actively operates under the basis of a harmonious and just development by educating local industry in the art of perfumery by activating a traditional industrial sector to participate in the economic revival of essential oil farmers in South Africa.

Seeking out opportunity to positively change attitudes within South Africa by influencing others to be like-mindedly conscious with daily attention to hold respect for others and for the environment as well as the incessant research for quality is incarnated in Frazer Parfum. 

Sophie Carlier

As recently seen at the design conference Design Indaba held in Cape Town this March 2012, South African architect Heinrich Wolff proves that the level of education can be improved by the attention spent designing school buildings.

At the Inkwenkwesi school in a Western Cape township, teachers were wasting their time chasing students to come to class instead of instructing them, so the architects remodeled the recess areas in an undulating shape to provide supervision at a glance.

Noero and Wolff also shape roof openings to filter light at an angle to block direct sun in the summer, and let it in in winter to warm the floors; this natural AC and heating process provides at no energy costs a temperate climate within the building that allows for well-being hence better concentration when used in a school.

After reconstruction, the graduation passing rate of Inkwenkwesi school went from 30% to 82%. This is an example of how the process of design can improve education and neighborhood life in socially challenged areas of the planet.

Emmanuelle Linard

www.noerowolff.com

The phenomenon of “Do It Yourself” is entering our society more and faster. A major problem many of us are facing is the lack of equipments to make things ourselves. "Sweat shop" is a mixture between a cafe and an atelier: a new creative concept situated near hotspot canal St Martin in Paris, a place where Parisian bo-bos (bourgeois bohemia) can do things themselves.

People are  welcome to join, to experience and to trigger to make to most creative and personal creations.The place rents sewing machines and knitting machines. 

To reach a larger audience then just those who know how to create and realize ideas, workshops are offered to learn how to customize and to imagine creative ideas.

Sewing and knitting are only two examples of the many possibilities this trend offers. In times of crisis and lack of money we feel driven to fix things ourselves. Specialized professions take place for more all-rounders. Fixing your own washing machine, cutting the hair of your friends, creating a personal wardrobe, gaining knowledge of haute cuisine ... A tardy and conscious lifestyle has become modern. We all feel the pressure to save money and this triggers us to understand more of our daily life and issues. We invest money in courses to become talented or at least advanced in tasks we don’t know about. 

Willem Schenk

www.sweatshopparis.com

Damien Hirst first came to public attention in London in 1988 when he conceived and curated "Freeze", an exhibition in a disused warehouse which showed his work and that of his friends. This is the first substantial survey of his work in a British institution and brings together key works from over twenty years. Until 9 September 2012 in Tate Modern London.

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