Sunday, September 28, 2014

Is this a joke?

I was cruising through one of the magazines in my Sunday Times a little while ago.  Style something.  I'm guessing this month is about housewares and design, based on looking at the first few pages.

I would have read more, but right near the front I saw a two-page spread of an ad featuring something called a Mah Jong sectional sofa from Roche Bobois and, rather than letting it fester, decided to get some stuff off my chest immediately ...

Are they kidding?  This has to be the ugliest sofa I have ever seen, including the ones that people sometimes just throw out onto the sidewalk in the hopes that the city will pick them up.  Are those mattresses?  The copy goes on about Missoni fabrics and blah blah blah, but this stuff stinks like Gramma's house.  After she ran out of money and had to furnish her living room with used mattresses.

I mean, I've never seen anything like it.  I'd try to find a better picture but I know that would take forever.  So I just propped the magazine open and took this one with my phone.

It reminds me of the great sin of fashion and design:  the arrogant belief that just because you, the designer, say something is good, it is good.  The fallacy of conceit, as this sofa proves so convincingly.

Much the way Rush Limbaugh spewing venom and hate on the airways is the dark side of freedom of speech, this, I suppose, is the dark side of the Duchampian ideal.  There is also an easy 500 words about Beats by Dre headphones that are going to go unsaid here, but they would have fit in beautifully.  Instead, consider menswear designer Thom Browne.

Thom Browne?  The guy with the super short arms and legs on his otherwise classically inspired suits?

I mean, really?  This is a goof, right?

No matter what line of work I was in, if one of my employees ever arrived in the office dressed like this I would warn them once -- because I guard against knee-jerk reactions -- and the next time they wore that suit I'd fire them on the spot.  And give them a bad reference.

It's worth noting that the suits pictured above cost between two and three grand.  Somewhere in here is the bit about a fool and his money soon parting ways.  And who wants a fool as an employee?

I've seen sausage casings that fit better than the second one from the left.

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