Nutria Get a Makeover

A fabulous little artistic surprise showed up in my inbox this morning. A writer friend (Eric Jay Dolin - total pro historian & writer of book-length tales) forwarded the link from the NYTimes because his last book gets featured prominently in the resulting video. The animator/writer of the actual video (Drew Christie - maker of all sorts of amazing creative goodness) lives here in Seattle. The subject of the video is the often maligned nutria. They're tough furry buggers to love. Nutria decimate the vegetation along the shoreline of various bodies of water, leading to erosion and general environmental sadness. So they've had bounties placed on their fugly little heads as an unworthy "invasive species" for years. I've been intrigued for years by the various origin stories of how this South American rat with its distinctive orange teeth ended up scattered all over. The basic rundown (also described by Christie in this animated story from his own family's lore) usually ties in some overly excited agribusiness folks who couldn't handle what they bought. Nutria, as the story goes, enjoyed a period of being touted as the next big thing for furry fashion. Oddly enough, even today's fashion hasn't abandoned the idea of using nutria. In fact, some folks are astonishingly creative when it comes to using them, while trying to rebrand the "use" of nutria as good for the environment. But that's a whole other distillation of the nutria debate featured in this animation. I highly recommend y'all check out Drew Christie's fresh, fantastic video featuring a downright lovable nutria, duly educated by Eric Jay Dolin's book (Fur, Fashion, Empire - W.W. Norton 2010). Kid friendly, to boot.

Looking for the lowdown on high fashion

Lightening strikes twice in a row for me in this - I'm really getting excited about NYC's "Fall Fashion Week". I'm still no fashionista. No matter what the photos of me from my modeling days in the 80s may offer as contrary evidence. The point being that I'm trying to find my way down that absurd, generally appalling, yet still interesting catwalk so that I might peer upon the beast that is fashion with a capital "Fascism" (minus the "-ism"). And like what I presume to be 99.99% of those interested, I'm doing so long-distance. Finding my way to the exclusive online shows is a bit like digging for truffles in the Amazon. If any of you have suggestions for how to find the hottest shows attended only by those truly in the know - along with the savvy few sitting in darkened basements in what I picture as little more than their boxers - I'm all ears, dahling.

NOTE: One streaming avenue I saw noted in the WSJ recently that supposedly will offer these events online is KCD Worldwide (if you're out there trolling, lovely and amazing KCD folks...hey, how you doin'?). From what I can tell, they are in effect a PR firm representing the people who mostly wouldn't give you the time of day back in high school. Maybe if I keep asking, they'll let me in for part of it ("Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week" runs from February 9th through the 16th). I mean it's not like I'm asking them to go to prom with me - just open the door a crack and let me see what people do when they're hanging out watching other people be awesome and beautiful. Actually, that sounds a little locker room creepy. If it works, what's the harm in that? Point being, I promise you won't even know I'm there and I won't make a sound. Well, aside from a few Tweets. Air kiss.

Thoughts that come from the Fire.

I'm way out of my league when it comes to picking apart product design. But I'm surely in the vast population of those who know what they like and speak freely about what that is. Recently, I've wandered edge-of-the-puddle deep into dissecting what can really only be called "fashion" from the point of view of design and the resulting way those "products" are marketed. I'm a total newbie in this role. Still, I know what I like. In an age where essentially anonymous opinions can be amplified through comment boards and endless online avenues for venting, the people responsible for such designs seemingly must always be on guard. I bring it up in response to an article in today's NYTimes featuring reactions to Amazon's new Kindle Fire. I can't say much about the Fire. Yet. I do have a prior generation of the Kindle because I consider it essential for any writer who hopes to sell any books electronically to understand how things work with these devices. No one should really care about which devices an individual actually has and uses. Right? Well, if you comment aggressively on certain products and the pluses and minuses of how they are designed, your possession of those objects can indeed be seriously amplified. Today's Times piece was fascinating because it came largely from the spectacle of new Fire owners commenting on Amazon about this new thing they recently bought. As a practice, this is surely nothing new. I am, however, the kind of shopper who looks at reviews rather closely for details - performance, feel, value, all the self-defined metrics without a specific scale other than "feel". Seeing how Amazon is reacting and how that was tagged as "news" today made me instead think about other products. Like the ones I'm considering for this book. Fashion, in all its hard to quantify terms. What if ubiquitous fashion trends had a similar portal for loving or loathing? Ugg boots, for example. Or dyed mink coats. Or trucker hats. This largely nameless, faceless "commentariat" picking apart product designs has power. Maybe it's always been out there somewhere. Maybe I need to find design sites that feature reviews of fashion trends or products - new or way old school. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Then again, maybe it's a collective load of crap. Powerful, disproportionately influential crap.