Dressing the Part

Albert Einstein reportedly used to keep a panoply of identical suits in his wardrobe so that he didn't have to think about what to wear. The wardrobe dilemma was instantly solved. The ingenious hack is employed today - in reverse - by a host of entrepreneurs, CEOs and other influencers in the public eye, to various degrees. Mark Zuckerberg is a prime example - and exception to the rule at the same time. As the product of a generation where social codes, rules and etiquette have been questioned and shunned and 'anything goes', he might consider dressing down as a positive, which indeed hasn't been as detrimental to him as it could have. Yet for anyone else this ultimately is a disservice, especially if aiming high in the career stakes. The social code the hierarchy commands plays the safe card of tradition rather than sloppiness (or eccentricity!) in order to achieve and sustain respectability, credibility, trustworthiness and integrity, the very cogs in the wheels of professionalism. Personal brand image is thus everything: it defines you in a way that either enhances your career and persona or damages them.

Soundsuit #2 by Nick Cave, via ArtSpace

When you resemble a forever teenage dirt bag stuck in the middle of a video game, with a smile like the dork encountered a unicorn on his way to the donut stash, you cannot expect to be taken seriously. Call me old-fashioned and a conservative, but nothing will ever beat an attire that matches the occasion. And in doubt, dress up rather than down. You can always dress down if you are too dressed up: remove that tie, undo that collar, take off that jacket... How can you dress up when all you are wearing is jeans, tees and plimsols?

Jeans, tees and plims are Zuckerberg's trademark. He believes this is all he needs to wear, in a fluid environment that has blurred home, the workplace and the after-hours of socialising. He travels light yet don't be fooled! His bank account is heavy. Those who view Donald Trump as part of the elite (based on his fortune alone) should cast a long hard look at Zuckerberg, worth $76.7b. This rates him 4th on Forbes 400 and the world's 5th richest billionaire. Get the calculator out: he's 25 times wealthier than the US President (#248 on Forbes 400)!

Now I agree that basing an opinion upon looks alone is misleading: looks are superficial and deceptive, and clothing fashion fickle and skin-deep. What truly matters is what is under the hood, the engine (value system, ethics, beliefs, accomplishments, ambition). Though it remains that appearances are the first port of call when meeting somebody. Look at it as a book cover. Is it enticing enough for you to find out more... or do you just walk past in search of something more appealing, more interesting? Or worse, do you run in the opposite direction? Jeans and tees might define a certain segment of fashion but a suit will always defy the vagaries and fickleness of fashion always, and remain a staple that every wardrobe should have - mostly if you are a manager, director, CEO. This includes Zuckerberg.

Untitled (Soundsuits) by ibid, via LA Times

Multi-billionaire Zuckerberg is only fooling himself and his copycat teen lookalikes when pretending to be 'one of us' the populace, wearing slacks day in day out like he has no care in the world and only a few dollars tucked in his pocket. The only reason he has been able to get away with it is because he is putty in the hands of the governing elites. They saw potential in his Facebook creation and dictate to him how he should fine-tune his algorithms in order to skewer free speech into a tool of surveillance, propaganda and subversion - a topic for some other time.

Look at rapper Jay Z: he understood long ago that the three-piece suits, crisp white shirts and a bow-tie would take him places within the corporate music arena that the ghetto-fabulous diamond-encrusted sneakers and the massive gold chain dangling over a pair of low-cut baggy jeans would not...

In The Godfather series, the mafia bosses and their underdogs are all dressed up in suits when they conduct business. They understand that in order to gain credibility, no matter how dubious and downright criminal your motives - businessman or con artist - you must look the part. Indeed the dress-up code works at both ends of the respectability paradigm. In both cases they help you get things done.

Soundsuit #6 by ibid, via Artspace

Dressing up sharpens your attitude: it lends you poise, and gives you presence and clout. What applies to meanswear applies to womenswear. By dressing up, you will instantly behave in a more professional, more restrained, manner. It fine-tunes your mindset, tweaks your general frame of mind. It sharpens your thought and your word. Try this blind test: conduct one business phonecall (from home) wearing casualwear, and one dressed up. You will notice that when dressed up, your body holds a certain way, your voice projects more and you come across as more assertive and focused. Now translate that to a face-to-face situation. You are on to a winner.

You need to know when to push your affairs in terms of dress code. Classic, conservative attire will always be a winner. It will not let you down: it will serve you right.

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this essay, we established that theoretically speaking whoever strives to defy time would be able to make a claim for immortality. Thus whoever claims to be immortal has transcended the timely restrictions imposed upon their life as a human. The notion of immortality takes us back to the catchy aliteration of the timeless timeline of Time. Timelessness evokes magnitude, amplitude, uninterrupted vastness in space and time. It expresses continuity, cohesion and stability.

The Ouroboros symbolises eternity. (Pict source)

Transience, on the other hand, sits precariously on the opposite end of the spectrum. Transience implies a notion of time that is fleeting, brief, truncated, interrupted, non-lasting, whimsical and ultimately unreliable and inefficient. This is about discontinuity. There is a sense of disturbance to it like an underwater current. Beware the underlying chaos!

Now referring to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the noun transience is defined as 'the quality or state of being transient.' Synonyms: Ephemerality, evanescence, impermanence, momentariness. Antonyms: Endurance, permanence.

The adjective transient is defined as 'passing especially quickly into and out of existence: transitory. [...] Passing through or by a place with only a brief stay or sojourn.'

Bearing in mind the immediate adversity imposed upon us by entropy and mortality, the human prerogative aims to make the most effective use of time within a competitive production model. For should it not to be the case, the process would ultimately lead to doom.

Detail of the Vault, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

However it appears that our production model has redefined efficiency under a new paradigm. Efficiency used to involve durability under a long-lasting good or service. This as a mission statement had a vision to it, to serve not only the present but the future too. Transience does not and cannot sustain durability. It does not build upon an impetus, it interrupts it. A society whose production model is built upon transience is akin to a transient (casual) friendship that you cultivate with somebody: it does not grow roots or leaves, it does not evolve and deepen because there is no commitment to it, no fire, no bond, no guarantee. It is a stunted affair that remains so until the transient element is corrected.

The faceless banking corporations and multinationals that govern us have cleverly refashioned efficiency since the industrial heyday - and have accelerated its process with the coming of age of mass-consumerism. We mostly have one person to thank for this, Public Relations spin doctor and business insider Edward Bernays - Simon Freud's nephew - and a top influencer in the world of advertising and consumer psychology. He used consumer profiling to serve private interests, using strong-arm tactics to influence purchasing decision. He is indeed the father of customer trickery.

Another representation of eternity. (Pict source)

Bernays was also a trendsetter who wrapped both corporations and consumers tightly around his little finger. He for instance encouraged women to take up smoking by glamourising the cigarette in post-WWI New York City by way of savvy advertising campaigns that centered around personal gratification and desire, concepts that still ring true to this day in advertising. He also engineered water fluoridation PR campaigns to get public trust. Apart from getting us into bad habits, Bernays also wrote a few influential books, including Propaganda, a PR treatise whose most fervent reader was Joseph Goebbels, that's right, Hitler's henchman and future Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Germany's Third Reich.

When efficiency used to be defined by the clever use of time in order to accomplish a task and deliver a good or service via a process that would bring a lasting effect in terms of quality (to stand the test of time according to our human proclivities), this is no longer applicable. In the third and final part of this essay, we will see how vested interests have corrupted the production model under a socio-political ideology in order to reframe and rephrase efficiency, with transience at the core. I will describe the areas which I have identified as being of a transient nature, under the remodelled paradigm of efficiency. (to be continued)

_________

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society is a 3-part series:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3

A Wes Anderson Yuletide

If there is one modern film director who is able to bring Christmas magic to children and adults alike, command your attention and massage your emotion, film maestro Wes Anderson is the man of the action! Expect to be delighted!

via H&M

Swedish fast fashion brand H&M didn't go cheap for its Christmas advertising campaign. It moved away from the obvious and embraced the experiential. No tipsy petticoats or swaying cocktail dresses! Instead it geared itself up as H&M Lines, and took us - courtesy of Wes Anderson - on the train journey of a lifetime. The famed American film director took the H&M brand and accoutrement outside the box and beyond any marketer's expectations to a place of story-telling, of family-friendliness, of style and elegance that might as well showcase upmarket fashion retail and the couture brands, let me tell you! It's all about attitude and how fluid you are about positioning your brand in a highly competitive market.

via It's Nice That

Anderson's signature directorial approach brings together a vintage yet timeless timeline as a backdrop to the storyline: nostalgia without the wallow. The sweeping camera technique frames each scene in its exactitude before neatly sliding sideways or upwards/ downwards to the next scene, taking us for the ride without a bump, bathed in ambient pastel colours that remind the sweet-inclined of those special occasion chocolates dressed in robes of whipped mint creams and rosewater sugar paste. I call it 'Retro Candiland'! Adrien Brody is relishingly moody, like a silent movie actor, and the rest of the cast play their moody, restrained and instrospected selves. They unravel with the plot, shedding the wallflower and warming up, growing on us as likeable characters.

ibid.

Wes Anderson is the ultimate crowd gatherer: the laid-back and the snooty, the young and the less so, the show-off and the parsimonious, the well-off and the lacking, will find themselves in his commercial, should they allow themselves to. Anderson's message resonates clearly too: the company you're in (i.e. the group of individuals) matters more than the presents, and no matter the journey, be sure to enjoy it rather than solely focus on the destination. Christmas goes beyond the one-sided retail relationship of giving and/ or receiving, it is about sharing and enjoying the special moment in togetherness!

via BBC

Trust me that this is one Christmas commercial that will not grate or ire you. It will also write another page in the grand history of brand advertising. It commands multiple viewings and makes you itchy to reach out for your closest and dearest: 'No matter what, I'll be home to you for Christmas! But if my journey takes me off a tangent, a change of direction beyond my control, I might as well make the most out of it.' The short film celebrates the vagaries of life and the little joys to be had along the way.




Meanwhile in his methodical approach, Wes Anderson doesn't lose sight of the child within. There is a little boy in the film, who so resembles Wes as his child alter ego. The little kid has every reason to cheer up as he steps into the lounge waggon. And the marveling little kid is everyone of us. Come together and keep the magic alive!


P.S: The robins are home for Christmas... or maybe not?

A Vote for Donald Trump WILL Save the West

There are no two ways about it, folks... Donald Trump as President will not only save America but the whole West from the web of corruption brought about to destroy us!

On the other hand, a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for the New World Order, global elites, NAFTA, TPP, TTIP, mass-immigration - and World War III. A vote for Crooked is a vote for a jobless, subservient, open-border, Agenda 21-compliant society; a vote for the loss of national sovereignty and for the finalised collapse of the West. American friends, think carefully before you cast your vote. This election is the most important of your entire life and the future of the West depends upon you.

(Pict source)

Transcript for “Donald Trump’s Argument for America”:

Donald J. Trump:

"Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people.

The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election.

For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind.

The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry.

The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries all around the world.

It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

The only thing that can stop this corrupt machine is you. The only force strong enough to save our country is us.

The only people brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment is you, the American people.

I’m doing this for the people and the movement and we will take back this country for you and we will make America great again. "

Blogposts with Attitude #BWA - January 2016

January, the bleakest month of the year? Oh my, gimme some flowers! A bittersweet after-party tinge in its early moments might behold - as 'the year after the year before' - it quickly turns into a time to take stock and mull over the year past, draw conclusions and move on, empowered. In other words, a time for introspection, reflection and decision that morphs into a time to set the tone for the year ahead and wear it proudly on our sleeve like our Sunday best in order to face the brand New Year in a more resolute - and upbeat - fashion.

Café au Lait Dahlia Love by Erin Benzakein @ Floret

January is not over that it has already yielded some productive results out there in blogland. It has certainly been a month where hearts have been poured, eyebrows raised, and voices heard. Introspective, reflective, or in a more direct address, the issues raised I have enjoyed reading every word of it! Probably because they put a fresh and honest perspective, stated their values loud and proud, and brought not only an emotional connection but also a rational one.

For these reasons, the posts I have listed here struck more than a chord with me. They have lifted me, inspired me, fuelled me with renewed energy and kickstarted me more firmly into my year ahead, in terms of personal and professional achievements and aspirations. I am positive that you too will draw some benefits out of them.

So, here we go, in chronological order, my five favourite posts this month. Enjoy the read and feel free to add on to the list: -


No.1: A Manifesto by Kathryn Sharman @ Kat Got the Cream

As your lifestyle blog is growing and evolving, you will need to set out or rewrite clear rules as to what your blog is about - and your approach to your craft. Monetisation/ brokering will invariably crop up, sometimes perceived as a bone of contention. Some readers will enjoy the rstyle ride with you and others won't. I have no problem with blog monetisation as long as it is cleverly incorporated within the fabric and the essence of the blog without overpowering it with affiliated shopping lists post after post. Kat struck that fine balancing act with flying colours, and hats off to her! Yet undoubtedly you will still get some readers who begrudge the union of blog and cashflow, so Kat laid out the terms as her Manifesto. A great idea for us bloggers to consider seriously and incorporate into our blogs, just to be sure author and readers are on that same page!

Lovely to be included in this inspiring post! https://t.co/fEPQnyTW7B — KatGotTheCream (@KatGotTheCream) January 24, 2016

No.2: Will Blog Survive 2016? by Holly Becker @ Decor8

A question asked by a blog that is an authority on blogging and has already witnessed the rise and demise of many blogs in its one decade of existence, going from strength to strength to inspire our homes with consistent high-quality content. Here Holly gives us her views on the state of blogging vs. monetisation (flavour of the month?). She comments on those blogs out there who churn out sponsored post after the next, slapdash a little line of text and an endless content of affiliated links, making those blogs little more than shopwindows linked up to the cashpoint registers of the big brands. Individuality and integrity of voice and character and personality are killed off in the process. This puts the future of impartial informative blogging 'from the heart' at stake, a little like that good old chestnut, freedom of the press. And the quest for quick buck might end up a piped dream for that new generation of fame-hungry bloggers on the scene...

Erin Benzekein and her husband, Chris @ Floret

No.3: The Life & Business 3-part series on Design*Sponge dedicated to Erin Benzekein and her award-winning flower farm, Floret

I had heard of Erin previously and come across her beautiful arrangements of organic, unusual and old-fashioned flowers on her Instagram account, that got me sold! Then treble whammy in one swoop with the Design*Sponge coverage! I came face to face with a business off the beaten track, that is a success story and a winner on many levels: all about emotional intelligence and a floral immersion, our relationship to flowers that goes beyond the bouquet and delves deep into childhood memories and nostalgia, and 'just about tamed' natural beauty captured off the cuff and ingratiated in high-quality visuals. A family-centred, nature-friendly concern that is a social media eye-pleaser, and most of all a lifestyle aspiration to those in search of accomplishing something of worth in their lives, off the rat race tracks, out in the country, where they can satisfy both their intellectual and physical strengths. This is the sort of business that gets me enthused beyond enthused! Erin shares hints and tips on how she is growing her company. Take a leaf out of how Floret is flourishing and be guided by your passions! Do check Floret's About section for more inspiration.

@baguettemagique @designsponge Great to hear you enjoyed this feature! Thanks so much for the mention! Happy 2016! — Erin Benzakein (@FloretFlwrFarm) January 25, 2016

No.4: The Secret We All Want to Know by Tara Austen Weaver @ Tea and Cookies

The creative process fascinates. To the extent that some of us want to unfold it and undress it down to its bare bones, peel off the layers and dissect it, find out the magic formula, turn on that switch by the cortex that will turn us into a writer. Good news is we all are creators - often unaware of it - whether it is fixing that bit of kit or cooking up a meal or salvaging a patch of land or doing a collage for the kids or styling hair. The bad news is there is no magic formula on how to become a writer. Tara - a published author - explains this compellingly and sympathetically, and links in a few resources from her blog, all must-read items. Mostly though, she can't emphasize enough that the creative process is an individual, personal one. It is about being one's own voice. And there is no magic formula or Idiot's Guide, rather than the fact that you should just write and keep on writing, because practice will help perfect your craft.

No.5: Here's a Space for You by Danielle Hampton @ Sometimes Sweet

Writing is about being one's own voice and being in one's own space. As an established lifestyle blogger and former English teacher, Danielle understood the importance of writing early on in life, encouraging her pupils to journal. And this is one of the best ways to get creativity going, to stimulate those creative juices. And encouraged and fostered early on in life, this can only feed into one's personal journey down the creative process. A fun and mind-expanding exercise!

Awesome Acts of Kindness for the Earth!

No better way to kick the New Year into shape than with La Baguette Magique! In this mini-series, we have it all covered: Self, Others and good old Mother Earth! In our previous article, I gave you 3 Hints 'N' Tips to make the friendlier You: getting back in touch with a long-lost relative or friend, treating your loved ones with one of your creations, and connecting you to the local community with a little banter...

Now how about addressing what good we can bring to the Earth, in three easy steps...

'Gathering', oil on canvas by Martin Wittfooth, 2015

For the Earth #1:

•  Make it last! If your fixtures, fittings and homewares are not plagued by the dogma of planned obsolescence, you should be able to get some mileage out of them. Thus go easy on style fads and trends that encourage us to constantly reinvent our surroundings by replacing the old with the new. As long as that kettle is still in working order, or that family heirloom sofa still looks and feels good, why give in to the temptation of replacing them? Give the Earth - and your purse - a hand by making your belongings last longer.

For the Earth #2:

•  Don't be owned by objects! This is an extension of #1. Basically less is more. The model wants us to keep buying and we may have Father of Public Relations Edward Bernays to blame for this, but can we not just shop with our eyes sometimes? Bernays engineered the desire and compulsion to buy and linked pleasure with purchase. Up to us to put the brakes on. Another good point for the earth - and the purse!

'Dukkha', limited edition print by Lindsey Carr, via Etsy

For the Earth #3:

•  Leave nature alone! That sounds like a given but we need to state it loud and clear, especially as regards those sensitive natural areas of the world, with fragile and threatened ecosystems. They are paying the price for their beauty by attracting hordes of tourists. Even if tourism is branded as ecotourism, it still puts undue pressure on the environment. Those cruises to the Arctic 'to watch the melting icebergs before it's too late' is short of vain and self-centred! It is a full-blown aberration!

There you have it, my friends. Our list of Acts of Kindness for Self, Others and the Earth is far from exhaustive. It is a taster, a starting point to a form of contentment in life and to a thought process. If you seek further inspiration, do check my Inspire-Aspire series. Have a wonderful year!

Inspiration's Den of Iniquity

In December 2012, I came across an article in Brain Pickings about The Daily Routines of Great Writers, and their creative space and process. This got me thinking about my own daily routine (or lack thereof) as a (yet-to-be-published) writer. I remember commenting on BP's Facebook page on the subject, sharing what a 'typical' day was for me as a writer:

"My personal routine as a writer is simply not to have any... I write in a state of distraction and urgency, not to say chaos, in noisy places, on random bits of tatty paper, guided by the guises, quirks and fancies of inspiration, driven by both emotion and rationale. You will never find me locked away in solitary confinement, sat at a desk in a neat and tidy room, writing calligraphic-style on the beautiful pages of a beautiful notebook, within a set timeframe like this is the day job. I may be a writer but never aspire to look like one either."

Brett Easton Ellis' The Typewriter Campaign with Persol

All in all, I couldn't help but be a little taken aback by the lack of creative process in some of those daily lives I was reading about. There was a rigor, a rigidity, a structure, an orderliness, and a predictability resulting from repetitive acts, that fashioned what a typical writer's day was supposed to look like. If anything, it verged on the superstitious, the mechanical and the obsessive, which I found at odds with creativity and untransferrable to a less disciplined character like myself. There is method in my madness though, yet I find that I would be counter-productive if I were subjected to some rigid routine pattern.

For me, imagination, curiosity, observation and inspiration - the intermingled fuels that feed creativity - work hand in hand with the act of creating, a.k.a. the art form. It is a unison work in progress, a symbiosis that accompanies the artist beyond the projects they are working on. It is a way of life. Creativity is very messy and undisciplined - and that is the beauty of it! Inspiration hits you anywhere and at any time, whether the moment is appropriate or not, whether you are in the mood to transcribe it there and then - or not. It is up to you to seize the day as it turns out to become, capture the spark in its blessing, as it twinkles at you for you to translate into creative genius - or just let it peter out, often never to be able to rekindle it again, at least in its very same form.

Christian Dell Table Lamp, circa 1929-1930 (pict source)

Back to the Brain Pickings article, Ray Bradbury was on that same wavelength:

"My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. So I never have to worry about schedules. Some new thing is always exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the typewriter right now and finish this." - Ray Bradbury

The creative urge is what defines artistic life as a holistic experience. It shatters to smithereens any preconceived idea around the 'typical' working day. It happens and you deal with it - or you don't. Multi-talented chanteuse Lady Gaga goes even further, lending some mystical connotation to the experience:

“The most important thing about creativity is that you honor your creativity and you don’t ever ignore it or go against what that creative image is telling you… Last night I was lying in bed and I had an idea for an outfit and I just made myself get up and sketch it real fast then went back to sleep. I think it’s when you say “I’m too tired I have to go to bed” is when creativity stops coming. If God calls you, pick up the damn phone.” - Lady Gaga

Cyphus germari by Michaël Cailloux, via Les Pépins

I have answered that phone in those most incongruous of moments. In the middle of the night, waking up from a dream, or while on the move, in my travels, sometimes hardly prepared for it, stopping my car by the roadside, scribbling away those words on random bits of paper I find in my handbag (if that notebook I have left home), or even texting myself the words. If no paper and no phone, then trying to remember those words and sentences (or just scale down to some trigger words that help me remember the text or poem I have just created 'out of the blue'), and recite them parrot fashion on my way home or to a place where I can scribble them down.

In this spontaneous interchange between inspiration and the receiver (the artist), I fail to find any room for the showroom office, the tidy desk, the neatly-aligned books, comforting grigris and perfectly-sharpened pens, under the solemn time-ticking auspices of the alarm clock structuring your working day. A writer's working day is hardly a 9am-5pm office job. My better half, Roby, who is a published American author, says that his office is only tidy when he is not working. Let us not forget though that no matter how messy and untidy creativity may appear at source, it comes out disciplined and structured once channelled onto paper. Therefore the apparent untidiness of the artist should not define them or their craft.


Bret Easton Ellis For Persol Typewriter Edition from Persol.

Creativity is an on-going process. It doesn't start, it doesn't end. Now you are welcome to that obligatory 20-minute morning walk ritual before you start your artistic endeavours, supported in your task by your favourite songtrack and your loyal artefacts as they tune you in - should you be of the belief that these externals will help trigger your genius onto paper afterwards. For my part, I will not have my creative life regimented to that effect. I do not have a typical day. The only routine I have is imposed upon me because I currently live at my parents' house, and the set meals and other family obligations structure some sort of routine into my day, but this will change soon, when I move out.

I will not push the words either. French author and 2012 Goncourt Prize winner Jérôme Ferrari summed up his technique nicely in a recent interview to a local French newspaper: "I do not search for words, I allow them to come to me." Nothing of a high calibre will come out when creativity is forced out of you, like you are on a tight deadline, with a multitude of other parameters attached. Rules and conditions restrict creativity. They do not expand it.

'Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. 

Nobody knows his own frontiers… 

I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road 

if I knew where it led.' - Louis Kahan 

P.S: More from the Persol-Bret Easton Ellis Typewriter Campaign in our previous post.

Sugar and Spice... and All Things Nice?

Christmas, bah humbug! Children's and retailers' favourite time of year, where shoppers and sellers unite for a commercial feast that toxically equates love and happiness with expenditure and balance sheets. The time of year where the religious meaning of the celebration and its modern interpretation sit at the antipodes of each other. Yet the air is snappy and slightly intoxicating and it feels like the advocacy of miracles and magic is summoned in the granting of wishes, maybe facilitated by the faerical sparkly silvery golden ambience and the field work of Santa's emissaries deployed high and low.

Williams-Sonoma

Christmas, source of inspiration and stress in equal measures. Financial panacea and commercial commodity for businesses, and financial nemesis for the short on cash and the debt-ridden. Nonetheless it's showtime, across the sprawling retail parks, up and down the department stores, at the radiating heart of the cities where La Fée Electrique has electrified man-made canopies of snowflakes, shooting stars, sleighs, Tinkerbells, holly wreaths and spruces in an incongruous mish-mash of folklore reinvention of Christmas, a Christianised pagan feast (be said in passing). And they keep drumming it into us that this time of year is supposed to be festive in the spending, and fun has been engineered by admen and marketeers so that it relates to the purchasing and receiving of gifts, in that fine balancing act that defines conditional caring, and those who refrain from parting with their cash in order to be bought for in return, be despised for they are mean and scrooge! The Three Wise Men surely must be turning in their graves, bless!

Lakeland

Already the run-up to Christmas has seen a rivalry fought tooth and nail between family members, neighbours, co-workers, acquaintances and associates as to who will get the most Christmas cards. Believe me, I witnessed the frenzy when I used to live in England! In that spirit of things, you should expect one from your foe for they expect one in return, and to exceed the number of cards from last year, and may that living room wall be covered in them as a trophy display to visitors. Popularity is measured like it is in social media, in a very elusive, subjective and ultimately meaningless manner, where the quantity of so-called 'friends' has long surpassed the quality factor of the friendship.

Galletas de Encaje

In theory, Christmas Day at the dinner table sees happy get-togethers with the ones we hold dear in our hearts, with any sibling rivalry or in-laws feud forsaken for merryness of spirit and plentiful of fayre. However the blissful family reunion is not de-facto, especially nowadays, what with accent on individualism and the satisfaction of immediate needs, family values have been eroded and what results is a get-together of fragmented family sub-units who find themselves contrived to share a moment for the sake of tradition and in honour of that vague whiff of childhood nostalgia or filmographic reference that presents Christmas as an idealised family gathering brought to its epitome of sugar and spice and fancy free... Meanwhile let's go easy on the sour cream and the Grand Marnier! Soon enough Christmas Day will fade away and so will the brash light bulbs from the man-made canopies across town.

Blood Oranges by Mowielicious

Don Draper, Eat Your Heart Out!

Dust off your DeLorean machines for a short time travel away, 53 years back in time to be precise, and let's land in the heart of the UK Mecca of Mad Men advertising, London's answer to New York City's Times Square, and just as technicolor brash and electric: Piccadilly Circus! And there's a delightful branding revisit in the offing: Coca Cola, Guinness, BP, Wrigley's, Skol and Co. Have your pick!

The technological prowess isn't brought to you by crazy Doc but by the no less crazy team over at London FullScream motion design agency. The short animation is based on archive pictures superimposed with old weather reports and processed together with a state-of-the-art colouring and animation software. The moody grainy sepia rendering is hypnotically grand! Loving it, and let's wish the FullScream creatives will have another dab at this to offer us more (and longer) urban montages.

(Pict source)

Piccadilly Circus 1961 by FullScream from FullScream on Vimeo.

Surf it like Neistat!

Some nights the interwebs have a way of getting things juicy, the way we like them. I can't quite fathom how they brought me to film-making sensation Casey Neistat but - let's put it that way - I've enjoyed the journey as much as the destination. It started off with the latest newsletter from Matador featuring Casey's latest adventure, '17 Tips To Travel With Style'.

Photography by Winnie Au, via Refinery29

This was a AHA moment, what with this cool dude in an office suit who skips the commuting train and the coffee rounds and the conference room to take to the ocean waves and the mountain slopes and the dusty roads and the plush pads, with shitloads of attitude to boot and a bit of a chip (or microchip, we're not sure) on his shoulder! It's also fanstastic kudos for cool fashion brand J.Crew who sponsor the shindig, our internet superhero wearing their Ludlow Traveler suit and putting it to the test in extreme wear and tear conditions (by office standards)! What's for sure is that although I might still look at the office water cooler the same way, that Ludlow won't get that same look from me now.

Total Recall - Media Comms

Looking at our most recurrent blogpost themes, media & communications may not be a hot topic as such but it actually doesn't fare too bad... So I thought I would dig in deep and dig out some oldies but goldies for us to revisit on our Total Recall Day 5:

Do we still need to say who she is? (pict source)

• Your Personal Brand Image (23/04/2013) >> It is wrong to assume that only public figures have a brand image to protect. So do we! And this is even more acutely so in the here and now, with social media galore that encourage us to go above and beyond the call of duty and dish out indiscretions about ourselves and members of our circles...
• Inspire Aspire - Ladies Who Launch (11/02/2013) >> We all know how the internet is a formidable invention and how it has helped us connect to people the other side of the world we wouldn't otherwise have heard of in real time. Astrologer Kelley Rosano, business entrepreneur Jody Jelas and business lifecoach Marie Forleo are three of these wonderful people I got to discover, and have followed ever since on YouTube.
• No Labels (04/09/2012) >> Language has gone sloppy, over the top and suddenly "everything is great!" Or is it - literally - that great? Come on click on the link - you know you want to - if only to feast your eyes on that Camaro SS!
• Google Me, Google You! (07/03/2011) >> What's in a name? Better to take it with humour, eh?!
• Dear Car Crash TV (12/01/2011) >> Oh I can hear the snidey remarks and all that slack from the more discerning TV audiences, and *huh* OK it's only cheap fly-on-the-wall entertainment verging on reality TV, but come on, we all crave fluff and sugary nosh (at least) once in a while, be it cos it's time of the month for us laydees (we need to take it easy on the brain then, don't we?), or cos that's simply all we want to feed upon (as we do with a whole tub of ice-cream or entire pack of biscuits)! So pass me the sugar, honey, and let's get that no-brainer of a programme on!

Thanks for sticking around, guys, and don't forget we're on Total Recall until this Sunday! See you tomorrow for episode 6 of 8!

Why Good is Better than Perfect

I am a perfectionist - or shall I rephrase that - I used to be a perfectionist. Now what might appear as a clean smart ingenious statement to make, and certainly one I used to pull at job interviews, can also compromise timescales, efficiency and the flow of creative thinking. It can create doubts and blockages as that feeling of frustration generated by the unquenched quest for perfection might just send you loopy in your daily endeavours. So I learnt to let go and no this wasn't easy.

Perfectionism and an eye for detail were certainly qualities and pre-requisites in my area of work (Marketing & Advertising), when it came to typesetting, copy editing, proofreading, CMS (content-management system), image manipulation, customer profiling and segmentation, but sometimes perfection had to be harnessed and toned down and tamed because time was of the essence. And if we didn't have the right Pantone definition to hand, maybe we had to work out a close match, and if I was still unhappy with a layout, maybe just accept this was just an opinion - my opinion - and opinions are subjective, and for the good of all, we had to go with next to perfect - if such a thing does indeed exist as it would imply that perfection is measurable.

We could be debating for hours on end about what perfection actually is, and chance is, everyone has their own personal definition of perfection, based around a loose set of universally-accepted moral and cultural codes, Fibonacci, divine proportions, and a more personal, biased set of standards and gamuts and benchmarks. Ask Michaelangelo about perfection, ask controversial architect Antoni Gaudí, ask eccentric painter Salvador Dalí, ask Karl Lagerfeld, ask your best friend, neighbour, colleague... Where a tall iron-board high-cheek-boned androgynous woman might be Calvin Klein's idea of the perfect woman, many African tribes would opt for a plump curvaceous generously-shaped busty woman who embodies feminity, fertility and health. There is relativity in perfection.

Calvin Klein Fall 2013 Presentation

Some of us are driven by the quest for perfection, yet isn't what perfection should be about: an ideal as opposed to an idea, i.e. to aim for perfection as a lifelong quest, but never to reach it? Because once you have reached perfection, what comes next?

By becoming less of a perfectionist, I started to get things done, things and ideas and energy flowing more fluidly. I became freer once I started being less harsh on myself. Perhaps I wasn't 100% satisfied with the image content in a blog post, but there was no way I was going to hold on with baited breath until the perfect pic was sourced. No I didn't think I looked great that day but I would nonetheless pull a video message to a friend or associate, because content was more important than form and anyway they may actually believe I looked great! Perfection is all in the head and a potential danger to our evolution in life if we seek to attain it, rather than simply aim in its direction as part of our core values, while respecting our limited capabilities. As we have briefly demonstrated, there is no such thing as objectivity of perfection.

Antoni Gaudí architecture in Barcelona, Spain (Pict source)

In my life journey so far, I have found out that perfection is not a universal truth or state of mind, it is subjective. Perfection is one opinion, it is one's opinion. Pushed to the extreme, perfection is as subjective as those Mothers Day cards that go "To The Best Mum in the World". The idea of "Best Mum" is skewered because how can we determine she is the best as indeed we have no way to compare, as we only have one mum in life. "Best Mum" would imply that we have been able, as a daughter/ son, to compare our own mum to other mums, which is pretty nonsensical. We just experience our own idea of perfection, we create our own perfection.

P.S: I am keenly aware that I have only scratched the surface of perfection here. Besides my approach might come across as pretty simplistic to some of the "illuminati" yet I have never claimed to be a philosopher nor a sociologist. My only claim is to be deeply passionate about the workings of the human mind and their interraction with our daily lives. I am naturally curious about life, people, relationships, including the relationship we hold with ourselves. If this also describes who you are, you have come to the right place @ La Baguette Magique! Glad to have you around!

Illustration by Luis de la Torre, via Behance

Your Personal Brand Image

My first tangible encounter with personal branding was about 9 years ago while working in the Sales & Marketing Dept. of a top end projector manufacturer. It came through the post in the form of unsollicited mail. I could have chucked it in the bin because I just was so busy, but the savvy in me knew that key snippets of information, slogans and little pearls of wisdom were to be found in the most unusual places and marketing/ PR 'junk mail' was one of them and worked for me, keeping me abreast of trends, movers and shakers, latest fads, forthcoming events, flavours of the week, in big letters and bullet-proof bullet-point format.

(Pict source)

And there it came. It was a leaflet from a UK training/ events company inviting me to a seminar aptly named 'Walking TALL', devised and organised by Lesley Everett. The brief synopsis set the scene. Lesley devised her Walking Tall Branding Methodology based around the fact that employees are an extension of their corporate brand, and a firm's reputation - good or bad - is at the hands of its staff. Trust is at stake.

Poor dress, sloppy language, lazy approach, out-of-place comments and carelessness will be detrimental to a firm's overall image and credibility, it will make it look unprofessional and give it bad publicity. A hapless employee might not care about or even be aware of the consequences of their attitude problem or deliberate actions. Yet as employees, not only do we hold a responsibility in terms of our employers reputation, but also towards ourselves, which some of us might be tempted to overlook. In the corporate world reputation preceeds us. Word of mouth will soon spread like wildfire and that ill-mannered lawyer, untidy sales guy or moody secretary will not only dent their employing firm's image but in return have their own image dented and future employability compromised. Because yes it so happens that we have a personal image to protect and defend, beyond the realms of the firm we work in. This got my mind ticking big time.

Lindsay Lohan, photographed by Bryan Adams, via French Vogue

Look at it that way. You, as an individual, are your own personal brand. You walk and talk and breathe and eat and drink and sleep that brand. Go for the bigger picture and realise that your brand goes beyond the workplace, into your personal life, across to your leisure time, permeating your whole life. This is even more so true today right now, with the popularity of social media, where individuals have it in their own hands to write and rewrite their own life stories and reputations. Except that what is done online cannot be undone, as it gets shared, replied to, forwarded, commented upon, and distorted Chinese whispers stylee, leaving indelible traces all over the place.

Which should lead us to be wiser with that personal brand image whose reputation gets tarnished on a whim with inappropriate revelations, gratuitous slander and risqué pictures. Some people out there are finding themselves in the mess they created in the first place, because they thought it was gonna be a joke, for the fun of it, without measuring the consequences. Unlike most celebs and high-profile business people, most of us are unable to hire the big guns and afford the high-ranking lawyers and top PR teams who will work on that reputation damage limitation. Next time you feel itchy on Twitter or Facebook, just pause, log off and take that walk round the block or do fifty press-ups. You'll thank me later.

Google Me, Google You! (Part 1)

Here's the $10,000 question: who amongst you guys will be honest enough to admit that they have "googled" themselves at some point in their lives, preferably on a long solitary night, when confidence levels were low, or on the contrary to boost an already-boosted ego? Don't be ashamed and get closer to the screen because I can't hear you... Me? Hands up, I have... several times in fact! It's no big deal and if you haven't given it a whirl yet, you should, it's all fun! Whether it's good fun or not is another matter of course as we'll find out later on...

The Commodore PET 2001 PC (1977), from Old Computers - naturally!

Let's start at the beginning. Go into your favourite search engine and type in your name in the search bar. The search engine (1) needn't have to be Google of course, and (2) no, this post wasn't sponsored by said Mountain View corporation, although for the purpose of the exercise we'll just stick to the aforementioned. Now if your name is - say - John Smith or Lisa Miller - you might need to enter more than just your name on Google in order to scale down the result pages.

In my case I found out that I had a few homonyms around - always good to have homonyms as they make things a bit more anonymous on the identity side and act as some sort of a buffer zone, a protection shield like some big anti-virus software. Coz the web, man, is riddled with danger, cyberstalkers and that... So Mr John Smith or Ms Lisa Miller, you may count your blessings after all, as you can hide in peace in the realms of the cyberworld (unless you happen to be famous, like this John Smith, or this one or that one!). Point taken!

Here's Johnny (Smith)! This one's from The Dead Zone (1983)

If you have a blog or website, you can google it too and gauge its visibility on the search engine results. If you need to scroll page after page to find it, or if you need to add a long string of search words to locate it, it's not good news. Perhaps you need to give more thought to SEO (especially if you thought it's new spelling for CEO), or revisit those meta tags, even change your site's name into something shorter, snappier, easier to spell or remember... And of course publicity in all its forms will help drive traffic and your blog's popularity will increase as a result, taking it right to the top of the league!

Talking of blog names, you may get a surprise or two when doing your Google search, especially if your carefully-thought blog name (or so you thought at the time!) happens to be some double-entendre (unbeknown to you!). I don't have a better example to illustrate this than by referring you to my humble blog, La Baguette Magique and I think a little digression on the subject might be worthwhile while we're at it.

Ready for my close-up? Not if it's bigger than life!

So then why did I choose La Baguette Magique? That's another $10,000 question by the way (I may well make you a millionnaire by the end of this article)! Well, the answer is that the original name I had in mind wasn't that original after all as it had already been taken, same story with second best name and third best name and so on, you get the picture.

As we all know too well, it is getting increasingly difficult to find original blog or website names as time goes, as all the best ones have already been snapped (a bit like the smart, cute and trendy guys at them school parties back in the day, remember?)... Even our John Smith guitar hero from earlier had to repeat his name twice for his URL. It just goes to show that we are seriously running out of URLs! (to be continued)

Mirabelle Design Inspiration

Hello everyone, we have reasons to be cheerful today as we are celebrating the official launch of our sister site Mirabelle and, as its proud editor I warmly invite you to join us in!

Mirabelle is an ode to inspiration, harnessing the power of photography as a vehicle to stimulate and celebrate it. Mirabelle is best described as a scrapbook of inspirational images, not necessarily following a logic or pattern of thought or anchored in the now and the brand-new. Mirabelle's goal is to pay tribute to what looks good - and better than good - the wow factor, the cherry on the cake, that quirky thought-provoking picture too, and the words that string everything together.

Inspiration will focus on our surrounding environment at large, and in particular on design, architecture, fashion, beauty, art, the man-made... and the natural world too! At times, when judged pertinent, Mirabelle will contribute its own pictures from its extensive image bank. Throughout Mirabelle will remain individualistic in its approach, not a portal to the latest design trends or to the Fashion Week diktat, but as a labour of visual love, whatever tickles its fancy... in any case we are not talking about just another design blog. If Mirabelle happens to fall head over heels (wheels!) for a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz rather than for its 2011 equivalent, so be it, that's what inspiration does to you!

Mirabelle loves the Kastehelmi plate by Iittala

By the way, talking of supercars, did you know that Mirabelle has been posting weekly since the start of the New Year, and is quietly working its 'magique' through the deep layer cake of the international lifestyle blogworld, with tempting images of... a supercar, plus a dream home, seductive florals and designer couches so far! Just hop across to Mirabelle to see for yourself what this new kid on the block has in store.

In its test run back in November 2010 (based on one introductory taster post and pared-down functionality and interactivity), Mirabelle had already garnered two followers, a very encouraging start considering the low-key promotion I had initiated: down to a high-visibility link button on La Baguette and a couple of advertising tweets on @baguettemagique.

Classic Swarovski bracelet by Hulquist, available via Notonthehighstreet

The hush-hush behind Mirabelle's launch wasn't necessarily the result of some marketing strategy (*). My primary objective is to develop Mirabelle as pretty much a stand-alone concept, a separate entity to La Baguette (with minimum cross-over between the two), as a visually impactful design inspiration blog that will hopefully in time later this year spawn an online lifestyle business.

Where La Baguette strikes a more personal chord,  with its trademark quirky pertinent opinions delivered through word-rich content, Mirabelle will allow carefully-selected pictures hearted by the editor to do the talking, with only a short text introduction rounded off by explanatory captions at the end, with an element of wit in the general tone of the blog.

If you believe that Mirabelle already looks promising, wait till I reveal some of the big plans I have in store! I ambition to take Mirabelle to the next level that it so rightly deserves by opening the blog to new horizons in order to reach new audiences via social media platforms such as Tumblr, MyDeco Room Planner, Polyvore moodboards and the Artessen community. Mirabelle is indeed going to be part of a thriving inspired community, and you are, dear readers, the first to be put in the picture! And what higher honour would it be for the editor than for La Baguette's friends to extend their loyalty to Mirabelle and join me in supporting this new venture that is incredibly exciting from both a very personal perspective and the blogging community at large.

I am confident that you will find in Mirabelle an instant universal appeal, with content that 'talks' to you, poetically or politically - whatever - Mirabelle is a celebration of online inspiration and to those who work in the shadows to materialise their own inspiration. To all, I promise a Happy Mirabellicious time!

(*) P.S: Dear friends, please be aware that the fruition of Mirabelle's further foray into social media will be dependent upon the editor's broadband internet connection speed (which in my situation has nothing to do with the internet provider). I have yet to overcome technical limitations imposed on this part of the island of Corsica where I live presently, with low electrical voltage that dramatically slows down (if not crashes) my internet connection, incapacitating most times the simplest CMS task into a time-consuming experience. This has sadly been the reality of my online experience since Autumn 2010, and although the local authorities and the electricity board are promising to rectify this low-voltage issue by upgrading the electric power lines, unless I move away, the situation will persist for the best part of the next 6 months, thus somewhat hampering my grand online ambitions for Mirabelle (and for La Baguette too!). Until I am able to secure a viable solution, we'll need to 'keep calm and carry on'.