In your face sustainability - pop-up changes the fashion landscape

Comme des Garçons pop-up store in Paris' trendy Haut-Marais district (7, rue du Perche)


The first ever brand to come up with this pop-up strategy was the Japanese luxury fashion label Comme des Garçons, which is said to have invented this Guerrilla marketing strategy by opening up a temporary store in Berlin in 2004 to display Junya Watanabe's designs in a totally fresh environment. Over the years, more than 20 CDG stores followed worldwide in cities like Barcelona, Warsaw, LA, Singapore, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Paris and many more. This creative concept has been adopted over the years by quite a few other brands as well and therefore, unusual locations like boat piers, old storage buildings, galleries, garages or clubhouses have been modified and used as an unusual showroom. (guerrilla-store.com)

Creating scarcity in a world of abundance very often does the trick these days. After all, what is there that we cannot get one way or another?! Where generations before us struggled and finally celebrated the rare delicacies or scarce materials, clothes and accessories, we take it for granted that we can have most of the goods we're after relatively quickly in our trusted big scale department stores, which nurture the latest international talents - or simply by good old e-commerce.
This abundance certainly has a long list of reasons, economy of wealth, globalisation just to name a few of them.
But does our psyche really work that way - if it is rare or at least seems rare - I have to have it? Is it our everlasting will to impress our environment? Or does it make us feel special if we wear something that is perceived as rare/difficult to obtain? Is it the expiry date of the pop-up store that makes us go all excited about it? I mean, obviously, one could argue if fashion has an expiry date - I quote Yves Saint Laurent most-used sentence here who famously argued that " Fashions fade, style is eternal". Yeah - I could not agree more with that. But sometimes in our "been there done that" - world, it really is exciting to us being challenged by new concepts and having our senses spoilt by the unusual. The fact that we adore fake scarcity might be a bit weird, but after all, we do live in a world, where abundance is blurring our day-to-day routines.

xoxo
Glamazone

Got soul?!

How often do you actually read the terms and conditions while making an online purchase - or while signing up to a new network/forum/community? I mean, not just ticking the "I accept" button and think to yourself "duuuh...whatever..."? Well, we all know we should but for some magical reason of ignorance, we hardly ever do - unless we're a mega-geek or lawyer to be. Now here comes one recent example which clearly shows that we should consider reading terms and conditions a lot more, otherwise we could easily become victims of a major prank or creepy freak actions:

The UK game retailer gamestation.co.uk included a strange little paragraph into its terms and conditions,"you grant to US a non transferable option to claim now, and forever more, your immortal soul...if you a)do not believe you have an immortal soul, b)have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant us such a licence, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction"



Well, what do you know... reportedly, this sub-clause was a prank and was added on April Fools' day - however I found the paragraph still online yesterday, April 16th 2010.

Gamestation.co.uk stated, that only 12% of all purchasers annulled the soul transfer and that the company according to that has approximately 7 500 souls in its possession. Btw. the 12% customers who did not transfer their souls were instantly rewarded with a 5£ voucher and the fact that they are not beholden to gamestation.co.uk until the end of days.

Gamestation however issued a statement saying that they will kindly return all souls to its righteous owners during the next days.


My opinion? FREAKS!!!

xoxo
Glamazone

Lady or Tramp - Moment of the moment

Tehehe - am still laughing about Derek Blasberg's contribution on style.com, in the framework of the launch of his latest publication "Classy - Exceptional Advice for the extremely modern lady".
Checking style.com on a day-to-day basis, of course I had to come across the "Are you a lady or a tramp quizz" and here is my favorite quote of it (For your understanding: the context is arguing how to solve a problem with another individual of the female species)

"...the internet isn't the way to go. Online rumours can be started about you, too, and just because you start the first rumour doesn't mean yours will win. The best approach is face-to-face. Just avoid the C-word, B-word and the word that starts with S*** and rhymes with "hut". A lady should be smart, funny and hit them where it hurts."

Wonderful, isn't it? So, ladies or tramps - this is the way to go! Let's try to only make "educated insults" this week, shall we?!

xoxo
Glamazone

Source: Classy - Exceptional Advice for the extremely modern lady, Derek Blasberg, 2010, Razorbill Publishing

Field Study: Chatroulette

Alright, I mean, being proud part of generation "all-now-everywhere", I most certainly have to keep myself updated with the latest hypes on the internet and therefore I could no longer ignore Chatroulette. After having heard and read a significant bit about it - i.e. that existing since Nov '09, Chatroulette has around 20,000 new users every day - helloohooo?? Seriously? Wow! ...and also that there is a lot of old dudes ...how shall I put it - well, let's not sugarcoat it - masturbating - of course I had to check it out.

So, for all of you, who are living in full autarchy in a cave, dressed in fur, swinging the good old cudgel, here is a tiny explanation: it quite literally is a virtual roulette of all people who - just as yourself - have no life and nothing better to do that to video-chat with random people out there and casually fulfill their exhibitionistic or voyeuristic phantasies.

Well, this evening, I was part of these individuals and spend a bit of time with it - for research purposes only of course (that btw. is always the motive when I try to find an excuse for something really stupid)- and here are my few impressions:

Keep in mind the following rules:

a)16+

b)Please stay clothed

c)Please click "Report (F2)" if you don't like what you see

So, as - for most obvious reasons, I did not want to put my face out there, I put on a hat and biiig sunglasses - and after a while even covered my mouth cowboystyle with a shawl.
Here's my resume:

- countless - and I repeat COUNTLESS shirtless dudes - most of them also wanking off
- maaany teenagers, male & female, mostly in pairs giggling and staring on screen
- many many old, ugly, lonely dudes
- puberty!!!
- few scenarios of what looked like "chatroulette" parties - i.e. computer plugged to TV and larger groups of people watching about what was to happen on the screen
- few people who seemed to be taking statistics (maybe like me?? haha)
- few ladies making a strip show, i.e. showing boobs or more and touching themselves (note: surprisingly good looking ones as well)
- funny people who would be making faces, had sheets with funny comments or funny costumes - note: u can have funny conversations with people trying to get to c ur boobs
- some freaky fetish people
- and last but not least - also a few people who would just chat with you nicely and without sexual undercurrents (!)
- Cute people who would sing songs for you and believe they made ur day!
- freaky ppl staring at u
people that seem caught in the act of something..weird, isn't it??

I have to admit retrospectively, that I enjoyed some of the voyeuristic pleasures - and with that I do not mean the disgusting guys and their tiny wiener - actually I found it fun and entertaining to get a tiny peak into the life of so many people!

Well, now here comes the funny bit: I promise, I was not naked, neither did I ask people for weird or sexual stuff - and guess what, you have the possibility to block chat-partners that you find inappropriate - and if 3 people do that - you're blocked for 40 minutest - now guess what - I got blocked twice!!! :o
And I could tell by myself as well - actually it is just another way to reject strangers brutally - apart from the fact that I blocked all perverts, I also blocked the really ugly, horrible ones...tehehe - mean, huh? :D

xoxo
Glamazone