In Fashion For Free

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

There's an interesting phenomena going on. It started long ago in primary school going under the names of “awesome” and “cool”. During high school it had evolved and recieved a name on its own, in our little social circle it went around as “alternative”. University would bring its own ring to it, depending on the state of the referrer, from “novel” to a more retrograde “awesome” during less clear episodes. Post university would add some glamour to it: “bourgeois” or “contemporary”. Now here in the northern parts a new version rears its ugly head.

urban native art

The topic here is of course: trends or “the curve”. A collection of ideas, expressions and other phenomena that determine how something at a certain time is intended to look, sound, feel or taste. Coincidentally it also offers a certain type of people to distinguish themselves and mock their not so “cool”, “novel”, or “contemporary” fellow human beings. To each his own.

Last week Vancouver was host to the yearly “Interior Design Expo”, one of the many ways the curve manifests itself. As part of the continuing infiltration program, the SO and I decided to check it out. Moreover one of my contacts in Vancouver is an accomplished furniture artist and was displaying his creations.

The show was filled with all kinds of furniture, ranging from just-above-Ikea level to genuine interesting creations. However no matter how much the furniture distinguished itself, nothing could escape the need for being “curve compliant”. And curve compliancy required that everything was “Urban” and I doubt it had something to do with hip-hop.

the urban entry to the expo

Urban toilets. Urban beds. Urban chains. Urban lamps. Urban kitchens. Urban paintings. Urban television sets and apparently even the stray BMWs on the show are now called “Urban Cars”.

Once the aware of the urban concept, one can see of the workings of the curve and the Urban concept is riding the curve wave all the way. Urbanity has escaped or outgrown it's natural confinements (style, fashion, interior design) and went mainstream. A short stroll around the streets of Vancouver will yield a variation of curve aware establishments: “Urban Sun Tanning”, “Urban Shoes”, “Urban Pets”, “Urban Food” and so on and so on.

Being one of those individuals who's-not-so-fashionably behind this proverbial curve has always giving me an excellent perspective on what is “happening”, when it's just slightly out of date. Sometimes I'm aware enough to see what is currently “in fashion” and on a rare occasion I accidentally find myself before the curve. These incidents are usually short lived though.

urban wall decoration

The fact that I am aware of the Urban concept means that it probably won't take too long before Urban has become “so-early-2K”. The first signs were already visible on the furniture expo where the new “uber urban” style is beginning to reveal itself: “Urban European”. As an European living in an urban area, I must say I'm quite content with that development. For once I won't have to do anything to be “in fashion”... at least for a little while.

Something to avoid spending money on this summer: the dancing, emo-spidey ... totally not urban