Dieter Rams' best piece, why there aren't promotional items (restaurant shirts) in design, raw goat milk, Observer 089

Plus price values on last week's auctions

Nearly a regular week again for auctions… good listings last week as well if a bit light, houses are back in business after last week’s pockmarked listings.

• I’ve been thinking about promotional items lately: merch items, collaborative big business gear, and trinkets, things that profess or promote something other than what they are—T-shirts, trinkets, smalls, things not meant to be for sale. Feels like they’re on the way out? Or are less commented on now… I will tie this into design. This suite of items has been around forever obv. but came into the world, as a thing… half a decade ago, and continued for a few years, becoming entrenched and reaching its peak during the pandemic. T-shirts are the most front-facing, there are high and low-level promotional pieces of clothing and ephemera out there as well. PBS totes, an Armani-Scorsese handkerchief, this Gremlins Mountain Dew VHS, fashion show invitations, museum opening gear, boxes with lots of flaps on them to God knows what else. There was that @nightpromoting account which showed off a lot of good free movie swag, but it got suspended. (What did they do? Was it preversion?) Around this is the restaurant gear that got big a few years ago and, on the other side, confusing/side-quest luxury house items, like the Prada gardening set, Hermès thermos, or, the Prada water bottle… and so on forever. Water bottle was from ‘17 feels like.

  

  Some are aspirational, some are ironic, some are fascinating, some are just dumb—like many things now there’s no border between high and low. The… crossover/non-luxe items stand out for their variety—there is promo crap for everything, and as everything—and the distance between the thing being promoted and the item itself. Why a Gremlins Mountain Dew VHS? Why a Knoll truck? This novelty component here, and the link between businesses, keyed the initial attention. it is deeply felt. The novelty… was real: the electricity from the distance and link between these two things… is kind of self-evident. It’s a natural reaction from a consumer, the kind of who buys a lot of things, who might even be defined by their buying patterns, and who probably might also be conflicted by that… people who buy things are smart because they have a lot of experience seeing and buying things. I think what people pick up from these items are a few truths:

  • Every company is in on it together to make us buy stuff we don’t need

  • Sometimes the items we need the least are not even for sale

  • What’s for sale generally is often so predictable but these things are not

  • Funny image of the Gremlins and Mountain Dew people in a meeting talking about this VHS

  • Aesthetics translate to different contexts—Prada works in the garden and therefore it is more than just good tailoring, let’s say…

  • Ultimately we all need things on one level—and so even scarves with a point of view:

    

    serve a very utilitarian purpose.

  • Only movies and clothing are real (possibly the most true thing here)

  I do feel like this novelty has half worn off lately since the dissonance between the thing and the promotion is no longer new and not very exciting. I mean, a T-shirt promoting a museum or a kettlebell with a dog food brand on it, as a concept, has a sell-by date. Also: hard to scale up: these are vintage items, there aren’t a lot of them. As far as design goes—it hasn’t taken on for a few reason. The industry is not built around smalls and is not as public facing as, say, film. They aren’t releasing a new thing on a national level every week. And it’s still mostly industry professionals who know these brands—consumers are still figuring it out. There’s not enough velocity to the market. Promotional items for movies, to be sure, were originally released for industry people: the guy from the Journal Sentinel reviewing an Arnold movie… but there were so many that they just kind of made it around. Once they started showing up a few years ago, and got seen as valuable, the infinite number of them out there that were ignored, began to get worn, speculated upon and sold. It’s that way with everything: enough attention and you create a market…

• To update: I bought groceries (raw dairy) from the pet food store last week and it worked out fine. You can drink the pet food milk and not die. In fact you might even be able to thrive. I do concede this behavior is slightly beyond the pale. But what are you going to do? These things interest me. Feel free to sign up for my HEALTH newsletter here: SUPERHEALTH.substack.com. I changed the domain today, passing along the existing domain to another writer who will use it in a better way. If you signed up the other week through the old link, don’t worry, you’re in there.

• Watched Blackhat (2015) last night, probably the only Mann film recently that doesn’t get in its own way. Its politics, wild then, are pretty obvious, even quaint now. Casting is good too. I think it’s the best mainstream film (not a real category, but you know) of the 2010s…

• I got a little cooked at the beach Sunday (but not burnt) and saw fireworks on 4th of July—but there was no big finish. Didn’t they used to do that? Too hot to live but still pho weather; had a couple of decent bowls… the nicer spots tend to have a more fragrant and… vibrant broth. Not what I usually go for but really great. At the beach I housed a couple bottles of Nabeghlavi, some pickled tomatoes (good for lycopene) and watermelon once I got there which helped with the sizzle. I don’t know, I don’t get burned anymore since I 180’d my diet two years ago. If you’re interested in these things and similar then check out my new Substack, launching this month. Subscribe HERE.

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Last week’s values:

One van der Rohe MR10 for Knoll chair $325

Six Artemide light fixtures by Ernesto Gismondi $400

Three Eames shell chairs $125

Pair of Art Deco sconces $30

Tito Agnoli black leather chair $70 (ridiculous)

Four Scagno by Stoppino coffee tables for Elco passed (€400) ridiculous

Luciano Frigerio Gran Visir chairs €900

Monica Graffeo Lazy Mary chaise €650 (very cheap)

CIOT floor lamp by Ennio Chiggio for Lumenform €1,700 (perfect lamp)

Corner-shaped Zozo by Seven Salotti sofa passed (€600)

Superstudio custom Quaderna door for Zanotta €500

Superstudio single-door Quaderna cabinet for Zanotta €2,200

Superstudio Quaderna square/coffee table for Zanotta €800

Afra and Tobia Scarpa 920 sofa for Cassina (1966) €600

Four van der Rohe MR10 cantilever leather chairs for Knoll $5,000

Florence Knoll 4’ wide dining table $1,100

Milo Baughman for Thayer Coggin “Ozzy” rocker $650

Leather Nychair-like sling chairs, pair $475 (just way too cheap)

Mackenzie Childs style jewelry box $100

Ugo Marano Sistine Chapel sofa/palanquin €2,200

Charles Pollock for Knoll sling chairs, pair, $1,100 (value)

Vintage Cyclos sconce $90

Ron Arad chrome rocking chair passed ($800)

Not bad for a slow week. Severe value, severe information. More insane deals follow below.

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Obs. 89

Sottsass salt and pepper mills for Alessi, NYC, flat: Tues.. Wild piece here, what with the colors—all dark, all immediate—which has to be a sort of Pantone color scale no-no. It’s all foreground. One of the better small Sottsass pieces and a display of his… not traditionalism but ‘80s postmodernism: beyond the no-no’s and shapes this is a very traditional pepper mill, fitting into what Ron Witte of Harvard GS of Design told me when talking to him for my Dwell column from the other week.

In the 80s, furniture objects—think of Sottsass—became self referential as things in their own right, and less concerned with the life carried out on them. The point became the furniture piece itself.

These are things that reference past things: this is a cartoon salt and pepper shaker… produced in 1989 I believe… still available at retail… even on sale at Ssense. Didn’t Pei do the same retro shit with the Regent/Four Seasons hotel? Smalls are the path. House is a Snake regular and has a real healthy amount of items this week, my favorite and the best of which sit after the paywall jump. $220

Knoll metal truck, NYC: an example of the qua promotional item as discussed above… this to me feels like a time machine to 2017, when the novelty of such items—X, branded on Y—was nearly overpowering. As for now it is less immediate. Do you feel the same way?

I do think an item like this, these days, still works in a more specific context—one without any novelty. This is no longer new, but it’s still kinda good. A gift for someone who really likes furniture, or design, a desk trinket, a thoughtful thing. Runs about this price; auction includes a lot of hits, curated in detail and listed out below the paywall. $140

Below the jump: a TV stand/credenza that is half revolutionary, a few different sets of poppy/plastic arm chairs and tables, an all-time item by Vico Magistretti that’s never been auctioned AFAIK, Dieter Rams’ most practical piece of design, a few steals (seating and mid-modern), similar deals to the price values above. Plus, Quick Hits (easy to buy pieces in LA or NYC).