Snake America: Twenty-Two
Snake, a bi-weekly email covering joints on eBay, Craigslist, etc. In today's: the worst interior design in American history, and Gucci sneakers from 1984. Subscribe here.
Craigslist Listing for a retro new lcw knockoff chair: Not so much a look at the item for sale here--a knockoff of an Eames molded plywood lounge chair--as a discussion of how the rooms are set up. What is going on here? Too much. The try at minimalism above doesn't work. It's not the furniture: the knockoff LCW, if you spill enough diet soda or fudge on it, could develop a nice patina. The bear-skin (?) rug is cool. The orange side chairs, Eames ripoffs, jack the most widely-available (and therefore worst) chair of the late 1950s-early '60s*, but also wouldn't be bad if they too got covered in fudge or acid rain, etc. But they flank ... a 1930s cheap suitcase on its side? Yuck. The Ikea-vibe bed in the foreground (is this a bedroom?) and stock air conditioner, nothing else on the wall ruin the Feng Shui reading room principles applied here. It's stark, yes, but not good stark, like a Berlin ad agency waiting room. It's bad stark like an old Bulgarian prison. It looks like a bad prison executive office. Are people going to hang out in there and shoot the shit? It feels like the window looks out onto a gravel-field firing squad. Why is it set up like that?
(Second photo of the same auction)
The second photo is the b in the a-b test. Any mild success in the first room--placing the rug in its center draws the eye, like it should, to the hottest fire therein--isn't in the second. Is this is the same room? It might be? Unless they moved the rug for some reason? Why would they do that? Do they have two identical rugs? Or two identical shitty air conditioners? The rug now faces the opposite direction, with its corner trampled under the table. The table looks like an outdoor patio table, except it's black. I don't know more about it since it's not in the listing. I guess they're keeping them. Those chairs there are not for sale either. There's a would-be Dutch-type knockoff chair and an Ikea-vibe fainting couch. So the point is the lcw chairs are in both photos, yet were put on sale despite everything they can do. Less is more and more is more! But I think the photos act as a warning to stay away from the chair, and all things like it. It's rare you see such a clear-cut case of what not to do in 2014. Here we have two. Don't do anything done here. Don't even think about it.
eBay: Gucci high-tops from the 1980s: Now this is a shoe. An important one, a good one, and here a cheap one that's been relisted a few times. The high- and low-tops are collectibles and lately have been going on eBay for significantly less than their retail price was in the 1980s. (Like $240 or something.) These shoes here are the more-expensive high tops that less people bought than the low tops from the time. (The white low tops, Tennis Classics, 1984, were the most popular and went for, like, $140.) I guess those prices are equivalent to the St. Laurent Jordans from now, but these are cooler looking (duh) since they're green leather and look like orthopedic shoes. The Gucci tag on the tongue is like an inside-the-suit tag sewn on the outside, just like the Thom Browne square tag, now that I think of it. The laces are red and the same green as the outsole, which is a different kind of green than the shoe leather. But the care that went into the shoe should have gone into the shoe--it was expensive!--isn't the key here. It just looks cool. This is a weird shade of green that you just never see elsewhere. I wonder why that is? The green is like an auroch:
Not that different, but just a bit different and sadly just not around anymore. Maybe green leather is super expensive because of the crushed-up green bugs they use to dye it**, or maybe there's a ton of new green leather out there but no one wears it in and we don't see it turn into a nice hue or anything. There are white ones in the same size online and they look just as good but these look better if that makes sense. There are also new retros--since sold out--that don't work when you look at them side by side, but are cool. Is it confirmation bias from a backwards-looking eye? Or is something actually missing from today? I bet it's confirmation bias. Only a weirdo would think all the good stuff went away.
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Snake
*Disclaimer: I have four old orange ones.
** Crushed-up-bugs not confirmed--OR ARE THEY?