INSPIRING INDIVIUALISM

They say you cannot judge a book by its cover or a person on the street by the way they dress and carry themselves - a refined, intellectual mind may not care for finesse in personal attire and fine clothes certainly do not make a gentleman or a lady as we found out in Julia Robert’s Pretty Woman- but you can always tell something about a person by the way they choose to live and arrange their personal space. You can tell a pretentious person by their lavish, chosen-for-show, must-haves in their homes –they try too hard to please others rather than pleasing their own senses and tastes.  A pragmatic, no nonsense person will have the essentials to live and nothing else, a fanciful person will have things that need a fanciful mind to comprehend,  a book lover will have books spilling out everywhere, used as doorstops and make-shift tables, an art lover will have art on their walls and then the subject of their choice of art is another giveaway – there is always something that gives you a glimpse  of a person’s personality as soon as you step inside their personal space.  But all these wonderfully narrative signs are sadly stripped away as soon as someone (not trusting their own judgment) hires an interior designer to arrange their space. As such, I don’t necessarily approve of interior designers arranging personal spaces (I know it sounds strange coming from someone who trained as one).  Perhaps for this reason alone, my design quest has always been more inclined towards finding, sourcing and promoting good design rather than ramming my design ideas downs people’s throat (or through their doors!)

I always feel individuality is on a backburner these days - the world of now is mostly about conformity, conformity of thoughts, actions, following the status quo. Remember the corner shops of yester years that sold everything from groceries to magazines to fabric? Each one was laid out different, stocked different merchandise, there were always surprises to be found if you visited a store further afield - these days each brand of retail shop is the same the world over. Gone are the little ways that owners and employees could customise their shops and call it their very own. I miss that kind of indiviuality in the world of today.

We are not doing a great job teaching our kids originality either.  I was recently at my 17 year old son’s parents-teachers consultation and lost count the number of times his various teachers mentioned he has to do such-and-such to get the grades which he needs to get into the university course of his choice. I could hear them telling the same to all the other parents while I waited in turn to see some of his teachers, and I felt a bit sad for all the young, slightly apprehensive young people there with their equally bewildered parents –  if everyone needed to do the same things to get the same grades,  the education system was advocating  conformism and toeing-the-line over individualism and exploration of their distinctive preferences and personalities.  Working in a school as well, every day I see (and feel crushed, every single time) when a child’s individuality is put on hold to work on something that needs to be done just so, because that’s how they need to learn it, because that’s how they will be assessed later. It is a sad state of affairs, I don’t know why we are so afraid to let children explore their individualism and map their own learning experiences.

But on a positive note, homes are where you can unleash your individuality, thats why your personal space is so important because sometimes in this world where everything has to be just so, thats the only place you can unwind and be your true self. So, do not be afraid, trust your instinctive style, and do yourself a favour, do not call in an interior designer…

   

LIVIN' LA VIDA LOCA

In my opinion, every one could do with a little crazy in their lives - in fact its the crazy and slightly bizarre things we say and do sometimes that make our sensible moments sane and not dull, which otherwise they would totally be.

When you are young and carefree, craziness is a coveted characteristic, its makes you popular, its makes you hip and you can easily get away acting mad as a march hare - no one would bat an eyelid -  but unfortunately not so if you are a day over 30, have a reasonably grownup job, are married or have kids - act crazy for the fun of it then and you are considered nutty as a fruitcake, sadly out of your tree and decidedly unhinged - people roll their eyes in sympathy and speak in hushed tones behind your back. You become the sad-one rather than so-the-one. And that is the dismal truth, once you  are grown-up in the eyes of the world, you are  expected to put your wild, wacky side safely in the closet and always say and do sensible things - and only peek into that closet once in the blue moon and that too only around people who know you very well and understand your craziness.

  Relatively successful people as we know them, however never cared for being sensible -  they are where they are because of their wild, wacky ideas and unwavering belief in themselves when the sane, sensible world told them otherwise. Among the well known, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and many others like them, never settled for the status quo, rather pursued their dreams relentlessly even when the odds were stacked heavily against them. Being a bit of a 'dog with a bone' crazy helped them, why can't it do the same for the rest of us?
  
But here I am advocating craziness, when the most I have come to being crazy is perhaps choosing an outrageous fabric colour, and that too for a bedroom which hardly anyone apart from family would have access to! (My husband and children may have more to add here about my crazy moments that I am totally oblivious to, of course ;). That said, I am purposefully trying to instill a little bit of craziness in my children - I want them to do what their heart dictates, be passionate about the things they do and never, ever give up on things they feel strongly about, not at least without giving it a fair try. They may not turn out to be the most successful people in life, but they will certainly be among the happiest.

Here is my all time favourite video from Apple about embracing your crazy.

THE POWER OF PREDICTABILITY

The primal urge of the human psych to perpetually seek and embrace the thrill of the unknown is what the adventure industry thrives on – countless colourful brochures promising scenes and sights never seen before, adrenalin rushing, danger hugging expeditions that promise to transform your outlook on life and heart-stopping experiences that eventually become thrilling anecdotes around dinner parties – but if it wasn’t for the predictability of familiar surroundings and routines that we can safely and snugly return to each time, every adventure we venture out on would lose its rosy glow.

No matter how bored I am at home and itching to do something, anything exciting, I have learnt never to scoff at or underestimate the power of predictable routines and familiar surroundings. That is what keeps us sane, grounds us and recharges us. Ever been out shopping all day or had a long and tiring day at work, the comfort of coming home and sinking into your favourite chair, drinking tea just how you like it out of your favourite mug, now nothing can beat that feeling of familiar comfort.

I recently attended an awareness program on Autistic Spectrum Disorders and heard the facilitator go on and on about how predictable routines and familiar surroundings were so important to people with autism - but are they not important to all of us, autistic or not? Surely seeking order cannot be the criteria of a ‘disorder’  - and I have always been very skeptical of definitions of what is normal and what is not, who defines it matters a lot - what is normal to me might be questionable to you, its all relative (see my previous post on relativity).  

And interior designers, in an attempt to standout from the rest, often seek the interesting, the bold and the fascinating in their choice of furniture and artifacts, but if they do not balance it out with what the homeowner holds to be familiar and predictable, they fail miserably in creating a space that the homeowner can truly relate to and relax in. Homes are personal spaces and need to be dotted with furniture and pieces that are familiar, perhaps handed down from parents, perhaps bought from an unknown shop in an unknown alley on one of their adventure travels, perhaps a present from a special person in their lives – all homes need a stamp of predictable familiarity to be truly home.

DON'T SETTLE FOR STYLE - SUCCEED IN SUBSTANCE Wynton Marsalis

I read an article once that claimed that if you ask college graduates what they want to accomplish by the age of forty, most will reel off the things they want to have as opposed to what they want to be or hope to become as an individual. In other words most will choose style over substance in a flash – which is not surprising as we live in a world where style is everything and everywhere. Nothing has made me more aware of this than living in the UAE. What amuses and astounds me is that you cannot step out of your house here without coming across, within a space of five minutes, a Louis Vuitton bag swinging gently on some well-toned and tanned arm.  Appearances here count in a way like nowhere else - I have witnessed eco-warring, tree-hugging expats here driving flashy, high petrol gurgling, carbon emitting 4x4s because that’s how its done here, no one in their right mind consciously abandons style for any substance, period.

But who says you can’t have it all? Why can we not have style and substance? Most ethical designers, whether they are in automotive industry, fashion or interiors are gearing their designs to a happy marriage of style and substance – they are using materials that are not stripping  our planet bare, or employing farmers or labourers or craftsmen who are not ripped off their rightful share of proceeds from merchandise. It is up to us the consumers, to know the ethics behind each brand of designer label and make the right choice and if we have money to spend, spend it on things that will definitely elevate our style status but at the same time ease our conscience as well. Spending money is good, it makes the economy grow, but spend it where it makes a bigger difference in the world.

I have vowed that my children will always be encouraged to choose their own style but never be allowed to forget substance. For as the article later revealed, it is the graduates who choose substance are the ones most destined to become future leaders or leave a lasting impression in the profession they choose.

THEORY OF RELATIVITY... In life & design

Einstein, I know was thinking of astrophysics and heavenly bodies when he proposed the theory of relativity, but over the years I have learnt (sometimes the hard way) that every feeling we foster, every emotion we nurture and every thought we harbour is all relative to the time and space of that moment. Years, months, weeks, days, sometimes even minutes down the lane, we will not feel the same way about the same thing. We all live in this fluid, transient world of feelings, thoughts and emotions – and that is what makes it so interesting, because, if our every outlook is relative, there is no right or wrong - only different perceptions at different places and moments in time. And this is true even of people we consider on the other side of the fence – they are not wrong, their perceptions are simply different from ours – and theirs are based on relative to what they encounter. So if we gently skew Einstein’s theory of relativity (sorry puritan physicists!) and apply its essence to everyday life and start seeing every situation - good or bad that we find ourselves in - in its relative perception, we’ll end up much attuned and in harmony with our true selves and at peace with others.

And interior design follows the same theory of relativity – you can take the most ostentatious piece of furniture, but in the right setting, right place, it will work. It really is all relative. Way back, years ago, when I didn’t know better, I gave away so many interesting artefacts I owned, junked them, because I thought they were passé – how wrong I was – now I recall them with a touch of regret because I failed to see their true aesthetic value which would have shined through in the right setting.

Nobody has nailed  this concept of relativity in design better than +Muriel Brandolini a  NewYork  based half Vietnamese/quarter French/quarter Venezuelian  designer who is known for her eclectic mixes, bold- out-of-the-ordinary designs with immaculate attention to detail.  Her rooms are not only pleasing to look at but are a stimulation for the mind and soul. Her seemingly thrown-together disparate pieces actually sit in wonderful harmony and complement each other without distracting from the whole aesthetic look of the room. This, in interior design, is no mean feat – and she does it seamlessly every single time.

So next time, you are looking at a piece you think is junk, look closely – you might find it relatively interesting…

If you want to find out more about Muriel and her designs, visit her website www.murielbrandolini.com