Cul-de-sac
Autumn/Winter
Someone randomly chose
three Chinese characters – the concepts of deafness, landing and firewood – and
decided to print them all over the fabric for our sheets this season. The label
says RAVENTÓS TEXTILES, TARRASA (SPAIN), which is both geographically and
conceptually far away from the Chinese master who, once upon a time, carefully wrote
these symbols in calligraphy and then ate a simple bowl of white rice after
finishing his work. He obviously wasn’t the one who digitally formatted the characters
so they could be printed on matching sheets, upholstery and curtains. Whoever
it was, did they know the 8,000 characters in the Chinese dictionary? The 1,800
kanjis approved for use by the
Japanese government in 1946? Or was it probably just a designer from the Iberian
peninsula, completely unaware of that information? And what if it was a textile
designer named Mireia Torrá who got her degree in London?
Indeed, it was Mireia –
another victim, just like the rest of us, of the wide-spread idealization of the
meaning of Chinese characters. Due to their calligraphic sophistication, we
assume they must symbolize meaningful values like justice or understanding, or
at least represent some sort of placid natural phenomenon, like a delicate rain
(diametrically opposed to a downpour), when in reality our sheets are more
likely decorated with mere morphemes of very little spiritual value (the concepts
of deafness, landing and firewood). Even so, we’re able to lie in them for
hours, invaded by words that we wouldn’t normally accept on our bed sheets if
they were written with the Latin alphabet (not even Mireia). Mireia was simply
following orders from the textile company director who hired her to come up
with prints – to randomly choose three Chinese symbols (the concepts of deafness,
landing and firewood) during a professional meeting held last quarter – and decided
to sell the bed linen set with an oriental print, TERIYAKI model. Oriol
Raventós, therefore, was the one responsible for what had happened to our
sheets.
Meeting at Raventós Textiles to decide on prints
for the season
– Oriol Raventós: Let’s
see, Mireia, what do you have for me? Something oriental, as I suggested?
Oriental patterns are so in right now.
– Mireia Torrá: Yes, so what
do you think?
– Oriol Raventós (quietly murmuring
the syllable “hmm” as he studies it: hmmmmmmm):
I like it a lot. It’s very simple. Chinese letters are so elegant, so there’s
no need to overdo it. The Chinese and the Japanese are so delicate. Well,
orientals in general.
Orientals in general
And what if one night we
dared to bring the duvet cover downstairs to the corner store and asked the
Chinese owners to translate the print? They don’t speak Mandarin, they speak
Cantonese, but luckily the writing is the same. Would we really go down to the late-night
corner store carrying a queen size duvet cover? Imagine ourselves among squishy,
sugary gummy worms; 4-packs of flavored yogurts; plastic nets of oranges,
lemons and onions. There we are, under the brash overhead light, asking: “Would
you be so kind as to tell me what this item says that’s supposed to cover our bed?
See, the thing is, we aren’t impervious to the meaning and Mireia, the
designer, can’t help us.”
We wouldn’t dare take the
duvet down to the corner store, or the dollar store, or Jade Dragon where we order Chinese food a few nights a week. We
also wouldn’t call a certified Chinese translator. We’re never going to know
the meaning of the characters on the duvet cover and that’s that. Whether we like
it or not, thousand-year-old Chinese writing has been squandered away daily as
if being thrown out far away from its corresponding recycling bin – corrugated
cardboard, styrofoam, aluminum containers. Still, not understanding the symbols
on a duvet cover isn’t as dangerous as not knowing what a stoplight means when
it’s red or green. It’s much less worrisome than not being able to read Attention, slippery when wet (tilted car
over wavy lines on a yellow background) and, of course, it’s not half as dangerous
as not knowing how to decipher Danger, live
wire (red bolt of electricity). Our duvet cover is more like a last-minute
gift wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper than a three-color stoplight or the traffic
signs you have to memorize in order to get your driver’s license. In the end, Mireia
and Raventós are not responsible for our vital successes or failures. We’ve all
seen movies where someone tries to read encrypted messages where there’s
nothing actually to decipher – on the walls, in the newspaper – but Mireia and
Raventós’ intentions don’t involve encrypting. And since they aren’t encrypting
and we aren’t suffering from paranoia, then what’s wrong with us, doctor? When
faced with the authority of systems of meaning, why do we have the desire to
interpret it all? Ban all alphabets: Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic letters. Prescribe
simple structures with superficial lines and colors, plain stripes or plaid
prints, the equivalent of a season in a spa, far away from semiotics.
Spring/Summer
Another season: time to choose the tablecloth, but it
has to match the dish towel, oven mitt and apron. After looking through a large
sample collection, we opt for a traditional Scotch plaid. The fact that our
tablecloths and children’s private school uniforms will now have the tartan of
the MacLaines, or the Kirklands, or the Abercrombies, doesn’t mean a whole lot
to us. It doesn’t force us to cross or wait at the crosswalk. Once again, we’ve
forgotten the commendable efforts of the MacLaine of Lochbuie in creating a
pattern that represents them.
The MacLaine of Lochbuie
creating their tartan (circa 1610)
– Fiona MacLaine: A’ll take
oot a a wee bit ae red and add some mair blue or oor kilt will look tae much
like the Sinclairs.
– Alastair MacLaine: Fiona,
do as ah say. Leave the red as is, the red is bonnie. It’ll help tae see it
from far away. We’re descendants of the brave warrior Gilleana-Tauighe, ye ken!
Oor tartan has to hae the color of blood.
– Fiona MacLaine: Remember yer
color blind, Alastair.
– Alastair MacLaine: Och
Lassie! Do yee want them to confuse us with grass frae the highlands?
– Fiona MacLaine: Oh,
Alastair, yer so stubborn! How no, whatever yee say; that’s how it’ll be then. Bairns!
Here’s the MacLaine tartan! But the MacLaine of Lochbuie, nae the Keppochs or
the Clanranalds.
Their conversation is part
of the fabric in my oven mitt, one of my tablecloths and my matching napkins,
although they have no idea. All the bravery of the MacLaine of Lochbuie clan
and pride in the land they received from John – the first Lord of the Islands
in the 14th century – are there for us to desecrate with the gravy
we’re taking out of the oven, with a “careful! oven mitt please! this is hot
and I’m gonna spill the gravy.” And they also appear in an updated version, modified
by Mireia upon Mr. Raventós’ request:
– Raventós: Let’s see, Mireia,
what do you have for me? Something Scottish, as I suggested? Scottish patterns
are so in right now.
– Mireia: Yes, I think
you’re going to like this.
– Raventós: (quietly murmuring
the syllable “hmm” as he studies it: hmmmmmmm):
The truth is it looks really, I mean really, good. And they’re really colorful.
Scottish plaids are so happy, classic and, at the same time, always stylish.
But do me a favor, add a little yellow to the final pattern. It’ll look good,
it will make it warmer.
It will make it warmer
We look for warmth,
well-being and comfort. The fact that this is advertising vocabulary is the very
least of our concerns: we have fully appropriated it. Do we feel better eating
on the MacLaine of Lochbuie’s tartan with extra yellow? Do we digest our food
better on that excess of color? We’re not forced to eat haggis, porridge or Scotch pie on it, nor do we have to
necessarily cross the street when the technological warbling birds urge us to
do so. The auditory symbol of you-can-cross-the-street is a warbling bird, and
the symbol of warmth and an intimate home is the tartan of the MacLaine of
Lochbuie clan, which we can quietly enjoy with its warm tones, warmer today
than in 1610 thanks to Raventós and Mireia.
Once again, we shouldn’t blame
the manufacturing-design team, although Fiona and Alastair would tell them off,
the poor things, so from another century – they wouldn’t understand that their
tartan had become public domain. We’ve forgotten Fiona’s efforts to avoid looking
like the Sinclairs, an effort that has now been chromatically modified. Fiona, let’s
share Mediterranean recipes on your digitally-formatted tartan. Do you like the
dishes with the apple-apricot-strawberry border? Wouldn’t it make more sense to
have your dishes decorated with apples, apricots and strawberries rather than
clocks, sandals and lungs? And since it’s for food, why not stick with the
theme of gastronomy and draw little stomachs around the edge? Who decided against
stomachs? I look at the other side of the bowl and see that my dish was Made in
Italy: PETRONE DESIGN. The architect is once again from another peninsula.
– Fiorella Petrone
(partially translated for convenience sake): Yes, I tell you before that I want
pleasing set of dishes, but stomachs too much risk Stefano. Non sono divertenti, gli
stomachi.
– Stefano Gatti (industrial
designer, also partially translated): Why no, Fiorella? You yourself talk of a
line with great risk, you insist to move away from the classics, because they are
boring you with the mele, albicocche e
fragole.
– Fiorella Petrone: Lo so, lo so, ma… Senti, Stefano, that is what I say before, but now I change
my idea: it is too much. Let us stay with apples, apricots and strawberries.
They will give a better result, trust in me.
In between
seasons
But what happens if this time we’re the ones who don’t want Fiorella and
Stefano’s apples, apricots and strawberries on the border of our dishes? We’ve
already swallowed Raventós Textiles’ genetically modified/transgenic Scottish
plaid and their re-appropriation of Chinese calligraphy. We’ve been taking it
for entire seasons, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days, Christmases… but it’s all over: tomorrow we’re going to the linen section of a
department store where, with a mixture of disdain and relief, we will systematically
rule out the Oriental, African and Aztec designs in chocolate and orange tones
with crude drawings done by fake indigenous people. And we would go down the escalator
empty-handed if it weren’t for the fact that we still have the “color” white:
there it is, nude and defenseless, with its lack of connotations, there for us
to cling to after definitively abandoning all excess communication. Maybe with
white dishes, white oven mitts, and white towels, apparently void of any visual
messages, we could save ourselves some time and instead pay attention to more
productive tasks. We could finally rest in the absence of color: maybe Fiorella
and Raventós have opted for white in some of their collections to repent the
sin of omission, of non-communication. They would save on ink, which would be
the first domino in a set of advantages, followed by others that would fall one
after another, once they’ve finally made their decision.
We cross our fingers, since Raventós is already asking Mireia to come to
his office to discuss white. You can hear him all the way from here: he’s
proposing something about towels. You want the fringe to have drawings, curves,
lines? Wow, we forgot about the texture! And even though we can’t see Fiorella
and Stefano together in Milan, we can assume that they are already testing out
new designs on white, introducing Braille texts on tiles, dishes. There is no
escape: Petrone Design’s new line of products will be called BRAILLE. It will
feature just that, texture; your fingers won’t rest even though your vision
will: that’s the idea. Furthermore, white will bring us elegance, simplicity;
it will fill the house with new adjectives. We will be forced once again to
cross when the light is green and to not touch for danger of live wires.
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