A SENSE OF STYLE

One of the things I want to do on this this page is highlight the design beauty exhibited by even the most commonplace objects of the past. Whilst doing my paces in the thrift stores, I'm constantly snapping my head around to look at some funky toaster or ice bucket or similarly mundane object with incredible, alluring lines and downright artistic style. Somewhere around 1987 (February, I think) industrial design jumped out of a window. Yeah, iPods and Cooper Minis are swell, even though they're a pit too-plasticky IMHO (and most plastic begins to look like crap after a few years of wear) , but most of the best of today's design concepts borrow enormously from the age of art deco and mid-century modern. Who can blame the designers, really? Like me, they probably wonder what happened to the days when even a power drill looked like a piece of art.


If this Craftsman drill doesn't look like a Buck Rogers ray gun to you then you're reading the wrong blog.

How many of today's contraptions are we only reluctantly going to throw away in 60 years? It's going to take a lot less time for that iPod to start looking crappy, I guarantee.


Cheap and plastic yes. But even scuffed and scratched this Brownie Starflash camera looks 10 times better than any $200 cell phone.



Just an office chair. Pale green metal, shiny silvery wedged wheeled stand, tons of character. Belongs in a museum.



Here's another power tool, a beat-to-hell old sander, but with the face of an angry art deco tiki-idol robot. This is art, baby. Don't stick this in a basement workshop, put it up on your mantel, next to that fake Ming vase and great-grandma's ashes.



Another face. Like C-3PO sucking lemon. On a freaking vacuum cleaner. You can't buy a new vacuum cleaner that has half the character as this Electrolux. Someone had the great idea to make lamps out of these old machines http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=14363.

And by the way, why in hell would Electrolux change their name to "Aerus"? Sounds like another pretentious and flatulent new-age SUV name to me.


One last image of another vacuum. This Kirby looks like an atomic jet bomber or a spaceship out of the 1950s kids' show Space Patrol. I seem to remember it weighed like 50 pounds and probably had some hellacious belts, but a machine this commanding would just scare the dirt right out of your carpet.