Retro-Chic and the Cult of Neo-Sobriety!

May 13, 2014 By Kanchan Char 15 Comments

camelia, flowers, nature, meaningful living, kinfolk,

As we move at a steady pace towards the season of linen, Birkenstocks and Cherry-Mint fizz pops, has anyone also noticed that Mad Men-style floral frocks with belted waists from the late 1950’s, Tulip skirts, polka-dots and the ubiquitous ‘ditsy prints’ are well, everywhere?! Pvc bags, farm-friendly prints on heavy ceramic mixing bowls and porcelain flour shakers which have been the bedrock of corporate success finally seem here to stay! Accompanying it is the very unfortunate return of Pinball! 🙂 (I must coyly admit that I own a fair few retro-chic embellishments that are now relegated to shelves populated with other kitsch that once caught my whim -I have an increasing stash of hot-water bottles, tea-towels, bold patterned bags and neon yellow ’70’s cloggs!)

I’ve been thinking recently about the rising appeal of vintage, the return of preoccupations last popular in the ’50’s and ’60’s. Homeware and fashion might be the flagbearers of the movement but technology hasn’t been spared either! (The word from within Volkswagen on it’s latest release of the iconic camper is that the design will be extravagantly sixties-inspired.) Despite countless mobile phone apps offering retro filters, there’s a resurgence of film – Polaroid is back with the Impossible Project, and new instant film to boot! Who remembers hurray’ing at the arrival of digital point and shoot?? I did as a teenager – no more wasted film or bad photos that cost a pretty penny! But with my recent interest in film photography, life in some small sense seems to have come full circle for me!

grown your own, homegrown, nutrition, health, retro, old world — Grow your own – our new mantra!

Have any of us stopped to think why? As a mum, I find an increasing need to instill old-world values in my children. Strong work ethics, balanced view of technology-based entertainment, the vital habits of eating good, nutritious food. Waste less, respect your enviroment and the social ecology within which you function is a daily lesson; the irreplaceable role of family is never to be played down, something that resonates very deeply with me having lost mine as a teenager! I realise that I’m not alone in this, though I may approach certain ‘homeward bound’ trends a bit more vociferously than most of my more balanced peers ! :p What is this cult of neo-sobriety that we hanker after? The need that propells us from within to simplify, pare down, return to some form of well-being and control that we assume our forebearers had? Our need to ebb capitalism’s fast and slippery spiral!

Retro gardenware, aluminium, shabby chic garden ornaments, vinatge, antinque — Retro gardenware!

My husband and I often get into discussions like this (because he’s the steady rock to my otherwise floundering imagination) over a cup of freshly-brewed coffee in the evenings, no – not on a reclaimed wooden table – well not yet anyway! 🙂 Is it the lasting impact of a recession that won’t turn it’s back on us? I see so many of us, either through need or hobby turn to DIY thrift projects, from-scratch recipes and homemade gifts. With getting on the property ladder increasingly becoming a dream, more millenial children continue to stay home rather than leave the nest- has there been a considerable rethink about closer commitment to family and friends as a result? I often question if we’ve all ended up ‘connected loners’ – wandering along the hillsides eating homemade granola… by-products of a world that curates the best of our lives as milestones against which not just others, but we judge ourselves too!

vintage tools, artisan, retro, shabby chic, kinfolk , garden, home ware — Artisan vintage tools!

My family is a bog-standard example of social dislocation…we move every few years and start life afresh. In many ways, it’s an unending cycle of new beginnings and there’s a certain comfort in that apart from the big challenge of ‘change’ itself! We don’t see family for years, we make new friends, we fit ourselves into the fabric of their more established lives about as much as they become part of our wandering chronicles! As the world shrinks, our need to connect with other human beings deepens, despite or probably as a result of having designed a ecosphere of digitized, insulated living.

shabby chic, garden ornaments, pots, basins, urban decay — Shabby chic garden basins.

A friend who lives in New York recently invited me to a “Kinfolk” gathering, Kinfolk’s a lifestyle magazine that encourages living simply with “articulated, intentional hospitality!” They seemed to recognize that the art of hospitality was becoming more of a performance and less of a meaningful time spent amongst friends. Well, it got me looking at the magazine, and whilst I must admit, their visual aesthetic got me totally hooked; I just realised I didn’t have the right ratio of hemp skirts to strappy sandals to truly be “Kinfolk”! And only knew the one way to make Quinoa, (apparently there are about 16 ‘simple’ ways, and I suppose countless complex ones!) It’s just that little bit too ‘intentional’, too many well arranged twigs, well orchestrated moss and the severe disability to respect the invention of the humble tumbler…Mason jars have their place, I swear by mine, but enough already! 🙂 The Kinfolk lifestyle apparently attracts a few million each year – each endeavouring to live better, more meaningfully. Well, if trends are inevitable, this is a more benign one!

woodland, shabby chic, nature, urban decay — Woodland.

I’ve only just begun watching Dowton Abbey, talk about being late to the best British party in years! A lot of my friends who watched it said that the most alluring bit about it or any period drama is a sense of ritual and tradition! There was a well established order to the day and a “right way to eat dinner”! How many of us have risen with arms against eating dinner in front of the tele?! Perish the thought!! ( unless, it’s Eurovision and you submit to the obsessive compulsiveness to be part of something that’s nothing short of a variety- gimmick-carousel!)

Whatever the reason we look back warmly on tarnished spoons, or reclaimed canoes – it’s heartening to see the focus return to the family unit..(I use ‘family’ loosely!) There is an unfathomable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, sounds… and to seek to walk away from that ‘humanness’ is probably our deepest naiivete! If ‘Vintage’ and ‘Retro’ remind us of our connectedness to the past and present, may it reign!

Well, I’ll leave you here while I return to my drafting board and meal plan for the coming week, and do a sneaky Google to see if somewhere out there is a store that’s reduced prices on my Danish washing-up bowl! It would end in divorce if I indulged myself – the fact that it’s made of flexible rubber, can be used multi-functionally (storing books, art supplies) and most importantly – safely goes in the dishwasher fails to impress my husband! Blokes…they know nothing about finding your way “home”! x

violets, blue, flowers, nature, beauty, kinfolk — Violets

If you like the writing and photographs you see on this blog, could you please *nominate* me for the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards? I’ve been shortlisted in categories 1 and 8! Many thanks!! xx

Abba or Wham? You know who to blame!

December 9, 2013 By Kanchan Char 10 Comments

I was recently at John Lewis, a British home & family store, when a chat with a young girl there got me thinking! She was sorting out insoles to cushion my daughter’s high instep when Frank Sinatra began singing “Hello Dolly”! It’s a song I remember well enough from my first winter here in the UK many moons ago! It followed me everywhere. Armstrong’s voice then, with it’s rich, gravelly texture had made me want to dance – shoulder rolling, sideways shuffling and all that Jazz! The lovely girl, about 19, said she loved that song too, Michael Bublé was it?! She loved him! He was her Christmas/Winter voice! Though she’d only recently heard it, she felt she knew it all her life. I smiled and acknowledged it with a ”Yes, Michael Bublé has a lovely voice, if a completely vile temper! 🙂 ” I left, inwardly thinking that she probably heard it first as a child, and made very happy memories to it! So did Bublé, presumably!

We’ve all probably stopped short when we’ve heard a particular artist/song play at a restaurant, doing the dishes with the radio on, whilst driving – and gone back to a particular time in our lives. Perhaps to a perfect boy you met when you were 15 and found true love – the sort that doesn’t even re-al-ly exist, but you had managed to find it! He had the right eyes, the perfect hobbies. He played the guitar, listened to Pink Floyd; knew all the songs on Side B of The Dark Side of the Moon! You both had bemoaned the breakup of Wham! Ah, the beauty of youth – financial disaster meant nothing more than your dad’s accountant and a bad hairday. Well, if you haven’t felt the power of musical nostalgia in one or it’s many avatars, I think I might’ve actually found Kara !

Abba disco ball bauble — By Kanchan Char

Researchers say that music has an enduring effect on us and that it is in fact potent enough to even restore brain function, improve immunity and considerably reduce stress. And that you can still sing even if you can’t talk again! Simply put, language functions are located in the left brain, but music appreciation is processed in the right. So, when one suffers damage to the left brain, your can be rewire your brain to move those functions to the other side by associating music with language. Since all our long-term memory is stored in the right brain, this is the precise reason we associate so much of our emotional landscape with music. We’ve transcribed our memories in Quavers, Crotchets and Breves!

Here’s what gets me – while it’s expected that we’re moved by music that saw us come of age, musical nostalgia seems to transcend that narrow period of susceptibility into a multigenerational phenomena. Not only do we react and respond to music that’s celebrated important periods in our own lives, but seemingly, also that which lined the lives of our parents. (Of course, this adds an layer of intrigue to those who grew up in bilingual homes and where the musical apple, so to speak, fell rather far from the tree!) It stands clarified in my own life, why I Alto to every song that Soprano’ed and the converse! I was only answering the call of Simon & Garfunkel from my subconscious! And believe you me, I did that for years!! The sins of our parents…

Apparently, we gravitate to musical genres from the Dopamine Effect, the chemical reactions we have in our brain when we feel calm, happy and soothed. The feel good neurotransmitter! It’s why we still, for most part continue to turn to music. Apart from the odd time one has to socially suffer Brahms’ Fifth Symphony at a friend’s uber-posh family dinner. Classical music is all well and good, but it does nothing other than remind me of how utterly satisfied I am with the crumbs that fell onto my own educational platter! We’ve all still remained friends, fortunately 😛 !

Some of our earliest childhood memories were probably made to music that our parents enjoyed, a lasting impression and the direction your own music choices would take, (and lest we forget, here is also a remnant of their biases and where our musical hair-raising moments have their roots!)! My generation, the late 1970’s born (the last of the ones born-free, might I add) – enjoyed the benefits of when parents didn’t think twice about introducing children to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen or Elvis singing about Jailhouse experiences! We didn’t focus half as much as we should have on the psychology of Freud or Piaget and Erikson has ostensibly remained just a memory of bad mobile handsets! Then again, I was partly raised in Socialist India! ‘Nuf said! (Shudders at the thought of countless Russian magazine subscriptions!)

My children’s first tryst with rythm was colic-preventing Navajo music ! Falcons and flutes and eagle-bone whistles. I didn’t stop to investigate if there were any more reliable rappers on the baby scene since Jordy! I often think of the absurdity of flipping that image and seeing the Navajo calm their teething brood to the sounds of N’Sync or 98 Degrees! Ostracism from the tribe at best, I suppose! After all, there is a fine line that separates music from mere noise, and the one to make that call is the culture that’s listening to it.

The desires, despairs and triumphs of any generation are represented in the music it created. Therefore, it occasionally leaves me feeling grim that the music we seem to be leaving our grandchildren finds itself in the myopic territory of making sure every man has a ‘Beauty and a Beat! I really do try to like Justin Bieber! J

So whether you are the “Birkenstock-wearing, celebrating the birth of Granola and Indie/Folk” type of person or a “Can’t do without a power-ballad” one- you’ve been subtly influenced by the sounds you first heard and associated well-being with ! Finally, you now have someone to concretely blame for getting it all so horribly wrong! 😀

I’m still wading through my turbid unconscious to find what made me fall in love with Matia Bazar, an Italian experimental pop group that made it big in the late ‘70’s! Or why I feel an unsurmountable urge to face my suck-it-up-and-get-on-with-it moments with Abba’s Lay all your love on me!