The Curiosity Chronicles

Curious About…Dictator Chic.

Curious about…Personal Uniforms.

A friend posted the photo above on her Facebook wall a couple of days ago in response to Steve Jobs’ death: I thought it was a lovely way to commemorate someone, illustrating the iconic clothes they wore. Jobs was of course famous for his uniform - the Miyake turtlenecks, the mid-fade Levis and the New Balance sneakers, and wore it every day, religiously. Got me thinking about the power of personal iconography, of the potential liberation of uniformity and the idea of how it might feel to construct an external identity that was about doing the same thing repetitively rather than changing every day.

Wikipedia talks about uniforms thus: ”Workers sometimes wear uniforms or corporate clothing of one nature or another. Workers required to wear a uniform include retailer workers, bank and post office workers, public security and health care workers, blue collar employees, personal trainers in health clubs, instructors in summer camps, lifeguards, janitors, public transit employees, towing and truck drivers, airline employees and holiday operators, and bar, restaurant and hotel employees. The use of uniforms by these organizations is often an effort in branding and developing a standard corporate image but also has important effects on the employees required to wear the uniform. However the term ‘uniform’ is misleading because employees are not always fully uniform in appearance and may not always wear attire provided by the organization, while still representing the organization in their attire. Academic work on organizational dress by Rafaeli & Pratt (1993) referred to homogeneity of dress as one dimension, and conspicuousness as a second. Employees all wearing black, for example, may appear conspicuous and thus represent the organization even though their attire is uniform only in the color of their appearance not in its features. They described struggles between employees and management about organizational dress as struggles about deeper meanings and identities that dress represents, describing dress as one of the larger set of symbols and artifacts in organizations which coalesce into a communication grammar.”

At the other end of the fashion spectrum we have North Korean leader King Jong Il’s safari-suit chic, lampooned worldwide (it is rumored to be one of the most popular Halloween costumes in recent years) and worn by him (and his impersonators) on a daily basis. Somewhere between a military uniform with its khaki, beige and grey palette (and yet unadorned with the usual pseudo-military insignia) and at the same time, definitely built for ease of wear and comfort as His Dearest Leader ages, it is not for everyone, but it is, to quote fashion journalist vernacular, his “signature look.” He is reputed to have hundreds of them in various sizes to allow for weight fluctuations, and in multiple fabric weights and textures - cotton for inside, practical polyester for visiting villages, wool and cashmere for winter. There is an unconfirmed rumour that the recent elastication is to allow for bullet-proof layers to be more easily worn underneath, as tensions rise with other nations. 

Ironically, many fashion designers rely on uniforms for their own personal wear - Coco Chanel lived in her traditional Breton stripes, Halston only wore a black cashmere turtleneck and suede jeans year-round, Michael Kors only wears black T-shirts and jackets, the list goes on; presumably their way of keeping some form of personal sanctuary (and sanity) in a sea of their own designed ever-changing clothing.

 

What Of It? I love fashion and invest in it like a champ but have to admit I am slightly curious about the notion of wearing the same thing every day and seeing if things change. Lots of articles in the fashion press talk about having a “signature look,” but to me this takes that to the extreme - I think I wear things that suit me but I like the variations on colour, texture and proportion - I wonder if by wearing the exact same thing every day one has to allow one’s personality to exhibit different colours, textures and proportions instead?

I am Curious about uniformity and its potential to liberate other aspects of ourselves, about the space where signature ends and uniform begins, about the notion of creating personal brands, with their accompanying iconography and meaning.

Curious about…The 幸福饼干 Controversy.

Fortune Cookies, from the Chinese 幸福饼干 meaning “happiness biscuit”, are actually not a Chinese but an American invention. Chef Makoto Hagiwara of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden is reported to have been the first person in the USA to have served the modern version of the cookie when he did so in the 1890s or early 1900s. 

Today’s Fortune Cookies are usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and oil with a “fortune” wrapped inside, a piece of paper with words of faux-profound wisdom or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chinese phrase with translation or a list of lucky numbers used by some as lottery numbers, some of which have become actual winner numbers. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States and some other countries, but are completely absent in China. 

On the origin of the cookie, David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles, made a competing claim that he invented them in 1918. San Francisco’s mock Court of Historical Review attempted to settle the dispute in 1983. During the proceedings, a fortune cookie was introduced as a key piece of evidence with a message reading, “S.F. Judge who rules for L.A. Not Very Smart Cookie.” A federal judge of the Court of Historical Review determined that the cookie originated with Hagiwara and the court ruled in favor of San Francisco. Subsequently, the city of Los Angeles condemned the decision.

Fortune cookies before the early 20th century were all made by hand. The fortune cookie industry changed dramatically after the fortune cookie machine was invented by Shuck Yee from Oakland, California. The machine allowed for mass production of fortune cookies which subsequently allowed the cookies to drop in price to become the novelty and courtesy dessert many Americans are familiar with after their meals at most Chinese restaurants today.

Fortune cookies have become an iconic symbol in American culture, inspiring many products. There are fortune cookie-shaped jewelry, a fortune cookie-shaped Magic 8 Ball, and silver-plated fortune cookies.

What Of It? San Francisco evokes unique Chinese memories for me, obviously due to the huge influence of the Asian population here; somewhere between the misty Americanized nostalgia of “The Joy Luck Club” and the tacky yet spectacular neon-lit dumpling restaurants you find here in Chinatown. I actually think of Fortune Cookies as one cross-cultural bridge that came from those early immigrants, an attempt to take the deep-rooted philosophy of their Chinese and Japanese heritage and help find a away to commercialize it (albeit it in a pretty shallow soundbite) for ordinary, everyday folks. I love the fact that a product such as this can exist and somehow be as American as apple pie and at the same time as Chinese as chopsticks.

I Am Curious about cross-cultural icons, about the origins of everyday things, about the overlaps between the philosophical and the commercial, about how a simple and humble products can have a complex and controversial beginning.

Curious about…Crocs.

Following on from a post I made a few months ago about traditional Dutch Klompen (Clogs) I thought it might be time to revisit them in the modern context. Arriving yesterday in San Francisco, at best a city known for its practicality when it comes to fashion, I was taken by the number of people wearing the modern interpretation of the clog, the Croc, and was interested to see how these fascinating (and deeply polarizing) shoes came to be so popular.

Crocs, Inc. is a shoe manufacturer founded by 3 friends - Scott Seamans, Lyndon “Duke” Hanson, and George Boedecker, Jr. -  to produce and distribute a foam clog design acquired from a Quebec company called Foam Creations. The shoe had originally been developed as a spa shoe. The first model produced by Crocs, the Beach, was unveiled in 2002 at the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show in Florida, and sold out the 200 pairs produced at that time.

Made from a proprietary foam resin called Croslite, the foam forms itself to a wearer’s feet and offers purported medical benefits, according to a number of podiatrists.

Opinions are extremely polarized about Crocs shoes; many regard them as comfortable and colorfully decorated, others see them as a fashion disaster and a vibrant subculture has emerged of vocal opponents of the shoes. A Washington Post article described the phenomenon: ”Nor is the fashion world enamored of Crocs. Though their maker touts their ‘ultra-hip Italian styling,’ lots of folks find them hideous.” Tim Gunn, fashion consultant, told Time Magazine, ”…the Croc - it looks like a plastic hoof. How can you take that seriously?”  A blog named “I Hate Crocs dot com” follows opposition to the original “luridly coloured Swiss cheese clog-footwear”. The Facebook group “I Don’t Care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like a Dumbass”, dedicated to eliminating the shoes, has over 1.4 million “likers” as of July 2010.

The shoes have been targets of satire: on Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher called for a “New rule: stop wearing plastic shoes,” over a photo of Crocs, and The Daily Show ”Senior Public Restroom Correspondent” Rob Corddry, following up on the Senator Larry Craig June 2007 lewd conduct arrest, “reported” that anyone wearing Crocs is signalling “anything goes.”

But of course Crocs have the last laugh. At their 10th anniversary sales meeting earlier this year, brand guru Scott Bedbury said: “Crocs is well poised to take its brand to the next level. The next year will be a time of opportunity and expansion if it can further diversify product collections and strengthen its marketing efforts around the world.  The brand has achieved world-wide recognition in a short time and with Crocs innovative style and business approach – they are evolving into a true lifestyle brand.  ”

What Of It? I’m not a huge Crocs fan myself, but I have to admit, these things are a powerful force to be reckoned with. Just as the Dutch championed a solid, wooden shoe for toiling away in the farms and factories, today’s modern workers clearly need their solid modern rubber klompen to toil away in their farmers markets and supermarkets. Worn by everyone from chefs to nurses, dads to directors, Crocs are the Volkswagon Beetle of shoes - quirky, iconic, fun, not for everyone, but very much a statement, however you choose to interpret it.

I Am Curious about modern riffs on traditional dress, rituals and foods, about the notions of practicality and emotion and how they overlap, about fashion and anti-fashion, how one man’s Prada is another’s Croc.

Curious about…Juicy Fruit.

The Wrigley Building is a Chicago landmark, modelled apparently after a cathedral in Seville, with a large imposing clock on the front. Driving by it naturally got me to thinking about chewing gum, and that led to pondering something I grew up eating yet had totally forgotten, Juicy Fruit. 

Juicy Fruit was introduced in 1893, and today the brand name is recognized by 99 percent of Americans, with total sales off over 153 million units a year. Interestingly, it is also known for being the first ever product bought using a barcode scanner. Which fruit serves as the model for its flavor is kept vague, though it has been characterized as a combination of pineapple and peach. According to several books, banana is also a crucial flavor among many others, including rhubarb. Regrettably, it is likely that the chemical used for flavoring is isopentenyl acetate, a carboxylic ester.

When the brand first entered the market, it was packaged simply with a plain wrapper and “JUICY FRUIT” in red, thin block letters In 1914, Wrigley changed it to thin vertical white and green stripes with “Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum” centered in a stylized Maltese Cross emblem with a black background.

Juicy Fruit was taken off the civilian market temporarily during World War II because of ingredient shortages and the demand for the gum to be included in C-rations. When it was re-introduced to the general public after World War II ended, the striped packaging was replaced by one with a bright yellow background and “Juicy Fruit” bracketed between two stylized chevrons, the latter a motif meant to echo the “Wrigley arrow” element used for Wrigley’s Spearmint since 1893. The bright yellow background remained into the 21st century, with variations since 2002 turning the arrowhead-like chevrons into the corners of an elongated smile under the brand name.

Juicy Fruit is still widely popular today.

The gum achieved brief notoriety in the early 2000s when one of their commercials was censored by the FCC. The ad is a parody of a daytime children’s show in which an overly cheerful host suddenly attacks her co-star, who is wearing a whale costume, for taking a stick of Juicy Fruit gum from her pocket while the two are singing a song about, ironically, sharing.

A fight breaks out backstage and the commercial goes to a test pattern (implying the “network” had censored this unplanned incident), only to return to show the host physically assaulting the whale while the song continues in the background. The ad was criticized for airing during time slots when the sort of child-oriented shows it parodied were playing, and ostensibly legitimizing violence to young children. The ad was not removed from the air, but its play was limited to late-night television.

What Of It? Apart from the blip with its random whale commercial, Juicy Fruit is as American as apple pie, one of those iconic brands that has always been there. It’s interesting to see the backstory, again, a great Midwestern company like Wrigley shepherding it through changing times; a 99 percent retention factor is pretty amazing. I used to have a client who would talk about brands becoming “contextual wallpaper,’ whereby they become so familiar that we simply don’t notice or remember them any more -  I wonder if Juicy Fruit’s familiarity somehow puts it into that category. I’m going to buy some today and see what it evokes.

I Am Curious about Americana and American iconography, about Midwestern brands and sensibilities, about products that stand the test of time, their heritage and stories. 

Curious about…Ferris Wheels.

The first ever Ferris Wheel was created for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The previous Worlds Fair was in Paris and the Eiffel Tower was the talk of the world afterwards. America simply could not be left behind the forward-thinking French, so an American engineer, George Washington Gale Ferris, was brought in to create an “American landmark.”

 The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, opened to the public on June 21, 1893. It was the exposition’s largest attraction, with a height of 264 ft. The wheel rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5-foot axle comprising what was at that time the world’s largest hollow forging, manufactured in Pittsburgh by the Bethlehem Iron Company and weighing 89,320 pounds, together with two 16-foot-diameter cast-iron spiders weighing 53,031 pounds apiece. Ferris himself began his career in the railroad industry and then pursued an interest in bridge building; he understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.

 There were 36 cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people at a time. The queues were vast to try out this ‘new machine.’ The wheel carried some 38,000 passengers daily and took 20 minutes to complete two revolutions, the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents.

The Exposition ended in October 1893, and the wheel closed in April 1894 and was dismantled and stored until the following year. It was then rebuilt on Chicago’s North Side, near Lincoln Park, next to an exclusive neighborhood. This prompted William D. Boyce, then a local resident, to file a Circuit Court action against the owners of the wheel to have it removed, but without success. It operated there from October 1895 until 1903, when it was again dismantled, then transported by rail to St. Louis for the 1904 World’s Fair and finally destroyed by controlled demolition using dynamite on May 11, 1906.

What Of It? Like many other things in Chicago, this smacks of engineering innovation, of taking the mechanical and turning it into the lyrical. The early days of industrial manufacturing manifested themselves in many great American industries (cars, railroads, construction) but also some ‘lighter’ touches such as the Ferris Wheel. 

I Am Curious about the origins and evolution of American industry, of how so many innovations were born in the heartland (and why).

Curious about…Prairie School.

Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States. The works of Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, solid construction, craftsmanship, and discipline in the use of ornament. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the native prairie landscape. Having passed a bunch of these houses in places like Oak Park and Evanston, they are spectacular.

The term “Prairie School” was coined by H. Allen Brooks, one of the first architectural historians to write extensively about a group of architects which included Frank Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Buck, Walter Burley Griffin and Isabel Roberts.

The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. It shared an love of handcrafting and craftsman guilds as a reaction against the new assembly line, mass production manufacturing techniques, which they felt created inferior products and dehumanized workers.

The Prairie School was also an attempt at developing an indigenous North American style of architecture that did not share design elements and aesthetic vocabulary with earlier styles of European classical architecture. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicago’s rebirth, but many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek and Roman classicism of nearly every building erected for the fair. In reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie.

The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echos the wide, flat, tree-less expanses of the mid-Western United States. The most famous proponent of the style, Frank Lloyd Wright, promoted an idea of “organic architecture”, the primary tenet of which was that a structure should look as if it naturally grew from the site. Wright also felt that a horizontal orientation was a distinctly American design motif, in that the younger country had much more open, undeveloped land than found in most older, urbanized European nations.

What Of It? As a designer, I have to say I find these houses aesthetically beautiful; in stark contrast to today’s hysteria surrounding vertical scale, these sit low and quiet on the land, echoing the calmness of the American Prairie. They feel solid and crafted, similar to the Arts and Crafts houses you find in California (one of which I used to live in) yet unique to the Midwest sensibility of quiet understated ruggedness. I love Lloyd Wright’s sentiment that a ‘young country’ with abundant wide open spaces should have an architectural vernacular that reflected that.

I Am Curious about how Midwestern sensibilities and aesthetics developed, how architectural and cultural traditions occur, how houses become a reflection of a mindset.

 

Curious about…Twinkies.

I’ve decided to give my Chicago posts a decidedly hi-lo quality, so shifting gears from yesterday’s Art Deco exposition to today’s theme, the Twinkie. Walking around the supermarket yesterday I was amazed at the variety and continued popularity of this, dare I say, classic.

Twinkies are an American snack cake made and distributed by Hostess Brands, and are marketed as a “Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling”. They were invented in River Forest, IL in 1930 by James Alexander Dewar, a baker for the Continental Baking Company. Realizing that several machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcake sat idle when strawberries were out of season, Dewar conceived a snack cake filled with banana cream, which he dubbed the Twinkie. During World War II, bananas were rationed and the company was forced to switch to vanilla cream. This change proved popular, and banana-cream Twinkies were not widely re-introduced. The original flavor was occasionally found in limited-time promotions, but the company used vanilla cream for most Twinkies. 

In 1988, Fruit and Cream Twinkies were introduced with a strawberry filling swirled into the cream, however, the product was soon dropped. Vanilla’s dominance over Twinkie flavoring would be challenged in 2005, following a month-long promotion of the movie King Kong. Hostess saw its Twinkie sales rise 20 percent during the promotion, and in 2007 permanently restored the banana-cream Twinkie to its snack lineup.

A common urban legend claims that Twinkies have an infinite shelf life or can last unspoiled for a relatively long time of ten, fifty, or one hundred years due to chemicals used in production. While this urban legend is false, they can last a relatively long time (25 days or more) because Twinkies are made without unstabilized dairy products or eggs and thus spoil slower than most bakery items.

A deep-fried Twinkie involves freezing the cake, dipping it into batter, and deep-frying it to create a variation on the traditional snack cake. It was described by a The New York Times story in this way: “Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor… The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The pièce de résistance, however, is a ruby-hued berry sauce, adding a tart sophistication to all that airy sugary goodness”.

The Texas State Fair had introduced the fried Twinkie to great popular acclaim, and the notion spread to other state fairs across the U.S., as well as some establishments that specialize in fried foods. Fried Twinkies are sold throughout the U.S. in fairs as well as ball games.

What Of It? Everybody needs a little fluff in their life, sometimes metaphorically, in this case, quite literally. The few times I’ve eaten a Twinkie I’ve had that tingle of nostalgia (and I’m not even American…) that familiar childhood tastes, textures and colors bring. Twinkies are something of an institution, and something that should be celebrated in popular culture. One of my goals on this trip is to eat them fried.

I am Curious about brands that credibly and smartly play with nostalgia, about cultural icons, about foods that transport us back to happier times.

Curious about…Chicago Deco.

Walking around Chicago yesterday I was struck by the power of its architecture: bold, machine-age monuments to industry, Deco details and proportions still intact. More so than New York, where crass modernity has taken over the skyline, here there is still a feeling of being in a Great American City.

Art Deco is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, well into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and jewelry, as well as the visual arts such as painting, graphic arts and film. The term “art deco” was first used widely in 1966, after an exhibition in Paris, ‘Les Années 25’ sub-titled ‘Art Deco,’ celebrating the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes that was the culmination of style moderne in Paris. At its best, Art Deco represented elegance,glamour, functionality and modernity.

The structure of Art Deco is based on mathematical geometric shapes. It was widely considered to be an eclectic form of elegant and stylish modernism, being influenced by a variety of sources. The ability to travel and archaeological excavations during this time influenced artists and designers, integrating several elements from countries not their own. Among them were historical styles such as Greco-Roman Classicism, as well as the art of Babylon, Assyria, Ancient Egypt, Aztec Mexico, and Africa.

Much of this could be attributed to the popular interest in archaeology during the 1920s (e.g., the tomb of Tutankhamun, Pompeii and Troy. Art Deco also used Machine Age and streamline technologies such as modern aviation, electric lighting, radio, ocean liners and skyscrapers for inspiration. 

 Built in 1929, The Carbide & Carbon Building is a Chicago landmark located at 230 N. Michigan Avenue. Designed by Daniel and Hubert Burnham, sons of architect Daniel Burnham, it was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 9, 1996. Originally built as a high-rise office tower, the Carbide & Carbon Building was (regrettably, in my opinion) converted in 2004 to the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago. The building has 37 floors and is 503 feet tall.

What Of It? It’s great to walk around a city that has a real point-of-view about both its future and the architecture that supports that. Chicago is a monument to the American Dream - heavy and industrial but also progressive, optimistic and bold. What some would consider folly I see as bravery and imagination. I love the idea of architecture that manages to be both heavy and light at the same time.

I am Curious about manifestations of Americana, about architecture that frames and envisions a country’s future, about cities with vision.

Curious about…Ukulele

Two of my colleagues in Singapore play the ukelele, which in a tiny office is quite disproportionately large, so I decided to look into this: digging about it seems as if there is not one but two stores dedicated to selling ukeleles in modern-consumerism-obsessed Singapore, which also fascinated me. It seems as if the humble ukulele is having something of a ‘moment.’

The ukulele, from the Hawaiian: ʻuku-lele,’ sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a chordophone classified as a plucked lute; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings. It originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian interpretation of the cavaquinho or braguinha and the rajão, small guitar-like instruments taken to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants. It gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century, and from there spread internationally.

The tone and volume of the instrument varies with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.

Ukuleles are commonly associated with the music of Hawaii where the name roughly translates as “jumping flea,” perhaps due to the action of one’s fingers playing the ukulele resembling a dancing insect. According to Queen Lili’uokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, the name means: “the gift that came here”, from the Hawaiian words uku (gift or reward) and lele (to come). One of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King David Kalakaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings.

The ukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age. Highly portable and relatively inexpensive, it also proved popular with amateur players throughout the 1920s, as is evidenced by the introduction of uke chord tablature into the published sheet music for popular songs of the time, a role that would eventually be supplanted by the guitar in the early years of rock and roll. 

Ukuleles are very much having a renaissance right now: top of the list of groups leading that is the UK’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, who wowed Glastonbury Festival attendees a couple of years ago with a set that included ukulele interpretations of Isaac Hayes “Shaft,” Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” and David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.” They have toured extensively and have had a lot of media coverage inside and outside the UK. Here they are playing a classic:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE

What Of It? One of the themes of this blog is looking at objects that withstand the test of time, objects that get adapted, reshaped and recontextualized, and the ukulele is one of those: seeing the Ukulele Orchestra playing “Shaft” (and it somehow making perfect sense) shows that the ukulele has staying power beyond the somewhat kitschy Hawaiian imagery and tourist postcards. And the fact that Singapore is dedicating precious retail space to two stores means that there is demand as well as supply.

I am Curious about the origins of objects, of cross-cultural icons (music, food, dress, language) and how they adapt, shift and change as they move through time, and of the ability of any of the above to stay relevant and interesting.

Curious about…Durian

As an army brat who grew up in Singapore, one of my earliest memories is of an acrid, pee-like smell that used to permeate the streets of the city around my birthday in June, which signified one thing: it was the start of durian season. Yesterday, coming through Changi airport, I caught a distant breeze that took me back to childhood.

The durian is the fruit of several tree species belonging to the genus Durio and the Malvaceae family. Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the “King of Fruits”, it is distinctive for its large size, unique odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk. The fruit can grow as large as 12 inches long and 6 inches in diameter, and it typically weighs 2 to 7 lb. Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the colour of its husk green to brown, and its flesh pale yellow to red, depending on the species.

The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust: Anthony Bourdain, a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit thus: “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” 

 Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says: ” Its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

I have to say I kind of love durian: there’s a familiarity to the smell and taste that I’m use to by now, but I love the extreme-challenge nature of it, and how it completely polarizes people: I love the ‘journey’ that durian takes you on: a real five-sense exploratory, from the spiky exterior to the strange, almost sexual interior. Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

 

What Of It? Many cultures have their own ‘rite of passage” foods, and the durian is firmly that for Singapore.I find it kind of charming that such a cultured and well-mannered country places such high regard for such a so-bad-it’s-good kind of national fruit. Singaporeans love nothing more than watching foreigners eat durian for the first time, with all the associated grimacing and sweating that the initiation entails. I’m glad I got mine out of the way at an early age.

I am Curious about national rites of passage, of multi sense experiences that challenge and provoke us, about icons of cultures: foods, flowers, costume, and how they came into being.

Curious about…Breton.

Yesterday in honor of being in Paris I watched the movie “Coco Before Chanel,” which chronicles Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s rise to becoming an international fashion icon. In one scene she strolls down a beach in Deauville in Northern France and watches the fishermen gathering their nets, wearing classic French Breton stripes, which of course later become a signature item in Chanel’s iconography. I wondered how this classic garment came to such popularity.

 The striped Breton shirt as we know it today came into being shortly following the 27th March, 1858 Act of France which introduced the navy and white striped knitted shirt as the uniform for all French navy seaman. The official striped navy shirt or French sailor shirt soon became more generally a working mariner garment as it was picked up by many nautical men; seafairers and sailors across the region of Northern France. It was said that when a sailor had fallen into the sea, the distinctive block pattern of stripes on the French striped shirt made him easier to spot amidst the many blurred colours of the waves. 

The flag of Brittany is called the Gwenn-ha-du, which means ‘white and black’ in Breton.

Interestingly, the original shirt featured 21 stripes, one for each of Napoleon’s victories. Not only did this shirt become the standard of the French (merchant) navy and fishing fleets, it was soon exported to other navies around the world and became big as a fashion item a century after. 

In the late 1950s and ’60s, the shirt was heavily associated with beatnik French New Wave cinema - worn by girls with gamine looks like Jean Seberg in “Breathless,” and Jean Moreau in “Jules et Jim.”

What Of It? Next to perhaps the berét, nothing is more French than a stripe. I’m fascinated by how something so simple can become so iconographic of an entire culture: the French, like the English, have a real knack of adapting and updating their own traditions, and Breton stripes are still as relevant and evident on today’s catwalks as they were on the beaches of Brittany at the turn of the century.

I am Curious about cultural iconography, about things which stand the test of time, about updated traditionalism.

Curious about… Tulpen.

The tulip was introduced to Europe in the mid-16th century from the Ottoman Empire, and became very popular in the United Provinces (now known as the Netherlands).

Tulip cultivation in the Netherlands is generally thought to have started in earnest around 1593 after the Flemish botanist Charles de l’Écluse had taken up a post at the University of Leiden and established the hortus academicus. There, he planted his collection of tulip bulbs—sent to him from Turkey by the Emperor’s (Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor) ambassador to the Sultan, Ogier de Busbecq—which were able to tolerate the harsher conditions of the Low Countries and it was shortly thereafter they began to grow in popularity.

The flower rapidly became a coveted luxury item and a status symbol, and a profusion of varieties followed. They were classified in groups; one-coloured tulips of red, yellow, or white were known as Couleren, but it was the multicoloured Rosen (red or pink on white background), Violetten (purple or lilac on white background), and, to a lesser extent, the Bizarden (red, brown or purple on yellow background) that were the most popular.

With more than 10,000 hectares devoted to the cultivation of these delicate flowers, the Dutch landscape in May is a kaleidoscope of giddy colours as the tulips burst into life. The bulbs are planted in late October and early November, and these colourful creations are ready to be picked and sold as bunches of cut flowers in florists and supermarkets.

More than three billion tulips are grown each year and two-thirds of the vibrant blooms are exported, mostly to the U.S. and Germany.

What Of It? I’m fascinated by how “national” icons get established - costume, food, dress. A national flower is an interesting symbol, one of the earliest forms of branding I suppose, a way of a nation expressing its unique cultural identity. The tulip has become a bit of a joke, debased by a million postcards and windmill covered dish-towels, perhaps a bit lowbrow, when in fact it is a really beautiful flower. 

I am Curious about cultural iconography, both positive and negative, about how these totems get ‘designed,’ by what they represent, and how that meaning shifts over time.