Last year it was flamingos and pineapples, llamas and cacti the year before. Is 2020 Frida Kahlo’s year? From planters to luggage labels, rubbers to sunglass cases – mono-browed accessories abound. Instantly recognisable and reproducible with the added frissance of cultural credit. Is it ok to culturally appropriate the artist and reduce her genius to an embossed rubber? I always feel harrumphy when I see Monet’s lilies reduced to a note pad – art as jotter fodder. Or am I being an art snob and Frida Tweezers are a way of bringing her work to a wider audience?
And why do we want Frida in our lives? To show our friends we would like to be a bit like the maverick artist – not the pain and the suffering obvs. Or is it a side-shoot of our newfound Day of the Dead fixation. Pick ‘n’ mix traditions without the backstory.
But who decides the accessory zeitgeist? At the beginning of the year do the gods of Paperchase, Accessorize et al gather round a kitchen-board table and chuck ideas about – Toucans? ‘too beaky’ Baboons? ‘too rude’ Figs? ‘too figgy’. Or do they go for more vibe than specifics – tropical/ homespun/Japanese…? Who’s pulling the trending strings?
Was it like this when I was a nipper? I remember desperately wanting a Snoopy patch on my jeans; there were funny pencil top fruit characters with arms and my friend Caroline had a Whimsy armadillo I had my eye on – but that is as far as it went. Of course there were Saturday pilgrimages to Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge. And you just had to have the same as the rest of the gang. I recall a physical yearning for a Peter Storm kagool (what lambs we were) with the little metal badge (my best friend had a yellow one, I sadly the more generic white) – but there wasn’t this monthly reboot. When you finally got the Paddington notepaper, you treasured it and only used it for special occasions. Everything moves so much quicker for Gen whatever we are on now.
But more importantly – the perpetuation of the throwaway culture where Black Friday deals make it ok for Pretty Little Things to sell dresses for 8p (10p was the minimum spend at the Brownie Jumble Sale) With every change in the accessory firmament more stuff goes to landfill – just because Nigella’s kitchen is haloed in rose gold (including Kitchenaid at £799) we altarise our idols in the hope that a little bit of Nigella will rub off on us. I confess I have recently swapped my cosy fleece dressing gown for my beautiful, yet chilly, silky peignoir, the sleeves of which are too long and dangle in the pancake batter.
Online shopping means you can go down as many shopping rabbit holes as your evenings allow. In the olden days when you trudged around the shops only too glad when you alighted on something that vaguely fitted the bill, you bought it and were grateful that soon you would be on the bus home happily clutching your haul. Now think, it – search it – it’s yours. Mr. Darcy Compact Mirror (embossed with famous proposal quote) – no problem; Brussels sprout felt wreath – a click away, personalised guitar plectrums – in the post. But do you or your loved ones need it? Overheard in the dog-walking car park ‘I said to him please I would much rather you spent the money on a holiday – please, please just don’t buy me anymore stuff.’
Poor Frida - reduced to a monobrow meme. I used to like her brand of intense and angry paintings but I got very tired of seeing her face everywhere.Very much like Che. All those posters and T-shirts but no one cared about what he was fighting for.