Bags of DIY style

As part of its Great Transition initiative, the New Economics Foundation (nef) recently held a panel discussion on how to survive financial crisis, climate change and soon-to-be-declining global oil production. One of the speakers was Dame Vivienne Westwood, who helpfully suggested that we stop buying clothes for six months and wear a towel instead of a coat. One of her shrewd observations was “It’s all about do-it-yourself at the moment.”




The DIY design trend has been gaining ground for quite a while now. I’ve participated in this myself, by creating a small range of unique accessories for ShopCurious, including these ‘curiosity clutch bags’, which are made from pieces of recycled vintage fabric, decorated with exotic ‘found’ curiosities - like old brooches, carved jade and unusual pieces of jewellery.

If there’s enough interest, I may create a larger collection – but only using materials that might otherwise be thrown away, or remain unusable unless re-fashioned into new items like these. Anyway, if you buy one of my DIY bags, at least you won't feel guilty about wasting valuable resources, plus you'll be helping to keep small craftspeople employed.

By the way, you can hear the podcast of Dame Viv’s speech on the nef website, although for some reason when I tried it didn’t seem to be working. I hope you have better luck than me.

Will you?

Bags of luck

One of the more light-hearted aspects of the Olympic Games is the choice of a mascot by the host nation. In Beijing, Han Meilin was charged with the onerous task of choosing an original mascot for the 2008 Summer Games and presumably having to please quite a few people with differing opinions ... It was eventually decided that, as it isn't possible for a single figure to represent China's intense and diversified culture, it's necessary to have no less than five mascots rolled into one. 'Fuwa' (or 'Friendlies') is a symbol that carries a message of friendship, peace and harmony and conveys blessings from China to children all over the world.


The mascot embodies the natural characteristics of four of China's most popular animals - the fish, the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow, as well as the Olympic Flame. Each of the Fuwa has its own symbolic meaning and the abbreviations of their names combined sounds like a phrase meaning "Beijing welcomes you".


At ShopCurious, where we specialise in rather unique accessories, we've just got some stylish new faux snakeskin clutch bags and envelope bags with their own lucky charms in the form of carved Chinese jade buckles with hidden inner meaning, whether it be wealth (left) or longevity (right) - hopefully I haven't got these the wrong way around? There's even a bag with the symbol of two dragons (above left) - the very identity and essence of Asia itself. We've also a mother of pearl longevity pendant, for added good fortune.

So many symbols to choose from, so much potential luck - I'm just surprised the Beijing Olympic Commitee didn't choose eight Fuwa instead of five.
Are you?