Yes, the Berlin Fashion Cop is back and she's cattier than ever! Actually, I never really went anywhere. Taking shots anonymously of people whose style I plan to later diss on my blog has just gotten trickier since my camera has gotten bigger. Luckily, at Berlin Zoologischer Garten (the zoo in the heart of former West Berlin) EVERYONE has a camera and, so I found out yesterday, no one pays any attention whether you're taking shots of monkey babies or bad-idea spandex. Luckily as well, there was many a crime being committed. Here is my police blotter:
1. Two-Toned Hair
So here's the thing: from the age of 15 to probably about 27, whenever I felt like I needed a change in my life I often just went to Walgreen's and picked up a bottle of hair dye and then went at it. Dying your hair can be fun, it canbe cool and, no, it doesn't necessarily have to look natural. But, like my mother always said, nothing says "stripper" like two-toned hair. Please, ladies, unless you are applying for a job over at Big Al's, spare us the distressed tresses!
Note: the two young girls (admittedly, only one of them has a two-toned 'do) get extra points for actually looking good in short shorts, but have a few marks added to their records for the tan-in-the-can and the silver lame shoulder bag.....
SENTENCE: A two hundred Euro donation to a (classy) hairdresser of their choice.
2. Comfortable, Outdoor Sandals I realize I might get some flak for this one. "But Officer Schlieffen," some citizens might say, "A lot of these people are probably tourists who do a lot of walking. They need comfortable sandals!" My answer: "Poppycock, my dear friends, poppycock!" There are plenty of comfortable sandals to be worn that DON'T make you look like you are about to embark on a creek-walking expedition. Officer Schlieffen's advice? Nix The North Face! Toss out the Teva! Comfort and style CAN be combined, so go out and make it happen.
SENTENCE: Six months of community service
3. Yes, matching DOES matter!
Ok, I am about to be very, very hard on this girl. Her dress is actually quite cute and nicely accessorized with the metallic belt and bag. I am still, however, pretty p.o.ed about the keds-without-laces incident, so the terrible, 80s revival glasses just didn't get us started off on the right foot.... Bad mood aside, I still have to wonder what inspired her to combine this (sans glasses) nice outfit with pink and purple stripped socks and beat up tennis shoes. I'm not saying she needs to go all dainty or, god forbid, slip on a pair of heels, just wear shoes that actually do SOMETHING for the overall look instead of drawing immediately "Opps. Someone forgot to look in the mirror!" attention like a long run on a pair of pantyhose.
SENTENCE: Life imprisonment without possibility of parole (told you I was going to be hard on her!)
Citizen's Choice Awards 1. The Italians
To be fair, the first woman here would normally be ticketed in the "Dump the Frump" category. That skirt really has to go and the mocassins are also rather questionable. Still, I love the green on her, which is off set nicely by the scarf and besides, she just seemed so darn nice. Her friendly vibe combined with the fact that she was speaking Italian was enough to merit the award. Normally I don't really go for this rastafarian-cum-hippie-cum-punk style, but I thought this woman (also Italian) really owned the look and still managed to look elegant. Plus, she smiled a lot at my kids (always a wise decision when trying to get on the good side of an officer of the law!)
2. A Whole Lot of Granny Going On
Snow white hair is oh-so-much more stricking than a mere distinguished gray. This old lady matched her outfit to her hair right down to the shoes and purse (how does she keep so much white so pristine?) The kitty cat tote is also a nice touch to her overall granny groove. Three cheers for grandma!
Though you wouldn't have guessed it by my first marriage (my first husband and I literally got in a fight everyday, well, at least one), I am not a person who likes conflict. Granted, I will fight if necessary. Like when my ex-boyfriend, with whom I went bird crazy, decided one day that having 5 birds just wasn't "working out" anymore so we were going to get rid of them. "Uh, I don't think so," I said. The ironic thing is if he had said, "Honey, those birds with their screaming and food scattering and incessant need for attention are really getting to me. Do you think we can talk about getting rid of them?" I probably would have caved in. I mean, those birds were driving me nuts too not to mention Coco had it in for me and I have the scars to prove it. But since he came at it with such a dominant, my-way-or-the-highway statement, of course I had to counter it. The birds may have played a part in our break-up, but the main problem, I think, is that he just never really understood (or appreciated) how I work.
My husband Jasper, however, is always kind and considerate and loving. I broke from my usual pattern of choosing super dominant men who I would have to open a can of whup ass on (though, in the end, it was almost always me who compromised...Why couldn't I see that then?), and for breaking the mold I have been rewarded: I love my family. Like I've said before, Jasper and I also have more or less the same taste which makes living together that much more harmonious. Still, you can't have everything. After a while, I began to see my husband's edges: He is resistant to change.
Although our apartment only has three bedrooms, its has six doors (not counting the one to the kitchen, bathroom or the front door.) Although we first found these extra doors charming, we soon learned that they caused a problem in that they take away a significant amount of wall space. Our kitchen and bathroom are also tiny meaning that we had to find a different room for a "family" table. Before Mia was born, the kid's room was my office, but once we needed it as a kid's room, the problems started. We had to find a place for three couches, two desks, book shelves a kitchen table, a high board and two side-boards and, no, we couldn't get ridany of it.
I tried to make suggestions but he would always shoot them down: No, the color combination is all wrong. No, it would look too cramped. No, then the table would be too far from the kitchen (like five seconds away, Lordy Lord!). It might not have been all that bad, except that he could never come up with any ideas of his own. But I wanted us to come to a decision together. After a few months of going on like this we got in a fight because he said that it annoyed him that I was so "passive" when it came to making changes. "Passive! You shoot everything down. How can I make any progress?"
Then it occurred to me: With Jasper, it's better to do the work first and then talk about it later. That is just what my mother and I did when she came for a visit a few weeks after Lilly was born. We moved furniture and tried things out, had a grand old time and made some real improvements. Once he could see the good the changes made, Jasper also jumped on the band wagon, albeit a bit reluctantly at first.
Yesterday, while cleaning the windows (Note: This is not a sentence I would normally ever say. There are messy people and there are us Deans. But I seem to have recently been hit by a Spring Cleaning bug in the summer) I realized that I still was so unhappy with certain things in the apartment: The couches in the front room always felt so cramped and formal and we never sat there. The dining table behind the kitchen door looked good when we didn't dump it full of junk and we also never really sat there, preferring to cram ourselves into the kitchen. Mia's room, devoid of any place to sit, had become a bit of a trash pile where laundry goes to die. In a burst of housewiferly inspiration I started cleaning and moving furniture around. Here are the results:
This is Mia's room now. The hanging lute I bought years ago in Istanbul. I still have the business card from the owner of the music store with its hilarious English translation. Here is direct quote (imagine as you read it a photograph with garish colors of a Turkish Mr. Rogers leaning stiffly against a display of tambourines): "ATAKAN PLAK MUSIC CENTER Every kind of music instruments sells, whole sale Profesyonel There are Kanun....Bongoes, Amplifikatör and instruments with breath wire and their another piece." Awesome. I never did learn to play the lute, but it looks pretty good on the wall I think. P.S. The bird cage houses two parakeets which are the most harmless of the birds I had with my ex and who I am watching while he visits his family in Holland. This is the front room now or, rather, dining room/office. All that's missing now is a cool, colorful lamp above the table.
This is the tiny, currently not so clean kitchen, with my good friend Erica posing as the Happy Housewife. The bronzed cowboy boot belonged to my father when he was a child. I like the colorful flowers in it (thanks Ikea). Having it there reminds me of him which is nice.
Here is the new position of couch number three. Let's see if now we sit on it!
I heard Jasper locking up his bike when he came home after I had made the changes. "Are you ready for a surprise?" I asked him. The good news is, he loved it. He thanked me and was really sweet and said he loves it when I get these bursts of energy. There is only one ironic end to the story: Back when I was giving out different ideas for changes, those very ideas he shot down in two seconds, these are exactly the ones I had had. But no reason to rub it in. We're happy and I get the satisfaction of secretly knowing I was right all along....
Up until last summer, in my mind, there were only two kinds of knives: the cheap kind you buy at Rossmann or Ikea for between 2 and 6 Euros, cursing a week later as you try to saw through a tomato because they have already become dull; and the pop art Swiss Army knives my brothers got every other year for Christmas, having lost their last one in the meantime. My sister and I never got one of those pocket knives, although I'm not sure we would have wanted one. Still, it's funny that my parents were West Coast and so hippie and yet so amazingly traditional with their gender rolls. My sister and I had to clean, do the dishes, slave away at a hot stove (ok, so maybe that one is bit exaggerated...) while all my brothers had to do is take out the trash and rake the leaves in the yard. Since we only ever lived in Arizona or California and there never WERE any leaves in the yard, their daily chores always took all of five seconds. But I digress, distracted, as usual, by my bitterness. The subject of this post is, after all, not about my questionable upbringing but rather this: Knives and what I think of them.
As I was saying, last summer something changed my perception about knives forever. What happened is this: I went to France. Jasper and Mia and I (and Baby Li, still in the womb for another two months)went to Les Landes on the Atlantic coast to stay together with friends at their parent's house in Contis Plage. Although more or less completely made for tourists, Contis Plage has a totally relaxed feel with great cafe/restaurants and an unhurried atmosphere. If everyone hadn't been speaking French or we hadn't eaten such kick-ass croissants every morning for breakfast, I would have sworn I was in California.
After about a week of surf and sun we went to visit an old friend of Jasper's, a German woman named Steffi married to a Frenchmen named Pierre (duh...), who live in a tiny village about an hours drive from Bordeaux. They are both country vets and their house is just about the most gorgeous place I have ever seen: an 18th century old Mill that they have largely restored themselves. I have never really had the desire to own a house since I am more a fan of city/apartment living, but for this place I would gladly make an exception.
Besides the lovely place and the lovely company, what struck me most was how gorgeously food was celebrated. When we arrived from Bordeaux at between 7 or 8 p.m. they greeted us with a Pate, homemade by Pierre's mother. The pate was so wonderfully sinful, pink in the middle, melting in your mouth the moment it met your tongue. Worried that we might find it politically incorrect, Steffi mentioned that the geese had had a good life and that it was only for six weeks before Christmas that they gorged them with food and, a local farmer had told her, the geese lined up when they came each day, eager to be stuffed.
But, again, I digress. The point of this post is not about pate and whether or not it is wrong. The topic is knives and, since it is, let's start with Opinel since they are the company that opened my mind. Opinel is a French maker of knives, including a range of pocket knives that look like this: I've since heard that French boys are often given these pocket knives just as my brothers were given a Swiss Army knife. Since Steffi and Pierre loved to celebrate food, they also celebrated all the trappings around them. Each family member (they have three children)had their own Opinel knife which was set next to their plate at both lunch and dinner (breakfast is not much of a meal in France.) I loved these knives, with their birch or olive wood handles, one even shaped like a whale for the youngest boy. Steffi took us to a market on the weekend and we bought one for ourselves.
For my husband's birthday in October, I decided I wanted to get him a full set of Opinel table knives. They use many different kinds of wood to make them, the price ranging accordingly. I fell most in love with the olive wood handle, with it warm, light tone, smooth surface and dark curving veins. In order to buy the knives I went to this shop on Bergmannstrasse.
Holzapfel, a knife speciality shop. I had seen the shop before since it's in the neighborhood but, because of the Japanese-like sign, had always assumed it had something to do with martial arts. Indeed, Japanese swords are available for sale there, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. They also have chef knives for both the professional, the hobbyist and the hopeless amateur; kitchen knives; handcrafted pocketknives that are so beautiful that they are closer to a work of art than a cutting instrument; axes and scissors. The staff is also knowledgeable and incredibly helpful and friendly, something that is definitely not a given in Berlin where the concept of "service" is rarely understood. They also offer smithy courses where they teach you how to make a knife of your very own.
Thanks to Opinel and Holzapfel, I now sees knives not only as useful tools, but objects of sometimes incredible, design, artistry and elegance. As a small side note, I did end up ordering the knives online from Opinel since Holzapfel didn't have the ones I had set my heart on. For some reason, when ordering them, I typed in the zip code for California instead of the one for Berlin. I wrote them an e-mail immediately to tell them of my mistake and got a response a day later from Monsieur Opinel himself. Wow, is all I can say.
I'm not at all surprised that I am so infatuated with the sketch editing option at photoshop's online photo editing site. I've always wished I could draw. I'm a very visual person, or at least I like to think I am, but if I put pencil to paper, I can manage a stick figure at best. When I write my stories, I try to paint a scene with words. With photographs I try to capture the way I see and show what objects, people or scenes move or interest me. But words can only create abstract pictures and, to take a picture, you need a machine. My brother-in-law is a painter. He specializes in portrait painting and, for years, worked only in acrylic. Around a year ago he started working in oil again. I love going to his studio space where the air is thick with the earthy smell of the paint, works in various states of completion hung up all over his walls: The sketch to the canvas to the paint. Just typing this makes me long for it. But alas, when God was passing out a painter's and a dancer's talent, I was given a broken crayon and two left feet.
But thanks to technology, I can now cartoon my pictures. Yipee! These two cartoon-y shots are both of my apartment. The chair is the pink chair of my last post; the table and chairs vintage sixties and on permanent loan from two fabulous friends; the purple lamp shade is the rockin'-est ever from a locally based Spanish designer whose line is called Lichtscheu. And yes, both the vase and flowers on the table are from Ikea. ;)
My ex-husband never wanted to get any vintage furniture because he was terrified of wood worms. "Once you get them in the (wooden) floors, you can never, ever get them out," he told me. But I love all the old furniture you can get here- great pieces from the 30s on up- for next to nothing. "You're being ridiculous," I said (note: this was a sentence I said a LOT...) You can buy a wax to kill those pesky worms and besides, not all old furniture is infested with them, I told him. But he didn't want any vintage furniture, so we weren't getting any. Hmm...Do you think may have been a few reasons why I eventually left him?
When I did finally leave him, I left with not a stick of furniture which was alright by me. Whatever furniture we had, had been cheap or what he had gotten free from his mother (Yikes!) so I didn't really want any of it. I bought my first pair of chairs at the flea market on Boxhagener Platz in Friedrichshain where I was staying with a friend the summer I left. They were vintage 1960s and painted a gorgeous, Peptol Bismol pink. "Look," I told the lady who was selling them. "I just left my husband and I want these chairs but I only have 30 Euros to spend." She had mercy on me and let me take them home (or, rather, to my friend's place where they sat in the hallway for the next six weeks). Who knows? Maybe that was all the money she had even wanted for them.
A few months later I bought a gorgeous, beat-up, Oma's Küchenschrank (buffet in English?) that had so much storage space I could have stored a couple of bodies in there. I got it for 30 Euros on Ebay; when they told me I was the highest bidder I'm pretty sure I had an orgasm right there in the internet cafe.
Lots of pieces followed: a 50s highboard and desk for 100 Euros from a nearby village where someone's grandma had just passed away (they gave me a lot of other great stuff for free, including a globe that still has the Soviet Union on it); a pedal-operated singer sewing machine in mint condition with a receipt from 1910 still in the drawer; and so on and so forth. My new boyfriend also loved old furniture and we often scoured the flea markets together. The only problem: he loved old furniture SO much that our apartment was beginning to look like we were in our 80s.
Old and vintage, yes. Kitsch sometimes. But you also have to mix it in with some Ikea to keep it ironic.
Luckily, my husband and I basically have the same taste. The only difference is he doesn't much care for kitsch, but he tolerates it. Most of the stuff we have now looks more like this: Danish design inspired, though the pieces themselves are only design classic knock-offs, though they probably would be real if we had that kind of pocket book....
Anyway, since my husband only really tolerates my more kitschy, grandma chic pieces I've been wondering where we could find a middle ground. And then I found it: SchubLaden in Kreuzberg's Gräfe Kiez. SchubLaden takes these:
...in other words, old drawers from granny furniture (indeed, Schubladen means drawer in German, though Laden also means shop, hence a clever play on words!) With these vintage drawers they make these:
These gorgeous pieces are a true case of grandma chic meet sixties sleek, not to mention a wonderful example of eco design. On the website it says "prices by request" so I'm not sure how expensive the pieces are but hey, they have to be less expensive than design classics and they are, after all, a lesson in compromise. Isn't that what marriage is all about?
Until the fall of 2010 I will be getting "parent" money monthly from the German government. Because we don't want to pay taxes on the money (you can still work part-time if you want, but then your income and the "parent" money are both taxed)I will not be working until 2011. Except for some occasional under the table editing work and my various hobbies, some more serious than others, I am basically a housewife. So far I seem to be a natural born mother (I am not a patient person, but with my darling daughters I truly have nerves of steel)but, as a housewife, I am a failure: Dust makes me angry. Even the thought of ironing makes me go bonkers. When I cook, if I cook, I never want it to take any longer than 15 minutes. Luckily I have a cleaning lady who does the "deep" cleaning every two weeks and a very understanding husband.
Recently I've thought, why not embrace your housewifeness? I've found out that comparison shopping is (almost) fun and am toying with the idea of getting into cooking. One things that will be sure to help is a rocking, retro-inspired handmade aprons. I'm leaning towards one from Boojiboo, but in making the following list, I also fell in love with several of the others. There are also lots of great retro doodads and artwork that appeals to my inner (albeit very hidden) housewife. Why not go all out and get several aprons that so bring out my rockabilly leanings? If I never get any good at cooking and cleaning, at least I can work on my skills in shopping!
Though he is by no means square, my husband has never really been into any counter culture movement. Not like me, in other words. I had goth leanings in high school, blasting Bauhaus and This Mortal Coil, much to my sister's chagrin. In early college I was all hippied out with long hair half way down my back that often filled with a mega rat's nest (at best, people might have assumed it was some half-assed rastfarian look but in reality, I was just too lazy to brush my extremely thick hair. What can I say? It was the 90s. The baggy bag lady look was in. ;) ) Now I would say I do my own thing: a touch of vintage, classic lines with a kick, black with a dash of color, handmade jewelry and accessories. I do admire the rockabilly scene, or anyone else who dresses all out 40s or 50s. Getting up every morning to set your hair, wear vintage heels and gurtels; now that is a true commitment to style.
I'm not really sure what I think about tattoos. My husband, of course, doesn't like them. Except on a certain kind of woman. "On certain kind of women it can look hot," he's told me. When I asked him which kind he pointed out short women with broad shoulders. I have a small tattoo myself that I got as a birthday present when I turned 20. It's a small black Chinese character (I know, I know. At least it isn't a rose or a Celtic armband!)on my upper back which means "peace" in ancient Chinese, though I've heard from Chinese speaking friends that it looks quite a bit like the modern character for vegetable. At the time I was in my hippie, meat-is-murder phase, so I decided I would joke about it and tell people I had gotten it to promote vegetarianism.
I ran across these vintage tattoo photographs a few weeks ago on the internet and found them fascinating. At the time, unless maybe you were a sailor, having a tattoo was something truly subversive. The word "counter culture" had not yet been coined. These people were probably labeled freaks, fallen women, carnies, outsiders. Now that is a hardcore commitment; I admire it.
This past winter was hard. Often bitterly cold even for Berlin, I also had to pack two babies into snowsuits which meant it always took at least 20 minutes before I could even leave the house. Now that spring is finally here I have been spending time in a lot of different areas of the city for a change of scene. Some of them are places I haven't really been for years. So typical of city life, that you choose your neighborhood and more or less stay there....
Last week I went for a walk around Savinyplatz in Charlottenburg. Although the area is a bit too conservative for my taste, it really is one of the best places to get a feel for posh, old school West Berlin (Mommsenstrasse between Knesebeck and Wieland is the best example of this.) For anyone interested in design there is plenty to offer, even Stilwerk which is a sort of mall for design goods.
Anyway, when I was strolling around in the area under the S-Bahn tracks I noticed a shop with great designer objects and clothing where everything was 50 to 70% off because they were going out of business. I quickly went to the clothing section and found a lot of really beautiful pieces from a Japanese label called Personal Affairs that I had never heard of. I tried on a beautifully cut pale pink knit jacket, 90 Euros marked down from 245, that was a size 42 (US 12.)
All of my adult life I have worn between a size 10 and a size 12 (even dipping down to a size 8 for a year or so). That is, until I had two babies only 18 months apart. Since I first got pregnant in the summer of 2007 until now I have gained around 30 pounds and wear between a 14 and a 16, on the very border to plus sizes. I suppose there is hope that I will someday loose the weight but, as I've told my husband, I'm not sure how likely it is since I'm not especially fond of exercise but love to both eat and drink (luckily, he likes me curvy so he's not complaining....) That being said, I knew a size 12 was, literally, a stretch but I thought, why not? Sure enough, it did not fit over my milk-laden breasts. At this point the snooty sales lady came over.
Snooty Sales Lady: "What size are you now?"
Me: "Around a 44(14)." (going for the modest estimate.)
Snooty SL: "Oh, well we do have other sizes in that jacket, but defintely not anything larger than a 42."
Bitch!!!!
I did end up buying a purple sweater (an XL, thank you very much)the whole time thinking ha, ho bag, your shop is going out of business!
I've always had a fantasy about sewing my own clothes, but ever since my sewing machine blew up last year and I was the dunce of my sewing class, I've decided to let this dream die. If I could loose the post-pregnancy weight I would so buy each of these handmade clothing pieces on etsy.
Then again, I'm sure most of them can still be ordered in a size 14/16 but there is still the problem that I am also on a rather limited budget. My grandmother, who a was very old school conservative diva (a lot like Charlottenburg come to think of it)often said you can never be too rich or too thin. Though I don't actually agree with her, I wouldn't mind being a size 10 again and having a gold card. I think I can do without platinum. ;)
