Vinyl records

Letterpress/fine press books

Artisanal cheese and wines

Single malt scotch

Hand made cigars

Sustainable/organic/local vegetables and meats

Mechanical wristwatches

Hand made furniture

Bespoke/fine tailoring


All of  these things, let us call them Spheres, have certain elements in common.  Each has a past 'Golden Age' that current craftspeople in the field often exceed, but in the past the sphere was much more democratic.  Everyone listened to vinyl records and ate local foods because that was all there was.  In an age of industrial production for everything, the local and hand crafted is nearly destroyed.  But never truly destroyed.  Like monks salvaging bits of Greek and Latin text from a burning Alexandria and copying it through the Dark Ages, some small group of people in each sphere keeps the real folklore and knowledge alive. 

In the case of books, tailoring and records, the elegant crafting of the object honors its content.  A beautifully produced record played on good equipment is a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald or Miles Davis or Mozart.  The Kelmscott Chaucer is the finest tribute to the founder of english literature that there could ever be.  And a finely tailored suit is an honor to he who wears it.  Unfortunately that honor is not always justified.

Each sphere is under constant pressure from the world at large (industrial large-scale consumer culture) to Just Die Already.  It is inconvenient to Wal-Mart that these spheres exist.  They do not even function as good status symbols as their status is only apparent to the educated, and ignorance is the best friend of industrial consumer culture.  While GENUINE artisanal quality is inconvenient, the APPEARANCE of artisanal quality is very valuable and so you get such things as Industrial Organic food and cheap crappy clothing with designer labels.  Calvin Klein had very little to do with those $20 jeans with his name on them at Costco but it's trading on what little remains of his couture reputation.  The sellers of generic groceries had little success until they started calling their food 'Our Select' and 'President's Choice'.

Some spheres can recover from this pressure and thrive.  Hand made furniture, artisanal cheese/wine, and especially local produce and meats, have all found niches where they can comfortably exist and even do very well by operating in areas industrial culture cannot compete.  They compete on quality and on the story of their making.  And the price difference, while in some cases huge, is enough to sustain them quite well.  Food especially has found its niche due to health concerns.  Vinyl records survive because there's enough DJs and audiophiles out there to keep making records (and businesses sprang up to use the pressing equipment that was being sold off for dirt cheap in the past).   DJs are already switching to digital formats but there is still an enormous tide of vinyl out there just under the surface.  Single malt scotch and cigars  become trendy every few years and that is enough to keep them alive.  Fine watches also seem to be doing okay.

Other spheres are in trouble.  Savile Row is being pushed out of its ancestral home due to high rents.  I read in an old NYT article that a Turnbull and Asser bespoke shirt cost $50 in the 80's.  Now bespoke shirts cost eight to ten times as much, getting out of reach of most people.  Letterpress books cost hundreds of dollars to make when the same book can be bought in hardcover at Barnes & Nobles for $20.   There is no health benefit to fine tailoring and it is regarded as somewhat vain.  This makes it difficult to give it a niche like local food.  There is no love of music and high-tech toys and club culture to keep letterpress books going - it is tweedy and rarefied.  Both those fields are  in trouble. But as long as there are scissors and fabric, and as long as there are presses and type around, both spheres will exist.  They'll just get more expensive and harder to find.

All of these spheres hold interest to me.  I like all of them.  Some I'm not so into like cigars, others I can't really afford to play in the upper reaches like watches.  But an appreciation for Quality Stuff is a great pleasure in life.   And the people involved in each sphere almost without exception are very friendly and love to discuss their passions.  And I love discussing their passions with them.

Last edited by GFBurke (2006-07-25 10:37:43)