A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

It’s not something I’ve done before, but this year I did gift myself a Christmas Present.

Some of us hunt for the ultimate denim jeans, or the perfect pair of trainers – filling our lives with formidable contenders but somehow never meeting up with that one true champion.

I’m becoming that way with cameras. The cover story from this issue of Monocle magazine last spring put many of my personal feelings into perfect focus – that the output of digital cameras never seems to glow with the rich warmth of that from old-school film cameras.

Digital vs. analog, flash vs. non-flash, clarity vs. surrealism, my camera-oriented allegiances have wavered and ruptured violently over the years. My office closet is now littered with the sad corpses of cameras I wanted desperately to rescue me from myself but that never quite did.

So this December, my best guess for what might finally end this camera-based turmoil turned out to be the Lomo LC-A, a 35mm device some consider a “toy camera”. From glowing descriptions and photographic examples, I began to trust that if armed with such a camera myself, every image I captured from then on would appear as if snipped out of some vibrant Steve Zissou-like scrapbook.

Being that the LC-A in its peak form and specs is now out of production, I bopped over to e-bay and ordered a slightly vintage, mint-in-box device from St. Petersberg, Russia.

24 days later, and a full week after Christmas, my lustworthy Lomo arrived via air-mail. I’ve mooned over every layer of the box and tape, paper, string and packaging that it arrived in.

I’m smitten as well with the way it looks, how the name-brand is printed in Russian rather than English lettering (butches it up a bit, I feel), and I appreciate the rock-like sturdiness the device suggests when I grab it in my hands.

I need now to take a test roll to determine whether I can salute the camera’s actual photographic capabilities, or if the LC-A is destined to die in the closet with the previous generations of fallen contenders.

Please, please, please…let this be the one!

This listing will be the first in a series examining the more daring clothing items that have crept their way into my closet during those naive moments when I legitimately believed I’d someday begin dressing like a runway model.

As much as I am drawn to the risky thrills of fashion, when I wake up in the morning my sartorial bravery and ambition are at their lowest, so again and again I just wiggle into whatever seems the most interesting (but) in the quietest way possible.

A Dapper-Dan decked out to the nines a la Chuck Bass is eye-catching, but really the best-dressed gents are the ones who appear to hardly have tried at all, no?

The ongoing challenge I’m giving myself is to incorporate these difficult items into ensembles that appear effortless enough to wear outside the pages of the Treasury. First up is the Sleepwear as Daywear sub-trend in the form of this pajama top left-over from a film project I’d mounted a few years back.

It’s two sizes too large for me. And it isn’t silky in a Prada-esque luxe way, it’s more of a starchy cotton-blend (which might make it a little easier to realistically wear without branding me a total fool).

So I attempted the top un-tucked and under a cardigan. Then took another stab at the piece, tucked, belted and with its sleeves imperfectly rolled up.

I’m not sure which technique was the better executed. But in the end, on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the most difficult to pull off while still maintaining one’s good name) the Sleepwear as Daywear look garnered overall a moderate score of 6, the board reveals.

The two outfits I assembled were maybe a bit more Milano-playboy than I usually lean, but I was able to veer clear of the Julian Schnabel Jr. trap, which was the real trick.

Whether I’ll be incorporating this piece of pajama-ry into my actual wardrobe routine, the world waits to see…

Listed below is a hierarchy of the categories of works the Treasury endeavors to publish most frequently, be they in fashion, music, film, design, television, grooming products, decorating, etc…

category 1.
Works in my possession, that I wholly treasure.

category 2.
Works I endeavor to take into my possession, that I hope to realistically be able to treasure in the near future.

category 3.
Handsome works merely floating around in cyberspace.

Presenting with any regularity works in the number 3 category seems somewhat lacking in value for myself or the reader. There are numerous other sources which post in a spare and non-contextual manner the wares which today’s designers and artists are peddling.

There is validity and value in perusing an on-line inspiration board-of-sorts, but that niche is covered and covered well already by other blogs, JJJJound being my preferred source for that slant.

The Treasury was established with the belief that some of the most valuable aesthetic expressions are born in the unpredictable space where an original inspiration shifts its shape in strange and strong new ways on its path to becoming actuality. 

Getting on with it, my first official presentation in the Treasury falls under category 2: A work I hope to possess and treasure some day.

In this case, its a tawny, butterscotch-colored shoe, the idea of which first came across my path this spring via the above photo pulled from men.style.com (I didn’t know I would be an official Treasurer one day, so I didn’t document the designer/show. I’m sure one of my readers can fill in this blank for me soon enough).

The most tangible source I’ve found so far in my quest for a similar shoe is Blackbird Ballard and their collaboration with Esquivel.

But since times are tougher these days, even on sale at approximately $225 per shoe ($450 if I opted for a complete working pair) my search will unfold beyond these Blackbird beauties.

Where exactly my search will go next, or if it might veer me off in a new direction, or drop me at a destination all together different, I will share with the reader. The examination of materialism in this on-line volume shall require more than just the What, I think. The How and therefore the Who, I think, may illuminate things much more clearly.

From my viewpoint, we’re entering the 4th official month of our country’s full-blown financial freakout. In mid-November the situation began to affect me personally. Not on a disastrous level, but on one that was decidedly bothersome.

The upside to my specific experience is that I was hit by distinctly separate blows. With each strike, as more and more was being taken from me, I realized that, absolutely, everything could be taken away from me at any point. I chose in an instant to stop mourning what had been taken, and stop fearing what could be taken still, and instead to start savoring and treasuring more deliberately all that I still had.

But not even the warm n’ fuzziest lessons learned in the depths of this recession-depression could rid me entirely of my materialism. No catastrophe could ever strip me of that, I’d dare say, because its a virtue, I’m realizing–my longheld materialism. Like honesty, courage, wit or wisdom, materialism too is un-strippable, and can better one’s world and the world of those near and dear to him.

For to artfully understand how to locate, incorporate, and appreciate the objects and products that define how our lives look and sound, smell and taste–how they literally and emotionally  feel–I think that is truly important and brilliant, and yes, virtuous! Especially in drab and un-fab times like these.

I’ve always treasured things but starting today I’m taking the practice more seriously. I am a Treasurer with a capital T, and I wear this title proudly.