Fashionable, Unfashionable, Neither, Both?

There were a couple of odd craft-related posts in the news this week.

There's a lot of hoo-ha about the new Sacha Baron Cohen film Brüno and the amazing costumes within. And yes, I am SO going! As a (former) costume designer, I find a lot of what I've seen in the news to be pretty much inspired, and I'd be surprised if Jason Alper was not nominated for an Oscar. All that said, my inner yarnbitch was pissed at this comment which accompanied the photo above of knitted lederhosen:

"When the Brüno movie came around I thought, 'What's going to be the new green thong?' Coming from Austria, lederhosen are very iconic. And then I thought, 'What's unfashionable, and what aren't people doing? Knitting! So maybe we should knit him some lederhosen.'"

WHAT?? Is this guy completely out of touch? Seriously!

And then this morning, I'm perusing The Guardian and find this article.

This week, the thinktank Demos published a collection of essays exploring the idea of "expressive life". In the volume, US arts writer Bill Ivey – who coined the phrase – and Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, tease out the prospect of a rebirth of the arts and crafts movement as part of the search for quality of life in a post-consumerist, recession-hit society.

At a moment when laid-off bankers are testifying to the benefits of basket-weaving, a reversion to the reformist aesthetic of John Ruskin and William Morris can feel suitably corrective. The old manifesto has serious contemporary traction: respect for nature, dignity of labour, importance of long-garnered skills, access to beauty for all.

Now, that's way more like it.

I guess when you are part of the army of crafters, you find yourself surrounded by like-minded people and figure even those outside the revolution can recognize the power of yarn. But apparently, that's not quite the case.

Thoughts?