Pop up. Bond Street discovery

Money, money money: a collection of receipts

After walking the lanes of Bond Street, I decided to start collecting old receipts found on the roads. I picked up about 15 receipts mainly around the Oxford Street, Bond Street and Piccadilly area. These were all dated 8/10/2010 which was the day I was out.

They have the bank or shop’s logo at the top with small writing stating the bank details and card holder’s information. Most of them are withdrawal receipts from NatWest and Lloyds TSB. They have the date printed on them, the location, withdrawal, and amount of balance in your account. The figures on the receipts range from a balance of £389.09 to £1829.13.

Mostly I think about money when I look at these as well as wealth, waste, cost, shopping and consumerism. If a whole range of receipts were collected around Bond Street it would be interesting to put them into a different context, such as a gallery or museum. It would document the wealth and type of people visiting the area.

My collection of receipts picked from the street.

A bag from the Royal Academy of Arts gift shop

This bag really excites me. It’s a fashion garment made unusually out of ring pulls from cans. It was made by a fair trade organisation called Escama Studio. This company offers men and women in a community to help create the bags and earn their rightful wage. Therefore the bags are all individually signed to enforce their fair-trade value. The clutch bag I was looking at was valued at £40.

The whole bag is silver, the ring pulls, thread and zip. The ring pulls are layered over the top of one another and sewn together, using a crochet technique, through the gaps in the rings. Most importantly the ring pulls are made from recycled aluminium.

When looking at the bag I instantly think, recycled, re-used and fair-trade. I think it is becoming trendy to be associated with these words so therefore I also think of the wealth of the person buying the bag. It also reminds me of chain-mail with a discreet medieval theme.

The bag is artistic and therefore would fit also into an art gallery or perhaps because of its hand crafted quality it could be mistaken as couture in one of the designer shops.

My own recycled chain mail using ring pulls I found on the streets.
Here is link to the Escamo Studio page.
www.escamastudio.com/

Manolo Blahnik’s pop up collection in Liberty’s of London

Liberty's of London created a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik to form a pop up shop. Blahnik is famous for his shoes as well as his beautiful illustrations. The illustrations for Liberty's show a range of shoes in the traditional Liberty prints from their archives. The shoes displayed are on sale for between £200 and £700 and as well as his shoes you can buy scarves and books with his drawings printed on.

An illustration which really inspired me was the Rose Bud Shoe for Liberty. It’s deep purple in colour with a section of closed rose buds running down the front of the shoe like ivy. To exaggerate the texture, the painting has white highlights, giving it a PVC effect. Like all of his paintings it’s abstract, unique, stylish, expensive, sophisticated, quirky and imaginative.

The Manolo Blahnik Rose Bud Boot illustration, sold on a pillow.
www.liberty.co.uk/fcp/categorylist/designer/manolo-blahnik?resetFilters=true&designer=true