The wedding outfits I mentioned in the previous post were released at the Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The dress, a flat hexagon that opens up into a complex, delicate form, is called Kide; here’s a photo and reportage. 

Which brings me to the title of the post. Today’s our wedding day.

Ilkka Suppanen, a founder of the acclaimed Snow Crash design collective, had earlier formulated an idea he called “a beautiful day” as a challenge to designers. It is a call to act on the future of a world deep in the grip of change that could wipe out much of what people everywhere hold dear. The wedding is part of Dai Fujiwara’s answer. He sees in it birth.

I think of the beautiful day notion simply in the context of relationships. We can make each day a beautiful one to those we love.

We’re living a time when it is radically easier for people to come together than it was just ten years ago – like with these leading designers’ collaboration around the wedding. This is no doubt a good thing. But there’s another side to the growing intensity of interaction. People are also dropping relationships on a whim. According to a study by Rutgers University, only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents – the lowest figure in the Western world.

Happiness requires longetivity. That you stick around in a relationship. But sticking around is hard, because you’ve got to keep changing yourself to renew it. A wedding makes one face this fact, I think. There are other ways to face it too, of course. But that’s what this wedding and all the wonderful activity around it is really about: facing oneself without false presumptions, naked. Acknowledging that if love and happiness are what we desire, then making each day a beautiful one, that’s what it’s going to take.

Note: this post was written on January 31st but I initially decided to not publish it because of the personal nature of the topic. I’m publishing it now, exactly a month later.

I’m one of those lucky chaps who’s getting married without having to go through the trouble of proposing. My fiancée took care of that casually from the back seat while we were on our way I forget where. Her suggestion threw me off balance enough to get us thoroughly lost that October afternoon.

In the months that followed the wedding turned into a production involving six leading designers; the heritage of a deceased architect; and a living philosopher. Somewhere along the way Ulla and I will get married, but that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the idea; that life is about making each day a beautiful one.

Now, about a month before d-day, we’re hosted by Issey Miyake in Tokyo for the fitting of the outfits. I can’t say much about them yet except we all went a bit quiet when we saw the dress. This dress will reach out to your soul and squeeze it. It will be released at the Paris Fashion Week on February 26th.

The collection also features special pieces by the Boroullec brothers, Camper, Hella Jongerus, Louise Campbell, and Ilkka Suppanen. It will be made accessible starting the last week of February by quality design publications and at www.itsabeautifuldaywedding.com.

Some time ago I blogged about friendships that “dry out”. But there’s also the reconnecting, when you pick up from where you once parted with a person or an art.

Over the weekend I went skateboarding for the first time this season in Helsinki. Going up for a move there’s this instant when one realizes that it’s too late to turn back. Then: Thud! On landing the reflexes kick in and it’s either a complete mental and physical reunion with the knowledge of the board’s behaviour – or a painful encounter with the concrete pavement.

Which brings up the Dreyfusian observation that virtuosity (what Dreyfus calls the stage of expertise) has to do with this uncodifiable capability to connect with the world and be one with whatever one is practicing: to take something mundane like riding a piece of plywood (or preparing food, booking meetings, whatever) and turn in into a form of art. What would it mean to apply that attitude to one’s entire lifestyle? Introducing the skater ethic :)

Today I went to hear the “grand old” sociologist Zygmunt Bauman speak in Lancaster. He’s got a new book out: Liquid Love. Personally for me it was amazing to see Bauman IRL, with his crazy white hair and the characteristic pipe (if I’m not mistaken he’s now 78).
– He argued that social bonds are the most perplexing question of our time. They are necessary enablers but simultaneously limiting: “Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; the higher the fence the greener the grass.”
– With technology, especially the mobile phone, people are networked, meaning they can make an initiative towards anyone and also discontinue a relationship without actually encountering the other person. The essence of a network is that you can connect to many points and also disconnect from them at will.
– Electronic communication increases travel because it’s safer to move from one set of local relationships to another when one can stay networked to all places in principle.
– He spoke of SDCs (semi-detached couples) who share the fun moments but stay detached enough to avoid complex emotional matters. Only with texting and email has such kind of togetherness become practical to handle.
– Top-pocket relationships are carried along like a handkerchief in the top pocket, taken out when required and put away whenever it’s not proper to display them.
– Nowadays it’s possible to choose how one behaves with others (does one adopt a traditional approach or the top-pocket approach) but if children lose the skills and ability to relate to others in the traditional way, top-pocket may become the expected way to manage relationships.
I walked home thinking there’s got to be room in this world for relationships that are neither modeled on the postwar marriage nor on semi-detachment…