smart & curious
A list of intriguing things
This is an invisible (read: cleverly mirrored) pop up store for Bottega Veneta in a Shanghai mall: “This pop-up subverts the idea of perception, the tension between the seen and unseen and gives visibility a new spin.” We did not understand a word, and hence have no words.
Brightly coloured, star-shaped acne patches are the next frontier of self-accepting beauty products. This one is called StarFace and has “highlighter-yellow packaging, dedicated acne products, and a spokesperson in the form of a giant, grinning, space-dwelling cosmic entity named Big Yellow.” We love it: making zits fun!
There is a Facebook fan page dedicated to Bobby Deol called the Bobbians. We had no idea, but have now been enlightened thanks to @imsabbah. We are truly grateful.
Good reads
- Karthik Srinivasan explains why Flipkart’s use of kids-playing-adults as brand ambassadors is a bit creepy.
- Tatler magazine has an excellent write up on ‘Dishy Rishi’ Sunak—the UK chancellor and (to us Indians) Narayana Murthy’s maaplai. There’s plenty of colour: snide jibes about his “devoted wife” who doesn’t mind his late nights; his political philosophy which “comes out of the Star Wars trade wars” etc. Good bedtime masala read.
- Another good weekend read: Aeon on the rise of ‘inconspicuous consumption’—the new way of asserting your status now that way too many plebes can afford designer bags and clothes.
- BBC News has an excellent under-reported story on how street vendors are losing their ‘right to shade’ (shelter under trees) in Hyderabad.
- Quartz looks at how Indian companies have pivoted to antimicrobial fabrics—dubbed ‘anti-virus’, of course! Slight hitch: the virus doesn’t really spread via clothes.