So I've just released my newest collection- Wabi Sabi! I'm super proud of this one, because it celebrates a new way of seeing beauty , well, really it's an old way of seeing things.
To me, Wabi-Sabi is the art of seeing beauty in the entire picture and journey of life, encompassing triumphs, defeats, highs, lows, dirt, perfect moments, and most of all, healing.
In my opinion, as a consumerist western society, we are all sold the idea of beauty as a kind of, surface level glamour... with perfect lighting, smooth skin, pointless emptiness if need be, so long as it helps sell products.
The ancient Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi gives me hope- because I knew I had the option to see things differently, but I didn't realise that this art form had been expressing this truth, hundreds of years before I was born. I guess I've woken up to the long felt burden of over saturation from advertising, marketing, products, fairytale storylines, female devaluing, success-driven, money worshipping, tired crappy western society.
To be fair, I think a lot of us are. Some find a happy place within it, some find a happy place outside of it , but the structures we have in place make it very hard not to be a part of it or chose better.
The most soul-grabbing aspect of Wabi-Sabi, for me, is that it celebrates the truth I know about being a human being... whereas consumerism makes you feel crap about your humanity to try and get you to buy products that should smooth those cracks over so no-one can see them.
I love cracks.
"Kintsugi" is about fixing pottery with gold, so that the pot becomes more beautiful than it was before it was broken. Healing and brokenness is beauty.
(Of course gold-fixed pots are broken and sold for profit now, which is a phenomenon that lives up to my low opinions on consumerism. As well, Wabi Sabi within consumerism has become the selling of derelict objects... reminds me of Zoolander.. Derelique!)
Many products have many good attributes- I'm not trying to change world order and strip communities back to hammocking in the woods- although that would be amazing. But the way in which things are sold to us, is brainwashing, and it's making it harder and harder for both younger and older generations to be at peace with who they are, what they look like, with the relationships they have, and their stage in life.
I just wish we could celebrate the WHOLE thing as beautiful, not just the smooth youthful happy parts.
There's a back up plan that big corporations of the world have for if you don't buy the products, or if they wash off in the rain... up pops stigma.
The 3 things I personally receive stigma from is that I am a born again Christian, a vegan, and I'm T-total.
All I'm doing by choosing these ways of life, is making what I support line up with what I care about. We can all chose what we want to be a part of, and by choosing what is right for you, you will be able to find and express yourself in freeing ways.
Which is why this new collection is called Wabi-Sabi! I'm sharing and celebrating this way of seeing things, because, if you are left feeling empty, unsatisfied and disillusioned by the sparkly glamour that we're saturated in, you're not alone. People have felt that way for thousands of years- it's an ancient old-new way of seeing beauty! Live life your way and don't be sold lies that you don't agree with!
You are perfect just as you are. Be body-positive, skin-positive, gender-positive, diet-positive, faith-positive, age-positive, race-positive, human-positive.
That's Wabi Sabi to me: Human-Positive!
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