Day 147 / 365
In the past year or so, since moving our marital home from a VW van to a Parisian apartment, I’ve noticed that finding sustainable fashion ethically made is much easier than finding homeware of the same ilk.
The majority of furniture and décor in our apartment comes from second-hand sources I sniffed out on street corners, le bon coin (France’s kijii / gumtree / craigslit) or in the Parisian version of garage sales, vide de greniers.
The problem with secondhand purchasing, green as it is (as prolongs the life of the object), is it doesn’t support sustainable businesses nor help the conscious community thrive. As it was pointed out to me by my mother, it actually just encourages more cheap shite to be bought and consequentially ‘tossed.
I wrote about my concern with the lack of sentimentality our culture welcomes, especially when it comes to objects for our home in my piece on my papa’s house. Sentimentality has all but disappeared from our lives in this modern world. I wondered, in my previous post, if our children will know what my generation knew from our parent’s home, if the mishmash of memorabilia which our parents and grandparents welcomed into their space for memories sake, stuff made to last, lived and was loved, will be reflected in the bits we pick up in Urban Outfitter sales, Walmart aisles, and Ikea catalogues.
The truth it, we as a culture gotta start breaking our unhealthy relationship with the likes of Ikea, Aargos and other such cheap product pushers, and start adding sustainable creations to our own circular stories. Things that are worthy of passing down. Things which tell a credible and conscious tale.
Just before our move our new, more permanent apartment, I was contacted by a company from Spain called Shido who offered me such a product. They create, with digital manufacturing technology (which means near to zero waste in production) and FSC certified woods from sustainably managed forests, beautiful flat packed self-build lamps, which will neither drive you crazy, nor harm our earthy mama.
The lamps are designed in their studio in Barcelona and manufactured in a local workshop by workers being paid fair wages. For every lamp sold, they plant one tree, ensuring the wood they use is replenished.
Candela, the owner, kindly sent me one of their Kiku lamps, which is made up of petal shaped pieces. It omits, with the help of an energy efficient light bulb, a radial play of lights and shadows throughout your chosen space.
It came in a “flat pack” package with the wood bits, electrical parts (you can either choose to have it be a ceiling lamp or table lamp), and an assembly manual. But unlike Ikea gear, you can put it together with minimal error (I misaligned one of the petals while the pics were being taken as my husfriend was distracting me with his hilarious jokes).
My husfriend’s family comes from Vila Franca Del Penedes, a town near Barcelona, and I love that we have something made relatively locally in our home, lighting up his side of the bed and creating a cosy ambience in our bedroom which warmly welcomes night time reading, guitar sessions, and snuggly chats. The place most our homebound memories are made.
You can find yourself your own Shido lamp on their website, http://shido.es/ (they ship worldwide!).
Photos: Shane Woodward
Hair Do: Courtesy of my bed
Lamp: Gifted to me by Shido
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