August Challenge; Style

Style; sounds like an essay title. Please discuss in 500 words …

Looking at the sunday supplements it would be easy to confuse style and fashion. And as I write this I find it hard to avoid falling into that trap myself. I tend to see Style in terms of Design. The definition is though, much broader than that.

The camera on the right is over 50 years old. The camera on the left is 2 years old. The marketing blurb for the Olympus states, among other things, that “in style it references … film SLR cameras….” It sure does. That's one of the reasons I bought it.

I bought the Pentax in 1965. I’d seen a picture of a black Nikon F in a National Geographic magazine around that time and had been struck by the design - it was just so cool. I was a part-time Mod and looks and image were everything.

Part-time, by the way, means I didn’t bash up Rockers or pop pills and party all night. I was in it for the clothes and the music. Two of my friends were Rockers. We were all a bit confused back then. One night we went to a party in some new gear - Breton berets and cycling jerseys. A girl asked if we were Mods. My mate replied in all seriousness; “No - we’re individualists”. We were all dressed alike though.

A little while later I saw the Pentax in the window of a secondhand camera shop; a brown leather strap completed the look. (I realise I still like brown leather straps on black cameras…. is there no hope?). I sold my scooter to pay for the camera; I was no longer a Mod. And then I became a photographer and put away childish things …

Later on I came across the ideas of William Morris and the notion that things can be beautiful and functional at the same time. Anniemay is a case in point.

Style, for me, means aesthetically pleasing and functional. With a nudge to past tradition, thrown in for good measure. My toys all fulfil that criteria; my guitar is made from real wood, my bikes are made from steel and my camera looks and functions a bit like and old one.

Just before I retired from work, someone called me a dinosaur because I did not share their vision of the future; I was too stuck in the past. Perhaps I am. I admit to being a bit confused about the future; I'm not quite sure what it's for. (Unlike the past, which I have a pretty good grip on…) I replied that dinosaurs had been on the planet for some 160M years, while Homo Sapiens have barely managed 2M years. The dinosaurs did all right in my book. A triumph of Icthyopod over iPod perhaps?

I rather like the idea that ‘retro’ has become fashionable. Bearded young metro-males in tweeds, are riding round town on their steel-framed, single-speed bicycles, with their ‘old skool’ leather satchels slung over their shoulders, on their way to take photographs with their ‘ranger-finder’ style cameras. And why not? A good idea never really goes away.

"The more things change the more they stay the same". Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890).

Thanks to everyone who helped nudge yesterday’s pot into the spotlight. And commiserations to those whose tea was also confiscated by Homeland Security.