A look around suggests that nu-austerity, touted as one of 2007’s defining trends, hasn’t yet managed to sweep aside rampant materialism and label fetishism.
Nevertheless, the nu- prefix has been dusted off for another try. This time reports from the fashion frontline identify the tendency du jour as something called nu-craft. A revival of what used to be homely pastimes, such as knitting, weaving and appliqué, updated for a digital age, nu-craft is hailed as the place where art meets DIY, ethical consumerism and even new manifestations of feminism. “Craft is the girl-led equivalent of graffiti,” enthuses the Sunday Times Style magazine’s interiorista, Danielle Proud.
Also known as extreme craft, the movement is a reaction against both mass production and designer elitism and a rejection of both the smug yummy-mummy image and the over-achieving domestic goddess syndrome. The central idea is make it yourself, or at least modify it to suit yourself, and in doing so try to be subversive or at least amusing: rude feminist slogans on quilts, disturbingly dark wall-hangings made from bones and feathers, socks knitted for i-Pods. UK devotees commune in craft clubs which resemble edgier, more radical versions of the New York socialites’ stitch ’n’ bitch parties (knitting-and-malicious-gossip circles) of recent memory, or collaborate online to create digital montages.
Some practitioners customise hi-tech or hard-edged objects by adding feminising accessories: sequins and fur can transform the home entertainment centre and turn it into a unique art object at the same time.
An important adjunct to the nu-craft aesthetic is so-called scrapping, aka scrapbooking or journaling, which in turn is part of the wider trend of memorabilising, variously known as life-cacheing, lifecasting or lifestreaming, whereby people archive their lives electronically.
As is often the case, the fashion media’s hype masks something genuinely interesting: another waystage in the path towards consumer dominance over designer and manufacturer and in the long slow move from arid minimalism to sumptuous maximalism, highlighted in this column five years ago.
The comparison with graffiti’s journey from the street to the gallery, though, reveals another reason for the excitement: contradicting their iconoclast credentials, these homegrown handicrafts are already destined to become tradeable – and potentially very lucrative.
Send your favourite buzzwords, jargon or new and exotic usages to tony.thorne@kcl.ac.uk
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