New SCONCHOs in the Snow

 

The Beginning of a New Age

Hello friends of brass music!

Substantielles Minimum is currently looking for a tiny store to try out if the beginning of a new age has arrived yet. 

If anyone knows of a free one in Berlin, preferably Kreuzberg or nearby, then let me know please.

It can't be too expensive and ideally it would be sublet for a few months only. Rooms in need of renovation are welcome too.

#14 JADJEMBA Djembe Drum Backpack Made from Raincoat

To make the JADEJEMBA I turned a fairly wide raincoat upside down and was surprised that its shape pretty much resembled the shape of a Djembe drum already. All I had to do were some adjustments.
I closed the hole where the face of the raincoat-wearer used to be. For that I used a piece of strong and waterproof truck tarpaulin. Then I narrowed down and extended the former sleeves and turned them into soft and thick shoulder straps. The drawstring of the former hemline is now used to close the JADJEMBA. The pockets of the raincoat can still be used and come in handy.

Here's the result, it's waterproof and padded to protect the Djembe drum in wind and rain. 

And here's the raincoat before, no longer with us that way.

New Items on Fairnopoly

I just posted some new items, check them out here.

...It’s an UPCYCLING adventure!

I just updated my about page on my website. Let me know what you think.

Substantielles Minimum is a way of life, and an UPCYCLING adventure.

The medium is fashion, the message universal: You can decide which guidelines you want to base your life on.

Substantielles Minimum is dreaming of a world of round colorful houses, of people riding bicycles wearing handmade clothing, men in dresses, women with shaved heads, crooked and awry cucumbers, small and dented potatoes, two-headed sheep, where no one gives a damn, and all is natural and fine the way it is. In Substantielles Minimum, everyone is defining their own standards of beauty and ways of life. People grow their own food or borrow it from their neighbors. Work doesn't mean pressure, stress, and boredom. Clocks and schedules and timelines and smartphones don't exist. You knock at your friend's door and come in and share a piece of cake or a bottle of liquor.

In Substantielles Minimum TO COOPERATE beats TO COMPETE, TO SHARE knocks out TO ACCUMULATE and TO BE is more important than TO HAVE.

Two More PURUs

The first PURU is made from an olive green turtleneck sweater that was tighter fitting than the grey sweater I used first. This gives it a slimmer shape.

This PURU is also closed with a drawstring and it features 

a convenient small green inside pocket.

On the back, the former turtleneck has been turned into a hidden pocket 

for love letters or secret maps.

 The other new PURU is made from a lovely brown sweater from a friend of mine. I was thinking about keeping it as a sweater, but it was so freaking itchy. I'm glad I came up with a use that keeps it intact, it would have been too heartbreaking to cut it apart.

 The inside pocket has been a neck pouch before. Whenever I wore that during a trip 

I felt like a complete idiot that has "tourist" written on the forehead. 

Now it has a new underground life.

#13 PURU Backback made from Old Sweater

Don't ask me how and why I had the idea to turn a sweater into a backpack, I don't remember myself. Sometimes ideas come out of nowhere like a flash of lightning and then they materialize and stay.
The funny thing is that the sweater-backpack seems to work. I always try out my new creations for comfort and practicality, so I took the backpack to the supermarket and man, so many things fit in, kilos of potatoes and oranges, no problem. The material is pretty strong too, and I secured the sleeves/straps with so many seams that it's almost impossible to come undone.
One just has to get used to wearing an upside-down sweater with food inside on the back, that's all.

before

after

The wide straps/former sleeves make it comfortable to wear and it resembles a vest from the front.

It features an inside pocket for organizing your stuff. In this case it's a little purse that used to be worn by a friend of mine, hopefully in her teenage years.. 

New SCONCHO Ponchos

This one is featuring a dog leash as a belt.

This pink-rose-salmon-dream is made from very soft scarfs and has a hood.

#12 Sweater TOLAPU made from potholders

#11 Scarfs MASCHA Made From Painter Sheet Covers

Painter sheet covers are very thick and dense so they are warm and the wind won't get through. On the inside the MASCHAs are lined with soft scarfs to add some comfort.

The purple one has warm purple gloves attached to it.

 

 

 The last two feature a pocket on the outside. It's made from a shoulder pad and can be closed with a zipper.

WARNING! This Might Contain Traces of Honesty

THE MARKET EXPERIENCE

WARNING! This blog post doesn’t follow the design blog formula “many pictures, little text, not too much information”. Plus it might contain traces of honesty. Writing this is not recommended by any brand marketing expert. Don’t try this at home. 

Click here for the undemanding version.

After my participation in another market last Saturday I asked myself why it is always so frustrating for me to participate in designer markets. Here’s a guess. 

I am disappointed at people’s lack of interest to take the time to find out what’s behind the clothes, stop and look and actually read what I wrote. I took all the copies of my program back home unread. It would have been better to burn them on the spot. 

I am fed up with the lameness of life nowadays. The political correctness of people, the monotonous "cool" electronic music. The blogging about nothing. It's all surface.

I feel misunderstood when people - especially the ones that should know me better - pity me for not selling things. Selling is not my priority. It would be far more rewarding to have interesting conversations about my work/upcycling/the world/whatever. Money is a necessary evil everyone needs more or less of in this society. But human interaction and spreading ideas does give me something.

It’s also frustrating when people pity me for transporting the stuff with a bicycle wagon. They assume I have to do it because I don’t have a car and they offer to borrow me one. I do not have a car for many reasons and I intend to keep it that way. Transporting stuff by bike is satisfying to me. I don’t add more exhaust to the city, I don’t use gas that people fight in wars over, I only use my physical strength, I stay fit. It’s a challenge and it’s fun. Obviously not many people share that type of fun.

Many people went to that market mainly to quickly find some Christmas presents; because they feel obliged to do so; preferably cheap ones. That's frustrating. Why presents, why Christmas, why material things, why the pressure? 

Yeah, it was a market with small businesses, no mass production, a lot of upcycling, some good stuff to discover. But that seems to be less important to people than the act of buying stuff; and if they do buy from small businesses and/or upcycled products, then how many are actually aware about the impact of their actions, how many do it for idealistic reasons and how many because it’s fashionable? And how many do it without even knowing/being aware or just because the product they like happens to be produced like that?

I became aware that I do expect too much and I am too optimistic. I always think next time will be different; a different type of market, different types of people; my message will be clearer and therefore it will be heard and so on. But essentially it’s always the same thing in a slightly different setting. I have to find better ways to get my message across.

Voodoo Market Pictures

Here are some impressions from the Voodoo Market yesterday.
It was a great market with lots of interesting products and a special type of atmosphere.

Program for the Voodoo Market tomorrow