Purchased Memories
Earlier this year, my grandmother died. She’d been in assisted living quite a while and, as such, had few material possessions left. The last of her belongings were hurriedly swept into boxes to discard, donate, or inevitably gather dust in some closet. Her jewelry, composed of dubious pearls and eccentric charms and broaches, was pawned off for some paltry sum.
If only Baba had been Teddy Santis’ grandmother, the process would have been so much more lucrative.
My opinion of Aimé Leon Dore is already well chronicled. In brief, it’s poor. However, it has now eclipsed my nightmares — the brand known for selling an unattainable lifestyle, Porsche t-shirts for midwesterners and white women, has taken a step too far. They’re selling the contents of attics. I vaguely recall the brand’s last vintage drop, some decent old Yankees merch and a couple ceramics. This drop is nothing like that, bargain bin Soul records for first pressing prices, granddad’s model ships, beach house board games, and, worst of all, someone else’s vacation photos.
The obsession with patinaed vintage clothing has been a ridiculous thing for a while now — prices dictated by the “tasteful” “placement” of holes in jeans or paint splotches on sweatshirts. I’m not interested in making the whole blue-collar appropriation argument, I’m sure I rank among the guilty. It is regardless a funny thing to obsess over the life clothes lived before you owned them.
This though, is something new. It’s already offensive to imagine some moron dropping $450 on a poster for an art gallery he’s never heard of and likely can’t be bothered to Google — Imagine filling your Dumbo apartment with a carefully curated selection of someone else’s taste, packaged up readymade for your consumption. But good Lord, vacation photos? Not only are you buying someone else’s taste, you’re buying someone else’s memories. Who are the people dropping coin on such stupidity? Where did they get their money? Should they be the first to go in the revolution (not only do they have too much money, but they seem to lack an ability for independent thought). And lastly, are they interested in my baby photos?
