Is it good that my book sells in Lidl like hot cakes?
„Beauty for everyone and for everyday”
Wanda Telakowska, 1960.
Last week has been very interesting. Ah! To say more, it could be a mine of information about our emotions for a sociologist, and for me an important moment!
In my professional life I’ve had the opportunity to talk from various stages and lecterns. On a few continents. I took part in numerous conferences and was a juror in many competitions invited by known firms and institutions. But that, what’s happening now is for me of the same, or maybe even greater, importance. Then there were many specialists listening to me – we’ve argued about nuances and “layered” approaches. We’ve been showing known examples and disputed on the criteria of assessment and interpretation. Today I have the chance to be in every Polish house! And that is terribly important. Really. That is promulgating, promoting, or whatever you want to call it, of the Polish design and its history.
Yes, yes – if you think it is easy to exhort a network of markets to promulgate design you are wrong (well, they can sell much more catchy subjects, such as nail care or miracle diet recipes that we all so like to read… :)). Hats off for my publisher, that persuaded Lidl to distribute the book that can help many people find real collectors’ rarities and objects well-designed by Polish designers around them.
Lidl (a grocery department store ??) gives us what IKEA once gave the Nordic people. It gives the access to the knowledge about design to everyone and everyday. Everyone! Am I happy that ones can put my book to their trolley – between rolls and cans with corn? I AM VERY HAPPY! At last – that is the real success of my book. Now the traffic on flea markets, in the Internet and in our homes will start for good. Finally, instead of buying anything “up to 50 PLN” for friend’s birthday will give one another old flower vases, plates and flower-bed – and that would be a great gift! That will happen because not only will we know that is no shame but also we will understand that this is fashionable and important. Thanks to that we will save something more valuable that its price – we’ll save a big chunk of our everyday history. A beautiful everyday history. What makes it possible? It’s the fact that we will know what is valuable and that we can be satisfied with it and that is SOMETHING – original gift with history!
- Beata, I have bought your book in Lidl and you know what? My husband was persuaded to my collecting. – Kasia wrote on one of the Internet forums.
- Unthinkable! Now we will buy design together with carrots, by weight! – Witold was deeply outraged.
- Polish design of the People’s Poland era in a supermarket 😛 — added Łukasz ironically with a funny emoji.
Attention! I’d like to announce that I am happy… despite the consequences that I face now I cannot take personally every remark as everyone seems to have a different one, but I can be happy that the subject reached the people and the conversation starts. As long as the conversation is polite it is worth having it J and thinking what does a well-designed object mean and how much it is worth to whom.
I am reading the collected memories and listening to my recorded talks with famous designers, whose career and success came in the 60ties and 70ties: — I’ve always wanted my objects to be accessible for everyone. You know, that is really a designer’s dream came true. Not the prizes and awards, but being on sale in shops for the people – I can hear the moved voice of a known designer. – I was so happy when I saw my products in a shop for the first time. Everyone could buy them. They were cheap, and you know, that made me more satisfied than an individual exhibition in the BWA gallery. But I would never admit it, because what would my friends-artists say… -
That’s it. What would people say 😉 As always. What would the people say?
Yes, the history came full circle. Their design (industrial design, project – choose what term you want to use as they are all right) has entered the mass market again. In pictures of my book everyone can read and see that those known object from our homes were thought through and designed by someone – and that is why we like them today so much and why they bring back warm memories and evoke positive emotions.
Alright, not with everyone the emotions are positive. But they are with some and are a pleasure not only for the eye… If someone chooses to associate them with the People’s Poland history and cannot see the beauty of their form and the style of the times when our moms and grandmas were happy, that’s their loss. If you are in doubt that only our history in the era was difficult you should read about the history of Finland, Sweden and a few more countries whose design we value and admire so much. Everyone has some bad memories and “the grass is always greener at the neighbours’”. But maybe it is worth to just look closely at our objects and discover them again.
So, to the trolleys and buy some design for your family’s afternoon tea!