For some reason I've been wandering around Parnell for whatever reason the past few days and then yesterday found the reason and was even speaking to a landlord this morning but during that wandering about I decided to check out the high end furniture outlets down on the Strand.
I love well made stuff and ever find the high end proprietors and servers just as interesting as their pretence fights somehow to be welcoming and almost apologetic at my obviously woe-begotten carcase of meat.
I would hope that the above isn't something I carry as a burden but a fairly honest depiction of what my own welcoming attitude might bounce off then be pushed off into a corner where the dust of in-consequence lies frightened until picked up by the yawning mouth of a European assembled vacuum cleaner.
Anyways I was in Matisse and upstairs at that when I duly decided that after three attempts to define whether I needed help to bear forth with a question which simply put was how do people who make this kind of stuff in New Zealand get it onto this floor.
What followed, and while I knew I was to feel appreciative that such was given alike the dole to the unwashed, I couldn't help but be somewhat aghast at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, that such serious an undertaking was at best complete bosh and tosh, but was held in such esteem that to disbelieve the seriousness of it all was tantamount to a high treason... of which then I am entirely guilty. It was insane!
First I was told such is as made to be design must be enrolled at a show in Italy and taken there to be schmoozed over, I kind you not, she used schmoozed like it was a technical tool that only the elites can sharpen with clarity of purpose, then after having schmoozed themselves into a reliability worth embracing these bits of wood and metal and whatever else might be fashionable at the time would be taken up as worthy of production by Italian factories with defined pedigree and standing as to make them worthy yet again of the ticks in boxes that amount to being in favour.
But that's just the start. Then comes bit's having been made by Italians flown back to New Zealand and put on the floor at Matisse to then be picked out by interior designers and architects, for God knows no actual individual without proper training has taste, working alongside the proprietors who, incidentally, are all properly trained, the best having the regard of being taught by overseas institutions - hopefully in a foreign language, discuss and find merit in the long drawn out choices which though undoubtedly might last a lifetime because they are so well made but would more obviously be castaways when, heavy forbid, the next season see's them as pretentious, or more likely, just simply dated.
And that's insane! It's not even that Italians, or any other Europeans don't make fine and hard wearing furniture. I don't dispute that. What I find insane is that New Zealanders are led such a merry chase just to get something that could just as easily be made here but then it's not really about that is it? It's all about creating exclusivity and while the product may actually be better it's not because we can't do better here in New Zealand but that any money which might be used to support such an industry is divided between the creators of the exclusivity.
Before this particular set of beliefs, which incidentally is what they are - a belief system, seemed only slightly ridiculous to me as it really had no bearing on ever being able to serve me in some way but then when I think I might be able to serve that need in the market, mostly for my brother who has a factory working leather and is constantly telling me how crap most of these chairs actually are, then being told the only way in will cost multiple thousands of dollars and is basically a gamble irrespective of whether I have a good usable product then that's not only ridiculous but insane.
But this is what too much money in too few hands creates, I know that's a bit a leap but it does seem to be what is going on. But why is that? It can't really be the money it self as that's only money which is just a medium of exchange so it must be something to do with having more than is actually required and that that is more than others have then there must be some form of justification to make those who have more than they need feel they deserve that much and I suppose that's when it starts becoming insane.
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