Clever Commentary Jewelry by Amsterdam Designer Sacha Lannoye

Amsterdam based product designer Sacha Lannoye has a clever line of jewelry and accessories for the neck and body that make a commentary on society. Gold-plated and silver-plated brass necklaces, brooches, nameplates for shoes and belts are engraved with words that suggest more than just decoration.

Blablabla and YadaYada:



above and below: "Blablabla" and "YadaYada" are persiflages on the well-known golden necklaces of someone’s name. "Blablabla" and "YadaYada" anticipate the superficial side of communication between people. For those who wear it, as well as for the viewers "Blablabla" and "YadaYada" confronts and shows the relativism of things.

size: 80 x 14 x 1,7 mm
material: gold-plated / silver-plated brass




Flowers For Your Lapel:


above: People are constantly looking for renewal. At the same time they want recognition to see the obvious. "Brooch", "Red Rose" and "Corsage" are representations of the actual thing.

Size: 47 x 14 x 1,7 mm
Material: gold-plated / silver-plated brass

Max 20 kg:


above: "Max 20 kg" makes people think about the absurdity to strive for the perfect body. But what do we perceive as "the perfect body"? No healthy woman, old enough to walk on high heels, can measure up to this required weight limit. It indicates that nobody’s fits this propagandistic ideology of the body.

Material: leather, gold-plated / silver-plated brass


Size Zero:



above: A golden or silver label is attached to this belt, which reads "Size 34" (unfortunately, this is a European size, not U.S. sizing so it doesn't make as much sense in the states). The label covers up the original jeans-label that would reveal your real size. "Size Zero" criticizes the pressure society puts on woman towards their appearance. Lots of woman get frustrated, even obsessed by wanting to look skinny.

Size: 88 x 58 x 1,7 mm
Material: leather, gold-plated / silver-plated brass


Workaholic:


above: "Workaholic" is a necklace that mocks with people who are obsessed with their work. It's a customized, golden business card, which you can wear as jewellery. This thick golden plate also functions as a small carrying case for your own business cards.

size: 62 x 89,7mm x 7mm or 89,7mm x 62 x 7mm
material: gold-plated / silver-plated brass

photography by Diederik Boel

about the designer:
Sacha Lannoye studied product-design at the academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht (ABK). She currently lives and works in Amsterdam.

There are many beautiful and practical products available all over the world.
Despite the overkill of these products, caused by mass-production, people's needs remain unfullfilled.

Sacha Lannoye occupies herself with these subjective needs of people. Her products represent her way of thinking, which is a response to human behavior. She strives to combine content, function and aesthetics in a way that they reinforce each-other.

By putting recognizable ingredients in a new context, products pass out a message and show people her astonished, ironic view of the world. Therefore they become powerful tools, reaching beyond material matter. (text courtesy of soonsalon)

See more of the clever products by Sacha Lannoye here
The above jewelry is available for purchase from the Soon Salon.

Soup For Sluts & Other Rad Ramen Noodles

The folks over at Blue Q have taken the college student's staple, instant Ramen Noodle Soup, and cleverly repackaged four different flavors with hilarious names. The genuine and yes, authentically edible, instant Asian noodle soups come in the following flavors; Soup For Sluts [spicy vegetable], Wasted & Broke [spicy beef], Hello Lazy [chicken flavored] and Din Din Fuk Chow [shrimp] and cost $2.99 each for each 3oz 85g package. Admittedly a bit more that the .39 cent versions you can find at your local market, but the reaction when someone sees them is worth the $2.60 difference.






Buy them here

Crack Up At The Crandall Family Christmas Cards.

above: In 2005, the Crandall family sent out their own version of the childrens' book, Pat The Bunny

Meet a family whose yearly Christmas Cards are way better than yours. Not only are these people better looking than your family, but they are far more clever, too. Before you scoff and think to yourself "Well, you haven't seen our family Christmas cards," I don't have to. Read the post and you'll see that I'm right.

Court Crandall is a talented creative director, screenwriter, author, father and beer league hockey player and someone I worked with too many years ago to put in print.

Each year Court, along with his equal parts stunning and smart wife Denise and their two handsome sons who don soap opera hunk names Chase and Zane, poke fun of themselves in their annual holiday cards. Nothing and no one is sacred as they mock everything from menopause to puberty to the Yankees. What a nice and welcome change from the family Christmas cards that take themselves seriously or worse, pretentiously. The fact that they come from this disgustingly good looking, trim and tanned family makes one like them even more.


above: Court and Denise at their 1992 nuptials

I wouldn't dare attempt to re-word Court's award winning prose, so I will simply reproduce his blog post here for you with the images of their family Christmas cards for the past 17 years so you can enjoy these hilarious annual greetings from the Crandall Family. Perhaps these will inspire you to move away from matching sweaters and frozen smiles in your next family Christmas card.

The text below is taken directly from the blog Holding Court and is written in the first person voice of Court Crandall:

This is probably the longest running campaign I’ve ever been a part of. It started just after my wife, Denise, and I got married in 1992. I had been in California for two years and wanted a way to punk my friends back in Boston. So, for our first Christmas together, we sent out a holiday card that showed us rollerblading our tree home. (Something we actually did by the way, because I was driving a, um, Miata. Trust me, it was super cool back then. Super.)



As we got older, life graciously provided us with a number of props: A new house, two children, a cat, a dog and a fake nanny to name a few. Sometimes these accessories worked. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they needed to use the litter box in the middle of the shoot. Regardless, there have always been plenty of stories that went along with the shooting of the annual Christmas card. Most of which involve one or both boys misbehaving, my wife getting frustrated to the point of tears and all of us riding home in silence. Typically, to some song on the car radio like “We are Family” that accentuated what a disappointment we are as a family unit.

Then there’s the fulfillment process, which Denise runs like a Nike factory in rural Malaysia. Each family member gets a pile of envelopes, a stack of labels and whatever saliva you can muster to seal roughly … nine hundred thousand invitations. You see, due to the card’s increased popularity over the years, numerous people have requested to be added to the mailing list — a list that now includes family members, friends, folks I know but don’t particularly care for, complete strangers and the guy who owns the Indian restaurant down the street.

That said, with time, our sons have come to not only endure but embrace the annual Christmas card tradition. And they’ve learned that, while humiliating, being dressed in togas, having fake pubic hair applied to their face and Hershey’s chocolate coagulating in their ears, are small prices to pay for getting attention from chicks at school a week later.

There are 18 years of cards in all. While I like some more than others, the thing I’m most proud of, is that all four of the people who are featured throughout are healthy, we’re all still together and not a day goes by that we don’t share at least one really good laugh.

2010:


I hope you enjoy the latest submission (shown above). I hope you have a great holiday with the folks you love most. And I hope that with time, the chocolate smell in my wife’s car will dissipate.

Previous Crandall Family Christmas Cards:

2009:

2008:

2007:

2006:

2005:






2004:

2003:

2002:

2001:

2000:

1999:

1998:

1997:

1996:

1995:

1994:

1993:

all images reproduced with permission from the Crandall Family

I look forward to their cards to come and I bet you do now, too.

Merry Christmas!