The Guardian broke the news on October 28: Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year. In an article that is at once ironic and very detailed, with graphs and figures, the British newspaper noted that the first Christmas hits are already appearing in the charts at the end of October, or that the Christmas markets are inaugurated at the beginning of November: “Halloween might not yet be upon us, but the creepy thing is, Christmas is coming – and fast,” read the first lines (the rest – and it’s worth reading – can be found here).
In my own small way, I got the first product preview for the Milano Design Week on December 9th (the collaboration between Vetsak and Aspesi, see opening picture). And it is interesting. In fact, the whole world of object production has always been very early: we never see the work that precedes a project, only the result. Today, with an increasingly hungry media and a public that wants to be informed, even this behind-the-scenes work has become news. The future is now.
At the same time, the past is returning to us in more and more tangible ways, especially in design and fashion. With the phenomenon of vintage and reissues, for example: a few weeks ago, Fritz Hansen included in its catalog a chair by Poul Kjærholm that was never produced – we wrote about it here. And this year, the Compasso d’Oro awarded three Gio Ponti designs: the Superleggera chair (1957, Cassina), the D.154.2 armchair (1953, Molteni&C), and the Blu Ponti tile collection (1960, Ceramica Francesco De Maio).
This temporal fluidity is one of the signs of our time. After all, Internet time is an indefinite, borderless present. Everything happens here and now, in a time warp as cheerful as an amusement park – or as the eponymous song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which will be half a century old this coming year and still a rebellious manifesto. Decades ago, we used to say “surfing” when we talked about the Net. Today, no one would dream of using such an old-fashioned word, but that is what we all do. We surf on a sea of information, of data, we document, we try to understand processes. We even try to determine the real impact of what we do on the planet.
All of this can be summed up in one word: culture. It is the map that we use, consciously or unconsciously, to navigate. And it is no coincidence that it is one of the key words of the next edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, which will have among its protagonists a legend like Bob Wilson, director, performer, artist and designer. We will be talking about this in the coming months.
In any case, despite any possible temporal-cultural navigation, Christmas is always December 25th, just as January 1st is the beginning of the year. It helps to have fixed points. All the best to you all.
