Polka dot: Habbot's Bell grey loafer

What is it about closing a definitive chapter in your work-life that sends you shoe shopping? It's got me wondering whether there is a uniquely symbolic dimension to shoes that I haven't considered until now. I cyber stalked these Habbot flats last week and followed it up with an in-store visit just the other day. This is the shoe crafted by an Italian artisan for an eastern suburbs housewife. The leather! Hand-hole punched detailing! The tassle! I love them.

At $390 they are way more than I like to pay for a pair of shoes. On the other hand I am in a vulnerable – or is that open – state of mind?

Obus

I wish I wrote more often about shops, and retail generally. I think about the sector a lot. Like a trend forecaster with a crystal ball, I often speculate about its future. Is it bright or uncertain? Mostly I think about the dynamic relationship between online and real world environments, services and experiences. What can bricks and mortar offer, that online can't? How does a shop and the brand's online presence intersect? I have to say, I think Obus does it better than most. Not only do they make awesome clothes right here in Australia that I like to wear (hello Obus knit), that age gracefully and hold their shape but I like visiting their stores and staff. Last week I realised the feeling was mutual when I was invited along to their Spring VIP launch. You heard right, I count as a very important person. I had a stellar time drinking champagne, listening to some talented musos plucking at guitars while ladies swirled around me clutching hangers. Most featured the latest Kachina print. At one point with so many people wearing the same outfit, I thought I might be in Michel Gondry's video clip – that one he shot for Kylie Minogue where Kylie passes a hundred times over in a London street. Did I buy anything? Not that night. I was a bit too weirded out by everyone looking identical. As a twin, I've got that covered. I'll go back though. 

Photo: Courtesy of Obus

The Sullivans

When I think about representations of family life and home and my own experience of family life and home I am often, make that always, struck by how life bears so little resemblance to its fictional and documentary counterparts. Why is that? Is it the imperative of narrative and its forward momentum? The constraints of genre? An emphasis of things going to shit for the sake of 'compelling' drama? To be honest I don't really mind. I am not looking for a mirror. But recently I saw a short film Our American Revolution – a portrait really – of a family called the Sullivans made by the talented Keri Light, that did something really nice. It presented the Sullivans, writer Robert Sullivan, his wife artist Suzanne and teenage daughter, through the prism of their house and their found, collected and made objects.

The objects – a porcelain rendition of crossing the Deleware river, a dragon fly, wisdom teeth, a glass jar holding the wooden shavings of a dear friend's house, a birds nest (with eggs) found in Suzanne's family home back in Portland, Oregon, dried flowers and branches picked up here and there, home-made books, artworks and musical instruments – fill the house like a cabinet of curiosities. Robert and Suzanne recount the story of their first meeting and of falling in love twenty four years earlier, taking it in turn to add detail to the story. There was something deeply moving about the life they had made together and a relationship with home that it expresses. Robert, under the spell of Henry David Thoreou (1817–1862) describes it as the 'poetry of the everyday'. When I think on family life, mostly the pleasures of family life,  its always against the backdrop of home – how we live together sharing stories, meals, the veggie patch, music. I am describing a pretty common experience but Our American Revolution made it seem new.