But so, how I came upon Prose and a very wonderful place on (in?) the Internets: When I was looking around the MINNAPALMQVIST site, I noticed that one of the places where Minna has her pieces for sale apart from The Shop is a site called ARCADEMI (yes, just, ahem, ignore the fact that they use lambda's instead of 'A's). When I got to the ARCADEMI site, I basically proceeded to develop carpal tunnel. Because this site is not just a shop, as I was expecting from its listing as a place to buy Minna's stuff. Rather, it is an 'Aesthetics Habitat', where you can encounter an online shop, a blog, and countless (well, 884) portfolios and profiles to peruse through. Furthermore, one has to either be invited or be accepted via application to sell their wares in the ARCADEMI shop.
So, you might be saying: 'Isn't that what Not Just a Label is?' Kind of. But, BUT, on ARCADEMI, anyone can be a member, meaning that regular Joes like you and I can not only have accounts, but can also use these accounts to bookmark all the portfolios we find interesting AND all the individual items for sale that we'd like to buy with our imaginary money. I have said from the beginning that I wished NJAL would have such a feature (really, I've even emailed NJAL's head honcho about it). I just do not have the time (i.e. patience) to organize all the NJAL pages I've bookmarked over the last couple of years, nor do I have the time to go through all those old bookmarks to see if those designers have posted new collections or actual web addresses. Also, NJAL is strictly(-ish) about fashion. And really, the vast majority of blogs and websites I have bookmarked are fashion-related, simply because I'm always wanting/needing more sources to find interesting stuff to post. However, scouring NJAL and my bookmarks for the prettiest dress of the day simply gets old, not to mention feeling a bit flat when there's a life outside of fashion and my closet. Enter ARCADEMI, which is a place for young and indie designers and artists of nearly all media. Meaning fashion, jewelry, interior design, graphic design, painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, etc. can all be found in one location, entertaining my ever-shortening attention span and ever-increasing list of interests with all sorts of pretty things that I wouldn't normally encounter at my usual fashion haunts. Thus also meaning that things might get a bit more interesting around here. Yep.
Oh right, to conclude my description of finding Prose: Prose's was one of the portfolios I happened to click on after perusing every last comma of the MINNAPALMQVIST profile. That was sort of anticlimactic, wasn't it?
(Photo entitled 'Sofa', by Edinburgh-based artist Thomas Adam)
