This is going to be a massive post about … sheep! Yes.

My grandfather used to own a couple of sheep (5 or 6?) so I should have been able to form a valid opinion an these animals but to be honest, sheep have always been a bit of a mystery to me. They were just standing in a shadowy corner of the field, slowly chewing their daily doses of grass. And that’s it. They don’t exactly have a wide range of facial expressions and they aren’t really as soft as you’d think.

And then there’s Murakami Haruki who made it know to the book-reading public that sheep are, yes, mysterious creatures. I highly recommend Hitsuji wo meguru bôken/A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance to anyone who hasn’t read it yet to see what I mean.

Do I think sheep are cute? No. Do I find them disgusting? Not at all. Do I think they pose a threat to those of us with a historical sensibility, especially if they have a star-shaped mark on their backs? Hm, maybe. Do I find them a bit fascinating? Yes, certainly. Do I think that it’s work collecting anything and everything related to them? Yes, absolutely!!

This is what one small area of our kitchen looks like:

Now, this is what our kitchen table looks like as a background for my growing collection of sheep mugs:

Aren’t they true pieces of art? All of these were bought in the past year and I hope to hunt out a lot more in the years to come :)

PONY BROWN, one of those great little Korean stationary designers, made a really great window stickers set that also featured a white sheep with a black face, my favourite kind when it comes to sheep. One of them went on the door of my room at my parents’ house, along with a sign consisting of alphabet stickers which I arranged to say “Schafzimmer” which is a little play on words because “Schlafzimmer” is German for “bedroom”, “Schlaf” means “sleep”, but “Schaf” (without the “l”) means “sheep”, so it means something like “sheep room”, or “the sheep’s room” :)

It looks like this:

And Topshop has awesome sheep ankle socks this autumn. They were available in boring grey, in red (which weren’t in stock anymore when I wanted to buy them) and in pink. I bough a pair in pink. They have white sheep with black faces and black sheep with white faces ♥

And that’s enough sheepish nonsense for today.

This “as seen on” celebrity-inspired fashion boom is probably just one more item on the list of things to do to try and become part of the whole media-created parallel universe which is really just there to make people buy and daydream instead of making them think and trying to make a change. It’s almost like you haven’t lived if you haven’t acted out the life of someone famous by wearing the same clothes as they are.

It gets really weird and downright ridiculous, though, when someone actually retouches paparazzi shots so the celebrity in it only appears to be wearing a dress they’re trying to sell – like in these pictures of clothes horse Sienna Miller I found on eBay:

  

(Re: Sienna Miller. How did she become a so-called style icon? By being sent a gazillion Yumi and Orion mini dresses. Surely not by being a terribly talented, hard-working actress. Give me the name of just one film you remember she was in and that you’ve actually seen. For what should women admire her other than the clothes she’s wearing as free advertising for the companies which sent her their clothes for free?)

What type of person buys clothes because they were worn by celebrities? I cannot help but frown upon people who need fashion to cover up their lack of identity. Shouldn’t fashion be all about emphasizing your personality and character, and communicating your uniqueness? Sure, everyone’s free to choose what they wear but trying so hard to copy someone’s style is a bit like becoming the victim of something one might call fashion absolutism where celebrities seem to dictate what to wear, but in truth it’s just the industry telling you what to buy (and basically, to buy, to consume so they can make money with stuff people don’t even need).