They would be by local artists, and you didn't have to be famous, all you had to do was come to the store and see if we liked it. Along with the stuff from local artists, there would also be all sorts of exotic things from places around the world, made by locals there, which we would send an employed scout around the world to find. Glass beads from Italy, sherpa flags from Tibet, woodcarvings from Oaxaca. And you wouldn't need money to buy any of it. As long as you had something to trade for it, something we wanted. Perhaps some art we think is beautiful, maybe some old subway tokens made into earrings. 
And there would be a clothes section too, one part for new clothes, for sale or trade, and another that is secondhand, for free. Whatever anyone needs, but only if you need it, there would be a section for it. People who had no need for that old fleece coat, or those corduroy jeans, would drop it in that section for someone who did. Actually, the clothes thing itself is another one of my ideas, where I would have a boutique of only the most cool and un-mainstream clothes you could get, in all sizes and for all ages, something you could wear and be sure no one else would be wearing too. And the cool thing about my store would be that it would only sell it in something, like for example I would have a store that sold only things with stripes, or only things with pockets. What I especially want to do is have a store that only had one color, say, for 3 or 4 months, and then they had a new one with the next shipment of clothes. So you go in one day and all the store carries are blue clothes, every shade imaginable, and you walk in a few months later and it only sells things bright yellow. I think that would be amazing, because it would keep bringing people back.
But back to the other store. I think we would have a blog online, and publish a zine once a month, an idea from the wizardress. And in the summer, we would have a little table outside, and we would do what a grown-up friend of mine who used to live in New York would do every summer in Central Park: Give out Free Advice. Essentially, any volunteers would sit at the table and listen to people's problems and give out free advice. And perhaps we would have free hugs, as well. I can just imagine such a store, with great music always playing, and cool people always hanging around, the best graphic novels and the most interesting books stocking our shelves (We would have one shelf where you could just bring in a book you finished that you want to share with the world and pick up another that someone has dropped off, so that we could save the terrible fates of all those books left out for the garbage man), we would have all the most fantastic baubles to wear and keep and show and the most vibrant fabrics to twirl around it.
And there would be one last amazing thing: I have sworn that when I master the art of sewing, the first thing I will make is a beautiful patchwork dress, made completely of pockets, so you will enough to pick up stones on the beach, a nickel on the street, a four-leaf clover, so that you can put colored strings away for later, a cookie, and all the amazing other things the pockets will just be waiting to carry. And when I master making that dress, I will make a million, each one with different patches, so everyone can have beautiful, amazing pockets, and they will all hang in my beautiful, amazing store.
So who's up for it?
--Lola
Title Quote: Daybreaker, Beth Orton
Photo Credit: Katherine Mann
1 comment:
I AM!!!! That sounds amazing, really wonderful. It sounds like a sesond home for half of the world.
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