12> Accessories

By definition, an accessory is an object with a secondary, supplementary or subordinate function. There are accessories for our cars and houses; accessories for pets, gardens and activities, such as going back to school or going on vacation. There are accessories for us, like a tie strap or a pin-back button. And those are relatively inexpensive, if we compare them with the close to 150 billion dollars generated by jewelry sales back in 2006 (probably closer to 200 bil today). Our capitalist society is hyper-accessorized: what does that mean? How to justify this obsession with objects of secondary function? Is it that we are all set with necessary objects, objects of primary function, and that is why we set our eyes and open our wallets to objects of secondary function? How to differentiate between both categories, though? Is a Panama hat in the tropics an accessory or a primary object? Will Mandela consider his Makorotlo an accessory? I am sure that the lady with 50 pairs of shoes in her closet does not consider them accessories either (I once met someone who claimed she had 250+ pairs). The question is one of necessity versus excess, that is, buy it; use it a few times; give it away or throw it away. Accessories may be prized possessions and that is great; the problem is when they are mere disposable, momentary possessions. Excess is so integrated in our lives, we don’t detect it anymore.

120. Tie strap

An invisible contraption: the tie strap -also known as tie down. As a kid I had to wear uniform to school, beige tie included. I learned to do my Windsor and half Windsor knots early on, and I practiced them every morning for many years. But I had never heard about tie straps until today. My question: is human civilization better off with tie straps than without? While I wonder what could possibly be the profile of your typical tie strap user, I learn that this rather insignificant object fulfils the function of keeping one’s tie close to one’s shirt. I have not worn a tie since my school days but, back then, the least of my problems was that my tie would separate from my shirt in a windy day. The tie strap is made of leather or plastic and connects tie and shirt by bridging the gap between two shirt buttons and looping through the tie label in the process. This little object is designed to provide an efficient way of restricting the movement of one’s tie while remaining out-of-sight. A tie strap belongs to the world of accessories, that is, unnecessary stuff that is sold to us to minimally improve our lives or, at least, to give us the impression that our lives are greatly improved and we are truly sophisticated individuals. Who could possibly think that inventing something to keep your tie under control could significantly improve anyone’s life?

119. Zipper

It seems that it was Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, who received the first patent for an “automatic, continuous clothing closure” in 1851 (although it is Whitcomb Judson who is officially credited as the inventor of the zipper, with his 1893 patent). A zipper, like a button, is an unlikely object in its own right; so much so, that probably not everybody has seen zippers before being sewn into clothing, particularly in these wasteful times in which mending clothing is a rarity. The object we all know has a narrow fabric part (tape) with a protruding set of meshed hardware in the middle (chain) formed by small teeth and operated by a metal piece (slider). When installed in a garment, the zipper gives up its objectuality to become a silent mechanism that provides full functionality to the piece of clothing where it is installed. In a very basic way, the duality of the zipper -move one way, zip, move the opposite way, unzip- is comforting in its simplicity and allows for great symbolism and mental associations in regards to the human need for dressing and undressing, a ritual that we repeat several times every day, a ritual with different meanings and intentions, often made possible by the smart mechanism we so take for granted. Never such a “dumb” mechanism generated such complexity of thoughts, such a variety of uses, from the sinful to the pure, from the luxurious to the everyday.

118. Button

Buttons are nested objects. They are a functioning part of a larger object –a piece of garment- for which they fulfill a function that they could not fulfill on their own: a button does not have a reason to exist on its own other than as a collectible item or, perhaps, a decorative accessory. It seems that this was the case back in the Bronze Age when, according to some sources, buttons were first used not to fasten but as wearable decoration. This was 3,000 years ago. The button as a fastening device arrived into Europe 1,200 years ago, as the returning Crusaders appropriated the idea from the Turks and Mongols they had fought. Despite its fascinating, centuries-old history, the system of button and buttonhole is still prevalent and has not been put out of use by a better solution for fastening clothing. No big surprise. This fastening system is very clever in its low-tech simplicity: a vertical cut of a length slightly larger than the button’s diameter allows not only good fastening but also slight flexibility of movement, as the thread that secures the button to the fabric can slide up and down the vertical cut as needed. In the 16th century they were such a status symbol that the king of France’s garment exhibited 13,000 buttons. This is anecdotal, perhaps an exaggeration; but the everyday importance of this anonymous invention is unquestionable even if, as an object, nobody thinks about a button twice.

117. Pin-back button

The invention of celluloid in 1869 made possible the development of the first pin-back buttons: thin sheets of celluloid were used to cover printed paper and give the effect of the traditional enamel badge at a significantly lower cost. The new process used less metal and avoided the need for soldering or screwing. The first pin-back buttons were 1 inch in diameter and quickly became a low-cost vehicle for personal and political expression and national pride. Since the early 20th century, pin-back buttons quickly evolved into universally accepted personal accessories, wearable signs of identity that allowed individuals to display their cultural or political preferences in public in a non-confrontational way. In the United States, the pin-back political button, as we know it, first appeared in the 1896 presidential race, between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. Since then, buttons have been present in every political campaign. They have been embraced by icon artists - John Lennon’s peace buttons- and full social subgroups -the punks in the mid seventies. There is something reassuring about having to display a message in such a small surface, having to wear it as an addition to one’s clothing. Wearable content is steadily implanted in our society and has been a mass consumer trend for decades. Buttons are an interesting hybrid half way between content and accessory. That’s why 150 years after they were first developed they are still around filling a void that high technology is unable to fill.

116. Bottle cap soccer

The advent of aluminum cans as containers for carbonated drinks epitomizes our current wasteful society. Before cans, glass bottles with steel caps were the norm. They still are for most beers, while sodas slowly evolved from aluminum can to plastic bottle with plastic cap, an equally wasteful choice compared with the glass bottle option. Glass bottles are recyclable and fully reusable, and as far as I remember the days when they were the only option, everyone recycled them as a matter of habit. Steel bottle caps are also reusable. In Spain, one of the favorite options for kids not too long ago was using bottle caps to assemble soccer teams and play miniature soccer matches on improvised surfaces (a small rug, a smooth floor surface, a table, etc.). It was as easy as cutting a round picture of your favorite soccer player and inserting it in the cap. Full teams could be assembled quickly, carried in the pockets of your trousers and deployed instantly for a match. The ball was a garbanzo bean or a rounded sphere made of aluminum paper. Looking back it seems an amazingly creative, resourceful, intelligent way of inventing games and making a lot from a little, probably something seriously foreign to today’s kids. In Spain there is a revival of this pastime. It is called Futbol Chapas and has clubs, a 16-page official book of game rules and regulations and, since 2005, an official national championship.

115. Baseball cap

According to a recent article from the BBC baseball caps, as we know them today, originated in 1954. The style is called 59Fifty and remains the official cap for baseball players. It is a mystery how 59Fiftys have become an almost universal must wear item for an array of social subgroups: from urbanites to politicians, from movie directors to cool wannabes. There are two prevailing variations of the baseball cap: the rather tall, boxy version, the one grandpas and farmers wear –envision the John Deere logo; and the snug version made out of a soft crown of six or eight triangular sections of solid-color wool fabric, usually the truly fashionable item. Cap visors are reinforced with an insert of a stiffening material such as buckram or plastic. The functionality of the cap is rather parabolic: while the rim of a hat –a Panama hat, for instance- goes around to protect the full head from the sun, the visor of a cap only protects the face of the wearer: while hats are spatial, caps are eminently frontal, with the visor acting as a pedestal for the message sewn in the front of the cap, be it the emblem of a sports team or a corporate name. This communication aspect of the caps has taken over any other design consideration: caps are what they communicate –just like printed T-shirts are a moving advertisement before they are a garment- and their functionality is minimal. Still cool?

114. Panama hat

The famous New York Times photo of Theodore Roosevelt waving his hat after returning to the United States from a visit to the Panama Canal popularized the use of Panama hats. The misconception is that these hats originated in Panama: they originated in Ecuador’s coastal town of Montecristi. In 1835, a Spanish businessman called Manuel Alfaro started producing the first “Montecristis” or “sombreros de paja toquilla,” later called Panama hats. They were made from toquilla straw hand-split into strands not much thicker than thread, and finely woven. Panama hats are bleached with sulphur or dyed: browns are usually for men's hats, pastels for women's hats, white and cream are universal. After weaving, the hat body is washed, pummeled to provide regularity, and dried. The sides and crown are carefully beaten to even them out. Initial ironing of the brim through a cloth is necessary to remove undulations. At last, before blocking, the raw edges of fibers are trimmed from the brim and back woven to prevent fraying. Hand blocking with steam and iron or with the use of a steam press produces the familiar pattern styles. In 1909 Roosevelt returned to the United States wearing a hat made in Ecuador, but things have change since then: can anyone imagine president Obama returning to the United States wearing an Afghan Karakul after a visit to Afghanistan, or a Pakol after visiting Pakistan? Would the New York Times publish the photo?

113. Makorotlo

The image of Nelson Mandela wearing a mokorotlo (the traditional Basotho hat) and kobo (Bashoto blanket) is timeless: the image of the great man wearing the supreme symbol of Lesotho, the handwoven and ubiquitous straw Basotho hat, speaks of the power of objects to be both functional extensions of our body and collective symbols. Mokorotlo and kobe are important everyday objects in Lesotho because the weather conditions change from blazing sun during the day to chilly breeze after sunset. But the handwoven conical hat trascended its intended function to become a national symbol, so powerful that in the past was part of the blue, white and green Lesotho flag: how powerful and socially accepted must the shape of an object be to become the symbol depicted in the national flag? The form of this object was also directly translated into a mokorotlong -in Masaru, a handicraft center. This translations from object to building, from utilitarian thing to symbolic cultural icon, from hand-woven to team-built, pose the question of the multiple facets of form and the social value of accepted form as a signifier and an element of cohesion and national identity. It is hard to infer that sort of reach from the humble shape of the mokorotlo hat, a shape that is similar in other parts of the world, other cultures that also adapted the cone to create hand-woven hats. But a hand-crafted object becoming a national symbol speaks volumes of the local priorities.

112. Ukhamba

Ukhamba baskets are specifically designed to hold low-alcohol, fermented sorghum or millet beer on ceremonial occasions. The offering of a communal basket of beer is customary when guests visit a Zulu household. Ukhambas are usually bulb-shaped, rigid, and watertight. This last feature is a combination of the tightness of the special coil weaving and the material used, ilala palm. Ilala palm fronds are collected, pulled into strips, naturally dyed and hung to dry to manufacture the fibers for basket weaving. Even if the palm fronds have a waxy coating that makes them ideal for the crafting of watertight baskets, the baskets require that their pores be sealed from the inside with a paste of coarsely-ground corn, prior to their first use. It can take up to one month to produce a medium-size ukhamba that will be unique in size, shape and pattern. Weaving is a female craft, usually passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Girls begin weaving at early age and are usually able to support themselves on the proceeds of their basket sales. The design of ukhamba baskets is so advanced, that when filled with beer and kept in the shade, there is a natural process of water condensation on their outside surfaces. As outside temperatures are extremely hot and water evaporates, the liquid inside remains cool. The basket in the picture is approximately 12.5 in. (31.7 cm.) in diameter, 18.75 in. (47.6 cm.) in height, with a 5 in. (12.7 cm.) mouth opening.