You probably saw an article in Furniture Quarterly (FQ) entitled, “Put Your Feet Up: A Guide to Next Year’s Top Ottomans.” It’s been making the rounds of late, popping up on the feeds of those most worried about supply chain struggles in the context of last minute Christmas shopping.
I hope you didn’t read it, because it’s easier to convince people of something they haven’t read than to try and erase their biases wholesale once they’ve made a full-on intellectual ingestion. I’ll assume you only skimmed it out of politeness.
The article employs several nefarious strategies to gain your sympathy. For one thing, it frames Ottomans as creatures of comfort, eliding the tacit approval of genocide you give after a single toe reaches its primary propping position. Anyone remember Armenia and Attaturk? Or are you too busy admiring the threads on the plush cushion resting at your feet to notice?
Fifthly, the piece propels the reactionary furniture agenda through a seemingly benign lens of a person’s bunion, which is real and pungent, but from a hygiene perspective, simply catastrophic.
Seventeenly, the reporter traffics in innuendo, alluding to what sneakerheads track into places, as if someone barefoot is in capable of stepping in things and bringing them into the home.
Then there’s the issue of word choice. Is it Ottoman? Or Ottowoman? How about Ottoperson? This ongoing debate subsuming subsets of interior decorating subcultures isn’t even addressed.
The bottom line is that I’m always right. The furniture I like is the right furniture. Foot stools are a thing, a real thing, not a cynical item brought in to upstage classic sofas and chairs. An ottoman is for sitting, relaxing, and eating grapes. But you wouldn’t know that by this calculated piece of fourth estate trash. The fact remains that each of those activities can be accomplished more easily in a chaise lounge. Search online for images of Dom DeLuise if you don’t believe me.
No comments:
Post a Comment