Ra's Roundup #32
What is niche, love as resistance and orange hues.
Good Day to you everyone, it’s another edition of Ra’s Roundup.
At my day job, I open the store quite a bit, which means it’s my duty to clean the store. With no music on in the shop, early in the morning, it’s easy to hear traffic from the street. This morning in particular a blaring beat came thru the doors as I was windexing the store doors. I looked up and spotted a couple siting in their car with a huge bottle of Don Julio (tequila) and what looked like fruit punch in the cup holder. I immediately shazamed the song which turned out to be “Last Last” by Burna Boy which samples Toni Braxton’s “He Wasn’t Man Enough”.
It wasn’t even 10AM and this couple was getting quality time in bright and early. The street I work on… there’s always something to see and I actually thought this boozy link up was quite cute.
Car dates with short or long drives and parking somewhere with a little booze or bud are like a right of passage. The parked car becomes a fish bowl, a bubble, a safe space in violent times.
These sorts of bubbles exist in the company of loved ones and love, I’ve heard, is a form of resistance.
Now, let’s jump into this roundup!
Flashback to Helmut Lang 1992
I was searching for some old Helmut Lang images for personal style inspiration and found these images. I love the red tights with the skirt and the contrast of the shiny red textiles against black.
Asrt’d Still Life images by Bobby Doherty
I love how this photographer uses the NYT budget to create these affluent feeling still lives. Everyone of them feels expensive and hyper commercial.
Signs of Aging, Signs of wisdom on Naked Beauty Planet.
Naked Beauty Planet is a podcast hosted by Brooke DeVard Ozaydinli
w/in the last year the podcast added YouTube to their digital presence. We can now watch Ozaydinli and her many guests in a talk show format. Sometimes it’s even recorded in front of a live audience! Naked Beauty Planet is in its tenth year and I love that it’s pioneered by a Black women. I have learned so many beneficial beauty notes like how our eyes are the first to age and get wrinkles, because we use them so much. Aging hands is close to the top of that list as well.
The tip Joomee Song shared in this episode was to buy a good eye cream and take the time to massage your eye area every day.
I incorporate beauty tips like this one into my routine over time and I have yet to be lead astray by this program.
If you want a clip from this episode where you’ll learn why Orgasms are good for your skin click HERE
Niche, Niche, Niche.
Niche is defined as:
noun
a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.
adjective
denoting products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.
Okay, so way back when I was in college studying fashion marketing retail merchandising (2007-2013) I remember the importance of finding your businesses niche.
More recently though i’ve seen these hyper niche content strategies work extremely well online. Like 2girls1bottl3 on IG their concept is straight forward, [Make cocktails in public places.] Somehow these videos are hilarious, the antics are palpable. The cocktails… outrageous like the below s’mores margarita complete with marshmallow, on location in the woods somewhere.
What I like about “niching down” or “leaning in” is that you can do a simple concept and enhance the details so that the simple idea seems more complex.
Oh and here’s an article on Niche strategies going out of style and the return of mass culture.
Articles and Intel
Instagram is shifting to views as a primary metric and we should all begin to see this shift this September.
How the word Lore even showed up in this century while I’m tracking the medieval resurgence happening in fashion, culture and music… sometimes i’m baffled when the trend forecast is that spot on.
Here’s an article on World Building (as it relates to Tyler the Creator) which is pretty much a precursor to Lore.
In terms of what your job is on set – making sure that everything’s captured as well as possible – how does styling and clothing fit into that?
“It plays a very big part – whether it’s colour, a tone, a texture. The idea is to complement that in a way that is accented. It’s not the sole reason, but if we’re going to create a world that has certain colours or certain moods you want to make sure that it complements what they’re wearing.”
The director used “Brown Sugar Salmon” as a reference for how the styling choice complemented the set design. (images below)
Personally, I like when the styling contrasts the set design so that the subject stands out more deliberately. The fun in world building comes from making a universe from based upon your own sensibilities. Part of this is developing rules that keep us grounded in our concept and allow us to stand out in a viewers mind.
They (Fashion Media) is beginning to talk about Kamala Harris’ style choices on the campaign trail.
An article on building scenarios, that can be used to make long form strategies. I’m still reading it but here’s a snippet.
A post on “the mainstreaming of loserdome” this had some points to make about people who don’t want to do anything outside of work, except stay home, rot (as Simone Biles put it) and scroll.
I think this reminds me of how my parents didn’t want me to watch to much tv or it would turn my brain to rot. I think there is concern in the article for people who swear this behavior (avoiding going outside) is just a side effect of being an introvert. It could mean something more akin to social anxiety perhaps.
I do think there are less and less people contributing to internet media and more consumers simply consuming it and enjoying idle time. Everything has its own ecosystem and in this case I think the balance is shifting online from engaged audience to passive viewer. And from influencer to cultural commentator, or better yet comedian.
Not an article but, the comments on this post are from lots of voters committed to Trump. And the glaring juxtaposition highlights the fact that, for every point-of-view there is an equal and opposite point-of-view.
Next Up: Behind the Scenes of “Do The Right Thing”, with production designer Wynn Thomas
How they designed facades to look like actual places in Brooklyn.
An ad for a sampler/synthesizer I now want by Teenage Engineering.Its another medieval thang.
Sound Bank
Vibey downtempo extended smooth beat, great for background music.
An RnB ballad with lulling production and tenor male vocals.
A deep song inspired by James Baldwin, it’s such a beautiful song. I heard it live when I went to Newport Jazz Fest on August 4th, 2024.
A poolside type of vibe.
A song of positive affirmation, brazy sings…”Do you know what I deserve I deserve the finest…”
I actually hated this song at first, but went back to listen again and loved it! Sampha and Little Simz are a nice pair of vocalists to listen too.
My coworker told me about Lainey Wilson and the visuals for her assets really stuck out to me. They were just so hazy and moody, while also being extremely clean and minimal. This particular song stuck out to me.
Very Gap Store Playlist in the 90’s…
There’s this guy Mike Bise who archives Gap store playlists which were printed on paper back in the day. Bise states the following in every post
“If you worked at Gap and saved the paper playlists that came with each month's CD/tape, would you please share them with me? I post them on my Gap Playlists blog for everyone to enjoy.”
This is an example of a niche concept.
Orange Hues
instead of the regular miscellaneous image bank I wanted to select some images that fell into a theme. “Orange Hues” it is.
Images of Groups
Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad. She was such a trailblazer. This image made my mind wander thinking about her beating off crocodiles and slave catchers and navigating the way freeing 70 in 13 rescue missions! Truly incredible.
Assrt. Images
Thank you all for reading this month Ra’s Roundup! I’ll be back with another one in October!
Big Love,
Ra