shabby chic

'You know that ceiling is shabby chic? There are people who pay big money to do that to their whole wall.'

Erika's here for her show (tomorrow, with a sneak preview tonight - hooray!), and she's standing in my living room, all smiles and rants and warmth.

She's pointing at the corner of the ceiling that's been home to at least five generations of rainwater mushrooms, where the paper's long peeled off, the plaster's rotten, and the remaining ceiling hangs in yellowgrey clumps. The corner of the ceiling that's inspired a novella size collection of angry letters and emails and photo essays. The corner that lets the cold and wet in. The corner of structural stress. That one.

The kind of people who buy converted lofts and insist on leaving the exposed brickwork because it adds 'authenticity' to their dwelling are, apparently, all over this thing called shabby chic - this movement, this interior design fashion metastasis that's spawning a whole colony of little spores in the form of websites and companies and books with titles like 'Junk Style' and 'The Shabby Chic Home'.

It does occur to me that she might be playing naughty cartoon pranks on me - - I mean really: decorating a whole wall to look as if it's growing mould?? - - but a google search confirms it.

We look around the room. The fake leather upholstered chair with the split along the seam; the patches of damp seepage on the wall under the window; the old wooden chest that only got half stripped before it went into service as a side table...and the ceiling.

Oh. This place could be a centre spread for shabby chic, if only the mould would spread wider and there were a few more objet's d'art lying around.

I don't love the cracks in my life, the uneven seams and strange stains, but neither do I hate them. They are what they are. Signs of life. Signs of a sloppy landlord who's more worried about saving money than solving a 5 storey leak, evidence of poor heating and degraded insulation, broken seals on double glazing, and a tired but sweet comfy chair bought from a second hand shop because sitting on the floor isn't what it was before I turned 30.

If there's dust on a windowsill, it's there because I have things to do other than housework. If there's mold on a wall it's because I live in a place that's too cold and too damp to resist growing, no matter how many times it's wiped down.

I knew long ago that if I wanted to dedicate myself to constructing a life of flawless presentation and premeditation it would be a full time job, fuelled by insecurity and concern about What Other People Think. I don't mean this in a 'life's too short to stress about the details' way (though it is) but rather a 'I've got bigger things to worry about than whether my interior scheme really says "me"' kinda way.

So who are these people buying books written by a woman with tasteful Friends (TM) hair and a fetish for delicate lacework who's managed to spin out a whole online empire on basically telling people how to use paint stripper and go to a garage sale??

Who are these freaks rubbernecking squalor, finally so bored of their brushed steel and minimal modernist interiors that they've taken to plundering the second/third/fourth/fifth hand stocks just to spice things up a little with a splash of Real?

While the Rachel's are out haggling over the price of authenticity, the rest of us are actually living la vida mouldy and not feeling all that flattered that the frayed edges of our lives are now appreciated by the up and ups as a fashionable and witty statement piece.

I guess this shabby chic thing shouldn't suprise me. I've grown accustomed to seeing working class drag in the queer/gay community for a long time now (ironic bingo and gas station attendant shirts with 'Frank' on the chest, anyone?), and the trendy tramp look sported by alterna-boys and girls is nothing new. I guess all that's happened is it's finally hit the bored of suburbia and the well-heeled new urbanites - the people with money to burn and cut and distress and fray in the name of self-expression and style.

So, see you all down at the car boot this Sunday, yah?