Anecdotes

including Seed the World, Make it Modular and This Box Will Set You Free.

Literature

Dimensions Unknown

What makes the wardrobe the perfect portal to other times and places? Fantasy novelist Adam Roberts enters the dark interior of this most mysterious piece of furniture to find out.

Logistics

Everything is Moving

Present-day logistics have changed the very nature of storage. Architect Clare Lyster pauses to consider the implications of things being constantly in flow.

Interview

A Storage Hunter

‘If you get into the world of unclaimed items, you’ll get a deeper snapshot of someone’s life than you can ever imagine.’

Visual Essay

The Working Wardrobe

Fast fashion has its roots in the late nineteenth century, when Paris’s haute couture houses began designing collections to be replenished biannually. Fashion writer Laura Gardner salutes the designers who have attempted to thwart this cycle in favour of function.  

Minimalism

Don’t Think. Discard!

Today’s tidying evangelists would have us believe that throwing things out will make us happier, better people. Design critic Alice Twemlow sifts through the latest mantras for overcoming clutter.

Prisons

Bar None

The prison-industrial complex has turned human incarceration into big business. Curator Nadine Botha asks if closeting people away behind bricks and mortar is still the best way to deal with perpetrators of crime.

Time Capsules

Collective Closets

Time capsules materialise one generation’s desire to store the era’s paraphernalia for the next. Author Brian Dillon wonders whether it’s possible to encapsulate the present for the future.

Interview

An Archivist

‘Paper lasts; it transcends human lifetimes. Digital doesn’t; digital is fragile.’

Exhibition

Matter of Fact

In today’s era of fake news and digital media, are objects our most reliable storytellers? Dirty Furniture asked designers from across the globe what they would store in a time capsule for 2018.

Video Games

World of Wardrobecraft

Avatars were supposed to offer video gamers limitless self-expression. Writer Rob Gallagher dresses up to find out if, in the digital world, there are new rules of the game.

Materials

Unwired

From broken car aerials to blocked drains, wire coat hangers can be turned to almost any problem. Literary academic Steven Connor pries them apart.

Interview

A Textile Sorter

‘People in Africa know their brands but it doesn’t attract a massive premium to have a Calvin Klein t-shirt…’