When leg lifting is a good thing
It's fair to say that between us Scottish-extracted husband in training (SHIT), Dog and I form a fairly dysfunctional family unit.
Never happier than when discovering new and inventive ways to irritate the heck out of each other, we tend to be at our creative best when spurred on by a healthy dose of inhouse competition.
Take for example Dog. Currently Dog is taking great pleasure from spending his mornings hanging off the clothesline. When not using our good rugs to practice his abseiling technique, we usually find he has instead used all our clean washing as target practice when he lifts his leg.
In recognition of his most unusual achievements, SHIT and I have come up with an equally clever way to exact our revenge.
Where we would normally elect to neutralise Dog's odour via a warmed towel and some quality heater time, now we achieve the same result via the blast of some icy water administered by a high-pressure hose.
Clearly inspired by our genius, Dog has now upped the stakes by building into his routine a daily dose of gratuitous digging - where he spends his afternoons burying his
bed in the garden, forcing us to spend our
nights sharing our mattress with him.
Even I can see that our silly little games may not be everyone's cup of tea. But while we may have an odd way of showing it, even we recognise each other's unique talents for what they are - unique - even if no one else manages to share our enthusiasm.
Which is why I need to take my hat off to UK department store Selfridges.
For it this renown retailer who has had the foresight to recognise the unique talents of England's fresh crop of up and coming fashion design talent.
Always among those occupying front row at student coming out parades, Selfridges has opted to give a select few a leg up by staging a graduate-style pop up shop within its high profile London store.
Having spotted their talent during the country's collaborative Graduate Fashion Week, the store's buying team has selected 20 of what it considers the best garments to feature in installments built in its Oxford Street site.
Believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, the initiative not only offers graduates the chance to sell their designs to a broader audience, but eliminates their concerns over agents, intermediaries or manufacturers. Not only that but the lucky few who designs have been selected will have the full retail price of any garments sold returned directly to them.
While some may see it as more of a hindrance than a help, the initiative has already prompted singer turned designer Victoria Beckham to snap up three pieces offering even greater exposure for one lucky aspiring designer.
Sadly design students who have elected to study fashion in Australia are unlikely to ever be afforded the same opportunity.
It is a sad indictment of the industry here that with the exception of TAFE NSW Sydney Institute Fashion Design Studio's Crosser Awards, students here have more chance of stumbling upon La Beckham herself than they ever do attracting major retailers to their graduating parades. In most cases local fashion media can't even be bothered to make an appearance as was the case during Rosemount Australian Fashion Week's 'Four' showing where barely half the venue's 500-plus seats remained empty.
Genius comes in many forms, can we really afford to discount one sector of our industry so readily?