Movin On Up

Moving On...

Ja, ne? Blogspot it's been real but time to move KoKOFIFI to a slightly loftier space. Our new site, www.KoKOFIFI.com will launch in the coming week or so. Stay Tuned!

NYC Mustardseed

Crazy for her color & print combos. M. Makhene

Cheap & Cheerful

A sweet little lady from Peru asked if I'd bought these socks in her home country. Nope! H&M men's section. Sometimes cheap and cheerful still quite thrills. Of course, that's especially so when sitting snugly in vintage Prada lace-ups.

Babies Puppies & SlapYoMoma Drama

Sick as a dog and passing time feeding my obsession with all things etsy-beautiful! I've discovered the "Quit Your Day Job" series and am swelling with some serious nasal-flu ingested hyper inspiration. The Etsy community is chock-full amazing people like Botswana born (shout-out to me peeps!) Cape based Wendren, who quit her job around 2008 to start Thewren, an accessories line using upcycled material such as heavy coffee bean sacks turned chic duffels. Reading the story of how she sewed her dream alive is all the more invigorating because an old (2008!) Etsy blog post gives a glimpse of Thewren's beginnings, juxtaposed against a beautifully captured Total video small biz promo made recently.

Courtesy Two Back Flats.

Another story that really resonates with me is Jasika's, whose bubbly effervescence spills out all over her writing style and the whimsical hats she crafts from scratch for her shop, Two Back Flats. Even just looking at her creations is like gorging on the kind of exquisite cake Marie Antoinette could have saved her skin with had she decreed, "Let Them Eat Two Back Flats!"

It's Not All Cute Babies & Puppies--Etsy Does Drama, Honey! Not Loving Arturo Rios' Heavenly Heady Creations? Humanly Impossible.

I'll leave you with a very Etsy storytelling prod (how original of me, heehee) and leave you to ponder just who may be plotting on dreams for the next KoKOFIFI virtual iteration: "What would be the title of your memoirs and why?"

POSTCARD from KIGALI

Kimironko Market, Courtesy Graham Holliday, Kigaliwire

The highlight of Teatime at Hotel Gorilla is the Garden. M. Makhene

I'm working through what it is I think of and see when experiencing Kigali. My thought cloud is cotton-stuffed with competing bird chirps--the most impressive urban birdlife I've ever known, and the easy haziness of Rwanda's capital city takes you not by storm, but like a very self-sure, steady ebb. There is no rush here, no cacophonous activity. There is also not stillness. I am awakened Sunday morning by the thump of early morning joggers pounding pavement. There is a sun that is hazy behind rising hills every morning, and there is a city that does not feel like anywhere else I can imagine. I'm still deciding, what is Kigali?

Future Invention: How To

Latvia-based QooQoo Fashion. Them Tribal Boots! LUSTable

I've been on Etsy.

No, I mean, I've really been on Etsy. As in, my new ADD med slash facebook fix with a design dollop is a site dreamed up by the kids from my alma mater (Gallatin!) and one I'd senselessly spent years lampooning as grandma's adventures on the "internets. Etsy is the real deal. No shit. Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself. Rare antique Chinese calligraphy set for the man who has everything? Check. Butter tanned lamb leather sold at wholesale prices from an Eastern European country where Borat's brethren churn butter? Check.  And how about a handmade tulle feather-light skirt that's entirely from repurposed French lace curtains spanning, oh let's say the early 1900s? Bloody Check!
Honestly, the shit is unbelievable.

From MamaSheaShea's Shop. This Jewelry line is an absolute Must Watch. 

Unfathomable. 

The real thing about Etsy that gets me though is just how inspiring the artisan craftspeople are. There is a return to the basic principle that you can create what you love that truly resonates, and there's a celebration of beauty as its beheld by each one that is enticing. Etsy is this magical little cobweb where everyone seems to believe something I just heard and love from entrepreneur/sex/life mogul Cindy Gallop (more on that soon) quoting ad man major Allen Kay:
"In order to predict the future, you have to invent it"

Be ALIVE

O my O me o my, already 2012 and a year in the making with this blog. Thank You for keeping up with us on this little adventure and cheering us on with every misstep and small victory. We are so psyched about the New Year and all the goodies we have in store for KoKOFIFI.
2012...Heck Yeah!
And because I love these words and want to spread them all this year, from the Holstee guys (get to know them if you don't), "Don't try figure out what the world needs. Figure out what makes you alive and do that. Because the World Needs People Who Are Alive."