Consumed update-o-rama: Threadless star; “My Fake Baby;” etc.

1. An interesting note came to the inbox last night that’s inspired me to whip up another round of Consumed updates. It was from Glenn Jones (and it wasn’t just to me, it was announcement) one of the Threadless stars I interviewed for a column about that company for the July 8, 2007 issue. At the time, I noted that Jones “the creative director of Dashwood Design in Auckland, New Zealand, has won 17 times. He regularly gets fan e-mail, has been featured on the cover of the New Zealand magazine ProDesign as the ‘King of the Tees’ and is often asked why he doesn’t start his own shirt company.” (On Threadless he’s also known as Glennz.)

Turns out he’s leaving Dashwood to do his own thing. At the moment he’s selling prints and greeting cards at his own site, www.glennz.co.nz. Perhaps T-shirts will be next? I’m keeping an eye on it.

In other news:

2. Way back on February 4, 2005, I had a column about reborn dolls. (“‘Reborning’ is the name that has emerged for a curious process of altering and enhancing a baby doll to look and even to feel as much like a human baby as possible,” etc.). Via Coudal I learn that there’s a British documentary about the phenomenon. Titled My Fake Baby, it’s about “The extraordinary world of ‘re-borns’ — life-like baby dolls — and the women who buy them.” The trailer is here.

3. For the life of me I cannot figure out why my formulation “phads” — meaning manufactured fads and similar products of the trend industry — did not catch on. That was from a December 10, 2006 column on the astonishing number of alleged trends pumped out year after year — and which noted that this is not just a supply-side phenomenon, but demand-side one. That is to say, there is a curious kind of demand for trends, fads, and even (maybe especiall) for Phads. And so talk of such things continues, of course, one recent example being this Talk of the Nation segment addressing “how fads are born and perpetuated within a culture.”

4. The November 18, 2007 column on imaginary brands made passing mention of the (widely discussed) promotion for the Simpsons movie that brought various imaginary brands from that show into the real world, at certain 7-11 locations. The WSJ (via Brand Autopsy) says 7-11 “saw major sales lifts at the 11 U.S. stores that were converted for the month of the promotion. The company says total merchandise sales doubled; fresh bakery sales increased sevenfold and customer count went up almost 50%. Moreover, 7-Eleven says the promotion garnered about $7 million in free publicity.”