Design Cliche: Wunderkammer (I'm fancy because I use foreign words!)

You thought a collection of fake glitter boogers was bad? Here are the real cabinets of curiosities or wunderkammers:





with accompanying great article from cryology and co.



And here they are today:

from the appropriately titled Skullmaster

It's, like, totally the same.

Rich and fancy people in olden times stored their natural history specimens in rooms and special cabinets and now poor hipsters do the exact same thing.  My, how times have changed.   Most people that I know who have these cabinets spend years searching for treasures and curating their collections.  Usually it’s a hodge podge of skulls, bones, sticks, stones, leaves, bug carcasses, shells and other natural history items mixed in with your choice of grotesque elements like antique dolls heads, vintage 19^th century pictures and ephemera, rusted things or even other anatomical weirdness like glitter boogers, toenail clippings (do NOT click that – even I gagged) or 26 years of your own belly button lint.




nastiness via here





Not a hipster.  Just a weirdo from here



Just kidding.  Back to NORMAL weird things that are awesome:

John Perry's cabinet for auction







Society Inc's Sibella Court via Design*sponge







Get a room hipsters!  via the Selby





Solid Frog





Rotting toenails and belly button butter aside, I’m not really going to snark on someone for collecting things that they enjoy and tells a story about them because at least it feels somewhat organic.  Organic in that it is always a “unique” work in progress not organic in materials although yes there ARE a lot of organic materials because it’s totally science-y and we’re all students of this world right?  RIGHT?!   However I have a feeling that in the “Guide to Becoming a Creative and Misunderstood Outsider” having a cabinet of curiosities is right at the top of the list.  If you don’t know the history behind one or why you are buying dozens of tiny rat skeletons only that you MUST in order to feel complete or to be shot by the Selby then you are an asshat.  And a design cliché regardless.  People who collect glitter boogers are exempt from judgment of course.

 


The Selby

 

I, being a sheep student of Creative and Misunderstood Outsider interiors, confess to having a few jars filled with things like rocks (I'm a primitively glamorous cavewoman) from places I've been to and skeleton keys which I've collected since I was about seven.  These are things that have meaning to me (read: probably part of my neuroses), are free and don't contribute to the cycle of consumerism like the tacky 'Made in China' souvenir market.  Except for my magnet collection.  I'm pretty sure all those are made in China. 

 


ffffound



One time I was sitting in the Starbucks drive thru mountain climbing and saw an empty bird's nest that had fallen to the ground.  Wanting to preserve such a stunning piece of avian architecture I picked it up (and my latte) and happily mountain-climbed home where I preserved it in a jar where I could admire the animal kingdom's own built environment.  But then someone told me that birds and their nests are INFESTED with fleas and mites and now that little jar just grosses me out.  I can't take the lid off and throw it away because then I'll release all that filth and it'll swarm around me and then I'll die of deadly avian mite disease which I totally just made up but sounds way more worser than avian flu becuase that's just the FLU!  duh.

 


French Marie Claire via poppytalk

 



Livingetc via Moodboard

 It's like a Steampunk/art installation/cabinet of curiosity.  You just got pwned hipsters!

 



via Design*Sponge



Aesthetically I'll take jars and cabinets of dead things over the fake personality that Pottery Barn peddles any day. 

Or maybe I'm just missing Gil Grissom's office...



here

Nerd love.