Meet The Minimalist Justin Bieber
While tween heartthrob Justin Bieber seems to affix his name to whatever product the cat drags in–“Justin’s World” Comforter & Sham Set, “One Less Lonely Girl” Nail Polish, etc–on the other side of the pond, a slightly older, most likely not-so-wealthy youth-oriented singer is promoting a quite different take on consumption. Alex Day, an English singer, prolific vblogger (video blogger) and Youtube phenom is the possessor of 72 items, giving Andrew Hyde a run for his money.
In the above video, Alex shows us around his flat where his few possessions reside. One of our favorite moments is when he talks about his jeans. He says that most of us have several pairs of jeans but only wear a few favorites. He asked, “Why not only have your favorite ones?” So he has only four pairs that he loves. Sounds like a perfect demonstration of the Dieter Rams maxim “Less, but better.”
His minimalist bent was apparently inspired by a trip to Zambia where he noticed people living simply and happily. He said this in a blog post:
I went to Zambia in 2010 and the people there (as you can imagine) don’t have lots of clothes, but they also don’t need them to be happy (shocker). I was inspired when I got back to have a serious reduction on the clothes I have and started googling minimalist sites to see what was the least amount of clothes I could have and still maintain a functioning wardrobe. The search led me to the Six Items Or Less challenge, which is to go only wearing six basic items of clothing for 30 days (not including underwear, coats etc).
The most interesting thing Day does without–further differentiating himself from cosmetic-peddling Bieber–is soap and shampoo. He refers us to a Boing Boing article extolling the virtues of going soap and shampoo free. The author claims his skin and hair feel and look great and he does not experience BO.
Day is a refreshing personality in an era where many superstars seem to promote heedless consumption. Day is not anti-stuff. He shows off his stuff, but it’s stuff he needs and uses–this is a message we’d love to hear more of. We hope he’s a sign of things to come (and sorry Alex for the Bieber comparo ;-)).
Thanks Stephanie for the tip!