The Girl From I.L.I.K.E.
Anne runs the lovely I like blog which has long been a favourite of mine for logging what I can only describe as the formica future: slowly aging optimistic designs for the future from the 50s, 60s and 70s. For some reason, I always imagine her as having spent time in Troon, where A of unpopular and Carrie of Big Magpie are from, and having an entire set of Belle & Sebastian albums. I could be totally wrong there, but there’s something about the particular aesthetic which makes me connect it all together. She also runs the fabulous Nothing to See Here, a guide for un-tourists.
Her new photoset of the UN building is great: there’s something so intensely 60s about the shots that you half expect Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin to run across them. I suspect one reason for this is the relative lack of people (a photographic habit I also have). Growing up, one of my favourite books was a 1950s household management book of my mother’s, whose colour plates showed formica futurist rooms devoid of people. I suspect the prosaic reason for this was that the technology then could not print flesh tones but it’s a particular style which always makes me smile.
