Mission Statement: Beauty Without Irony

When was the last time your breath was taken away by some amazing sight or sound? When you felt gooseflesh creeping all the way up your arms and tears filling your eyes just because something was so unbelievably beautiful? And after that, what happened? Could you admit the feeling to yourself and -heaven forbid- to others as well? Without cracking jokes about getting old and sentimental? Good, because honest appreciation of all things beautiful is the way forward.

While researching this story I talked to a lot of people -fashion professionals and others- about the subject and all, with the exception of one- who understood beauty without ironing (!)- knew exactly what I was on about and agreed with me fully: its very relaxing to finally drop that cool front and admit you love seeing fine paintings, haute couture and ballet, you like to listen to classical music once in a while -harmonic melodies are easy on the ears after all- and even romantic sunsets, newborn puppies and other so -called clichés have a certain appeal. They’re not clichés for nothing, right?

Enjoying beauty is firstly a very physical experience, almost scarily so. Remember sitting on a football terrace with loads of enthusiastic fans, or being present at the singing of the national hymn -you, as a cool person, of course kept your lips firmly sealed- and you couldn’t help but feeling moved by the singing masses? Admit it and it feels even better. All that gooseflesh and those dilated pupils, rapid heartbeats and deep breathing must be good for something.

Before you all rush out now and become nationalistic hooligans (don’t believe the hype, you fools!), what I’d really like to plead for is a more private joy of beauty, one to be found in abundance in the arts, fashion and music. More and more so in fact. I mean, how far can you go with destruction? Decibels? Irony? Or the mother of all cowards, sarcasm? Let’s all just sit at home or in a ‘trendy’ bar dressed in our ironic trashed & customized outfits and complain, shall we? That’ll teach the world a thing or two. Except, I don’t think so.

With a little help from my friends
Of course there’s more to this renewed interest of -and appreciation for- beauty than just nice clothes, paintings and music: it’s a general feeling among people of wanting to help out each other as much as possible, of friendship, support and admiration for each other’s work and efforts. While big conglomerates thrive on competition and one-upmanship, young designers and other creatives like photographers, stylists, graphic designers and DJ’s form small groups that are forever changing and networking (read: partying) in an informal way, having fun, doing their own thing and getting noticed in the process. No pushiness, no hypes, no competition, no big dreams of ruling the world

OK, maybe secretly at night, when no-one’s looking), just wanting to create something that’s unique, honest, instinctive and -here it comes again- beautiful. In the eye of the beholder. Because together with this new appreciation of beauty also comes a new definition of what beauty really is. Symmetry, as science tried to teach us for decades? Humbug. Give us imperfection and gapped teeth any day. Gloss and perfection? Aaaaarrrrggghhhh! Who hasn’t seen a grainy black & white photo of a big town backstreet and thought: now that’s really beautiful? Without trying to be clever, just because you were touched by the image? Honesty, passion, creativity and humility -yeah, that old chestnut pops up again too- are what count and all I can hope is that this won’t be a passing trend like so many others before. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I surely am not the only one… Go on, admit it, you really like beauty that way. Feel better already?

‘Beauty Without Irony’ is about:

Love, patience, respect, inspiration, quirkiness, hope, individuality, humanity, crossing borders, passion, tenderness, reflection, spirituality, evolution, friendship, creativity, joy, courage, revelation, uniqueness, understanding, pride, knowledge, intuition, fun, links, surprises, humility, ideas, optimism, synergy, kindness, co-operation, cross-thinking, the pleasure of creating

Story/concept: Ninette Murk (June 2001)

Beauty Without Irony and it’s offshoot Designers against AIDS act like two sides of the same coin: BWI wants to add more pure beauty, while DAA wants to prevent/take away some ugliness. Result: a more beautiful and better world. Simplistic? You bet!

BWI wants to bring about a change in mentality, a return to pure beauty that touches people, instead of prefabricated and mass marketed fashion, music, art, photography, politics and even feelings. It’s also about values that are valid forever, not just one season or one hype long. Events BWI wants to put up include this website (as a forum where artists can see each others ‘creations, read, get inspired), books (the first one, called ‘Designers against AIDS- The First Decade!’ was published by Ludion in October 2010 and is still for sale) and exhibitions in cities all over the world- our first international expo was called ‘Air/Port 2013’ and washeld in Essaouira, Morocco in July and August of that year, with it’s follow-up being held in Antwerp, Belgium in July and August of 2014. Our next city of choice is Los Angeles, where we plan a brand new concept.

We’re furthermore thinking of a BWI online magazine, where we can delve into the work of participating artists more deeply/specifically. There are so many ways to deal with beauty, optimism, inspiration… we would like very much for BWI to become a positive movement and creative platform, that is intelligent and in touch with true feelings, not about being cool or ironic -those are just protection mechanisms against the harsh world; understandable maybe, but they make many people feel very lonely and misunderstood. We feel that designers and other artists should also bring people joy, not just tell us how bad the world is. We know that already, we just have to read a newspaper, watch television or look outside our window to see that.

What we need now most of all, is hope and to see and to understand that beauty can also exist in difficult circumstances.

If you want to work with us, have any questions or feedback, please contact us at: info@beautywithoutirony.com