[Design Indaba conf] Martha Stewart: what went wrong?

Sitting in my customary Design Indaba position a few rows from the front, I was not aware of the fact that people were walking out of Martha Stewart's Design Indaba 2010 presentation on Friday, 26 February 2010. I became aware of people beginning to laugh at inappropriate [ie not meant to be funny] moments, especially the lady sitting next to me, but hoped the minor embarrassment for all concerned would soon be over. [view twitterfall]

All things considered, Stewart was always going to be a mismatch with the principles of Design Indaba, which over the years has developed a reputation largely for aligning itself with clever and sustainable initiatives for the greater good.

Might have been synergy

Where there might perhaps have been a synergy between Martha Stewart and Design Indaba was in how she has used the media to build up a decorating empire and perhaps the lessons of comparable big name Design Indaba presenters, such as Sir Terence Conran, who have shared the valuable processes that also led to vast success.

Design Indaba audiences love to hear about historical context, of the challenges designers faced, where they went to school, how they got to know what they know, the successes and failures that got them to where they are.

Sharing with us the challenges she had faced - as a former model, stockbroker and magazine editor with a degree in architectural history and an overwhelmingly obvious flair for homemaking, in pulling off a US$638 million gig, the fact that she learned cooking from her mom and preserving from her grandfather [thanks, Wikipedia] - would have made all the difference.

But she didn't.

Voting with its feet

If she had, we might even have feigned polite interest in her thousands of paint colours, cute pet portraits and the interior shots of her five homes, groaning under the weight of crystal glass, great walls of china, flower vases and soft furnishings. Instead, we were witness to the rare spectacle of crowd turning and voting with its feet.

So what actually happened?

Were we rude and insensitive, up-our-own-ends design types who would never admit to being impressed by aspirations towards middle-class American values? Was it that we didn't buy the fact that she literally tried to wallpaper over our underlying knowledge that she had been imprisoned for lying about a stock sale, even though that was 10 years ago and she had paid her dues?

Did not tailor

Most likely, it was the fact that she did not tailor her presentation to be relevant to her audience. It would have been amazing the difference it would have made if she had bothered to familiarise herself, or refer to our local home and décor magazines, of which we are very proud, or to remark that to many people around the world her presentations may not be that relevant.

I believe it was the banality and well, let's just come out and say it, the kitschness of much of her presentation and its relentless pretensions towards "good taste" that led to what the Cape Weekend Argus wittily referred to as a "roasting, that had nothing to with her cooking".

Better understand irony

If you're going to show kitsch at an event like Design Indaba, you'd better understand irony, and it was Stewart's utter lack of this understanding, that was actually so funny and kinda sad. To be the only person in the room that doesn't get the joke must hurt.

Well done to those brave souls who went up to have their books signed by her after all that. To the person who tweeted "dear Martha Stewart, please can I have my hour back. thanks" The answer is no, thank you, @paigen, you should feel good about having donated an hour to a worthy cause - a myopic, underprivileged American, whose need is greater than ours. Give generously.