Why everyone wants Crown Lynn
Voracious collectors are emptying op-shops looking for valuable pieces
Last year, my flatmate became embroiled in some Trade Me auction drama. “I’ve been outbid,” he would wail, staring at his phone as the rest of us calmly ate our dinner. “I’m not sure if it’s worth $100 but I really want it.” When the auctions were successful, beautiful objects would arrive at our house by courier a few weeks later, packaged carefully in cloth and cardboard. Often, the goods my flatmate found online were Crown Lynn ceramics, a once cheap consumer good that is experiencing a resurgence. This week, Stewart Sowman-Lund looks into how Crown Lynn became so popular. We also have articles about the latest greatest books, DIY funerals, and being suspicious of global businesses promoting sustainability. Dig out your best crockery, pour yourself some Coffee Supreme, and read on.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
The Crown Lynn resurgence
When it launched, Crown Lynn was a cheap, New-Zealand made homewares company that made ceramics for the masses. In 1989 the factory closed, and Crown Lynn goods began trickling into op-shops. But recently the popularity of Crown Lynn plates has surged to the point that it’s very difficult to find them secondhand, online Crown Lynn shops are commanding higher prices, and certain collections become subject to Trade Me bidding wars, to the point that collectors can pay thousands of dollars for the most sought-after pieces. Stewart Sowman-Lund talks to op shoppers and Crown Lynn fanatics to figure out how this has happened. Read what he found here.
The fine line between greenwashing and sustainable business
A few weeks ago, I was talking to my colleague Reweti about his weekend. “I went to an event hosted by Levi’s at Hotel Britomart,” he said, “and I’m not sure why.” I asked him what he was going to write about it, and the result is this piece. Reweti describes the aura of sustainable luxury that Levi’s is trying to present as they launch a new, recyclable jean — but how recyclable is it really? What does a global corporation gain from spending thousands of dollars trying to impress journalists?
Period apps make our bodies into data
All week on The Spinoff we’ve been exploring periods in all their messy glory. When I heard Bleed Week was coming up, I pitched a story about period apps, which were super fascinating to write about. Tracking your period with an app is useful – but it is also one of the many ways our lives are becoming data points, housed in someone else’s server. It’s a question of scale: a tracking app is useful for an individual to know when their next period is, and it’s also profitable for corporations and advertisers to know as much as possible about the people they’re trying to sell things to. I talked to some academic experts and a bunch of app users about how tracking periods is part of a bigger story about omnipresent technology.
Seven new books to love
The Spinoff’s wonderful books editor, Catherine Woulfe, has been reading a lot over the last few months and the result is the fifth iteration of The Spinoff Book Report, a list of titles she wants to push on all her friends and recommend without reservation. Catherine’s is the kind of writing that will make you desperate to pick up a book. An anthology of climate poetry is filled with “lines with their elbows stuck out”. A new crime novel about the intergenerational trauma of colonisation is “pacy as hell with lots of bush and sea”. A new book about how to transform agriculture in the age of climate crisis is “science that reads like hope”. I currently have a teetering pile of books I want to read and now I have more.
How – and why – to DIY a funeral
When a loved one dies it’s common to feel shock and panic, and hope that delegating some of the details to a funeral director will make the days to come a little easier. That’s fair enough, write Graham and Kevin Parker. But in order to honour their grandparents’ wishes to have a traditional Irish wake, they put their funerals together themselves. They found that bringing people together to work on a funeral can create some solace in the midst of grief, and that being prepared for the practical and legal details of a death can make things easier when the time comes.
All week on The Spinoff, we've been examining our relationship with menstruation in Aotearoa. And, just like real periods, the content has been both heavy and light and will probably make you laugh and cry all at once. Read more Bleed Week content here.
Everything else
Which books are most popular at the parliamentary library?
Tech CEOs are capitalism’s answer to shamans
Alice Webb-Liddall learns about how her ancestors tracked their periods with the maramataka
Does having your period attract sharks? Everything you want to know about menstruation, parts one and two.
What would a free fares policy on public transport actually look like?
When classic YA novel Alex was published in the 1980s, including periods was groundbreaking
Siousxie Wiles on why vaccines and Covid affect your period
Do you want to read more? This is some good advice for making a habit of reading but it makes me wonder: when will someone write an article to help me watch more TV, which I find very difficult?
My boyfriend and I watched some of the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival over the weekend and I loved this short film about climbing
Is the internet filled with demons?
We should all be furious about how corporations have leveraged the pandemic to exacerbate global inequity, says Vidya Krishnan (whose book about tuberculosis I now desperately want to read!)
It can be delightful to be a cat in the human-free future, writes Sam Brooks in this game review
How to go on living when you’ve lost your best friend
A new book about everything that went wrong with the National Party 2017-2021
Next week, on 27 July, The Spinoff and Pirate & Queen host In Your Dreams, a new multi-arts event which I really wish I could go to. Five fascinating people share deep and personal ideas and stories with a live audience – our own Alex Casey joins Hirini Kaa, Becky Kiddle, Vanessa Crofskey and Courtney Johnston, reading their letters 'To My Unfulfilled Idea' with live music throughout the night. Get your tickets here – Spinoff members get a discount with code MEMBER.
And finally, this very fun music video from mxmtoon has all the right vibes for the weekend.
